How does individual therapy catalyze change?

(image credit: Robyn Chance)

If you’ve never been in therapy, speaking to a therapist in order to create the life you want may seem like a mysterious process. Even if you have attended therapy before and experienced a positive shift, the mechanism by which change was manifested may still seem a mystery.

The journey of therapy is unique, the change experienced is lasting. This is because the advice we receive comes not from outside ourselves, but from within. Wisdom is not in what the therapist says, but in what she doesn’t say, and in the questions asked at just the right moment so that you can uncover the truth inside yourself.

As Terry Tempest Williams writes, “the unexpected action of deep listening can create a space of transformation capable of shattering complacency and despair.”

Often when we tell our story to friends or loved ones, we are aware of taking up their time, aware of how our story effects their story, aware of what opinions and judgments they may have. When a therapist listens, she sets aside her own agenda and creates a sacred space where time and intention slow down. Where you can steep together in the depth of meaning that reverberates from your past and into this moment. Your therapist is fully present in your pain and joy and possibility, without any attachment to your choices, because outside the therapy room you remain untethered to one another.

Your therapist helps you remove the detritus of who you think you ought to be and curates the vibrancy of who you truly are.