Talk Therapy Psychotherapy - The Key to Healing and Recovery
Talk therapy (also known as psychotherapy) is a journey, with twists and turns along the way.
Do you remember the classic fantasy novel, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll? Well, sometimes, I feel like therapy could be compared to Alice in Wonderland as well as the Wonderful Wizard of OZ.
Using available clinical psychology services is the first step to finding healing. Healing and personal development are unfortunately not a linear process. Just like Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of OZ and the yellow brick road. Similar to the novel, there is always a final destination, an end goal for psychotherapy. This might be improving your coping skills, reducing your anxiety, coping with childhood trauma, but just like the yellow brick road, there are twists and turns along the way. Sometimes, you might even end up going down a curvy road you didn’t even plan on, or think was relevant!
Is Psychotherapy Challenging Emotionally?
During the process of therapy, you might even have very difficult and overwhelming emotions to unpack, understand and process. This can be a very challenging aspect of psychotherapy and you might find yourself identifying as one of the characters out of Alice in Wonderland!
Just like White Rabbit, a shy and nervous creature, you might feel anxious and nervous! Especially in the beginning. This is normal. Therapy is hard and it’s hard to talk to someone that you don’t really know about your difficulties. Hopefully, with time, you will start to feel more comfortable and confident, a bit more like Alice.
You might also experience times when you feel a bit like Mad Hatter. Overwhelmed and all over the place, just trying to prepare for a tea party! Sometimes you feel worse before you feel better and that’s also part of the process. It’s important to remember that you are talking about very hard and challenging issues. You may find it confronting and thus you may feel a bit worse before you actually start to feel better.
What Issues Are Uncovered During Psychotherapy?
Therapy can be a bit like looking through the looking glass in Alice in Wonderland. You might not be sure what you may find, or you might even end up touching on issues that you thought you may have dealt with.
You might also be unpacking some really difficult issues that might have been filed away in file 13 for a long time. This can cause potentially old feelings and thoughts to resurface. This is temporary and as you start to heal, your symptoms will improve.
At the end of psychotherapy, you would hopefully feel like Caterpillar. A bit wiser and having a lot more insight into your difficulties and what might be causing them as well as how to cope with them.
