Not sure if you need counseling?
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Everyone thinks it's for someone else...
CreditsYour website is an EXCELLENT resource! I've been reading through it daily for about two weeks now. Thank you for putting so much energy and love into your work...it is bearing much fruit!
I have truly benefited from what I've learned, especially about how my mind and body work (or don't) together. I've been in therapy for 4 years now, and am just beginning some deep trauma work and EMDR. I'm so happy to be going into this work--and better equipped--having read through your website. Thanks again."
- J.N., California
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Git outa here! I don't believe that.
My Psychic Therapist and Other Myths
July 04, 2006
By Dr. Suzanne LaCombe
Reviewed by: Dr. Tracy Halpen
“My problems aren’t heavy enough for counseling.”
The idea here is that some people feel they have to be over the top or on the edge before they feel justified going to counseling. Let me be very clear: You don't need to have a "reason" or be in crisis to consider counseling. Simply wanting to make your life better is more than enough.
Although therapeutic practice has been overly focused on negative symptoms, there is a movement towards "up regulation" or helping clients get more from their lives. Finding the therapist that understands this is crucial.
I have spoken elsewhere how this blind belief stopped me from getting the help I needed when I was younger. The irony is that the very issue I needed to resolve was preventing me from getting the help I needed!
Some people don't feel they deserve the attention and support entailed in going to counseling. They feel guilty about spending the money or using the therapist's time. They just don't feel worth it!
If you are the type of person that more often than not puts yourself second to the needs of others you will find it unfamiliar and difficult acknowledging your own needs. In fact, it may only be when your symptoms interfere with how you meet others' needs that you finally give yourself permission to enter counseling.
That is, you entered counseling so that you could feel better and although you might not be consciously aware…you intend to go back to the same old way of being i.e. attending to other people's problems at the expense of your own needs. Hopefully, a wise therapist will recognize and interrupt this pattern before it gets regularly repeated now and throughout your lifespan.
My Personal Musings
The other dimension that speaks volumes about the statement "My problems aren't heavy enough for counseling" is the fact that therapy isn't just about 'our symptoms'. That is, counseling is much more than a technique to banish anxiety and depression. That would only bring many people back to neutral.
Without the neuropathways for joy, you cannot feel alive in your body or in your life. There are many individuals who, after counseling, are no longer depressed. However these individuals have shortchanged themselves tremendously unless they also achieve joy.
Pages in this Article
- "Therapists can read your mind!"
- "Counseling is not very scientific."
- "Therapists have psychic powers and can make me do anything they want."
- “This is going to take forever.”
- "I already know what I should be doing to stay healthy. I don't need a therapist to tell me."
- "I don't need approval from a shrink."
- "I might find something awful about myself."
- "I might learn how screwed up I am."
- "It is the therapist's job is to prod you into changing your behaviour."
- “I don’t feel ready for change.”
- "Counseling is for losers."
- “My problems aren’t heavy enough for counseling.”
- Counseling is NOT the only way.
Nancy
Exactly what I needed to know. It's okay for me to accept help. Wow,...wow! Thank you!
Nancy
Sage (Pennsylvannia, USA)
Suzanne: If you had not written this article over three years ago I might think you just wrote it for me. (Evoking your Psychic Therapist powers of course.) I was reading about shame. It was a "I coulda had a V8" kind of moment.
Many times in my life I have wondered why I felt so much pain (shame?). I have even felt shame for having had so much shame! I don't want to lay this on my parents, I know they parented to the best of their resources and abilities. But having been raised "right" and having had to live up to such high expectations and rigid values I can see how I was destined to feel so much shame.
At times I have felt so much pain (shame?) for offenses so insignificant that others committing them might not even noticed them as such or considered them accountable.
It helps to finally recognize and understand it. I have spent a lifetime heaping frequent and often heavy doses of shame on myself. Although understanding gives me some comfort I also feel a heavy dose of regret. I hope that I have not projected such a heavy burden on my children. (I don't think so, not to the same extent anyway.)
I also have regrets for myself. How many opportunities have I lost. I am sure I have undermined my own self confidence. I also think that I have cost myself many occasions and experiences that were meant to enrich or give me joy in my life. I had meant for this to be a segway into my thoughts on "My problems aren't heavy enough for me to need counseling." but I guesse I better "muse" on this one a little longer.
Thank you, Sage
Thank-you Sage for your musings. As for lost opportunities and regret, I hope you will take heart in the knowledge that these experiences were for not for nought although they were probably pretty rough going at times. I suspect that you have learned a lot from them and I'm pretty certain that getting to where you are today would not be posssible were it not for what you've taken from these past experiences.
It's knowing where we've been that grounds our future actions and helps us make better choices. If you hadn't travelled the distance you have, you'd never know that change is possible. Indeed, there are no limits to where we can go. I believe that folks who have never travelled wouldn't be able to see the possibilites in the way you do now.
As for your children - the more we develop ourselves as adults, the more we can be with others including our children in ways that benefit them. Our growth is their opportunity for growth. It cannot be any other way.
Thanks for your post,
Shrinklady
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