One of psychotherapy’s aims is to help people to become more aware of how and why they do what they do and potentially offer additional ways of engaging with others and improving the quality of a person’s life.
Psychotherapy can make a significant difference when it incorporates into the work natural change processes such as education, friendships, family relationships, commitments and community life.
I find these conditions to be fundamental in shaping who we are and they are often the basis on which we become who we are.
And yet, psychotherapy is not devoid of risks; ignoring some aspects of a person’s life can leave a person feeling isolated and impoverished and at times defeated.
These are the three risks that I see regularly:
- You out of context: Your inner world is more important than your relationships, family and community. In doing so, we can miss the social context of suffering. Courage, effort, endurance and overcoming setbacks are important and can only be experienced in a social and relational context.
- Awareness without action: You learning everything you can about yourself, becoming highly aware of what motivates you, your wishes and fears and the experiences that formed and shaped you, without actually plunging into life and without taking risks. There is a Jewish saying that translates roughly as: insights and enlightenments without action slowly lose their life, erode and wear out.
- Everything is subjective: What it could usefully mean is that your experience is as valid as anyone else’s; sadly, it sometimes translates into “all is subjective and all is valid”. For healthy relationships to thrive – on any scale – not everything is subjective and not everything is valid. There are some objective truths which we mustn’t compromise on such as child abuse or any other abuse, violence, bullying, racism, sexism and slavery to name a few. Whilst our experience and all our feelings are valid and important not all behaviour is acceptable or justifiable.
I believe that entering psychotherapy with these risks in mind can increase therapy’s potential to offer us long-term and meaningful healing.
