So you've decided you want therapy? What next?

One of the most joyous things about modern society, is the acknowledgement and increasing acceptance of therapy as an unadulterated act of self care. This could slowly creep into your psyche over time, or it can be thrust upon us when the wheels are starting to fall off the wagon, and we can’t ignore the elephant (or elephants) in the room.

You will come across an abundance of different and interestingly named approaches, based across a lot of different psychological approaches. For me, they span roughly three categories to help clients achieve their desired outcomes:

·      Interpretive – Approaches whereby the therapist listens to you and offers an interpretation of what may be the cause(s) of your difficulty.

·      Skills based – Approaches that help by teaching you skills or using techniques that help  bring about change.

·      Relational – Approaches that work in the relationship between you and the therapist, to be with you whilst you come to understand yourself, the difficulties and experiences in your life to make some sense of what they mean, with a view to these insights prompting a process of change.

It’s difficult enough to even accept you need therapy, without being intimidated by reading profiles with language you don’t understand.

Know this, research undertaken over the past 50 years agreed on one fundamental fact with clients across the spectrum of approaches; the RELATIONSHIP between the client and the therapist is THE most influential factor in the success of the therapy.

This, I find, is especially helpful if you’ve ZERO experience of therapy and this is your first time navigating the language you’ll see on therapists’ profiles.

The most important thing to think about when you are looking for therapists is that YOU’RE doing the interviewing by and large, you’re looking for your right fit. Feel no pressure to fit a mould, box or otherwise. We don’t expect anything from you. We accept you as you are, and you need to feel that we are the right fit for you. That said, as therapists we also have the same responsibility, about whether we are the right person for you, so also bear this in mind. We've got to consider if we posess the right approach and skill set. I've had consultations with clients who are keen to proceed, but they are actually seeking a more skills based approach before being ready for therapy, so I have been honest about that and signposted on.

You’ve got to feel sure that you can open up to us, or at least foresee that you can as much as possible. That will come from just feeling that “click” on first contact. Now, that’s not to say that means you can bear all to us from the start, it takes time to build the relational depth to do that.

Trust your intuition. I know this can be easier said than done, especially if you find it difficult to trust people and have experience of your trust taken advantage of. That said, I would encourage you to act on your gut. If you finish your initial conversation and it feels like a clear no, it’s a no. If it’s I’m not sure, I can’t put my finger on it, it’s a no. Examine the details of why you felt like that later, but learning to trust your instinct is one of the most important parts of therapy as time goes on.

It’s got to feel like a natural “yes” as a starting point.

Another important factor is that you feel you can build a safe and trusting space with the therapist. Don’t be afraid to say what you need to secure that safety. This is a relationship that you mould together with the therapist, and it is in this relationship and safety that change happens. This can be daunting if you don't have experience of asking for your needs to be met. It can be alien, in fact. That said, in the safety of this relationship test out ways of being that align with who you are and what you want. 

As a Person Centred Therapist, I believe that the answers don’t lie with me. What a cop out, right? It sounds like absolute Cadbury’s Flake, doesn’t it? Well, let me explain.

When we’re born, we accept ourselves as we are, we don’t have to negotiate or question. As we grow and we’re parented, we come to learn that having our needs met and being loved become increasingly conditional. For simple example, children who make noise or irritate us, do not get their needs met. We learn to be quiet to get what we want. Also the opposite could be true and our needs may not be met by being quiet because we are not prioritised, so we learn to draw attention in other ways. We have an abusive parent who hurts us when we draw their attention, we learn to stay quiet to avoid the conflict and avoid getting hurt. I hope that these examples (whilst not to generalise) can show how these patterns can become engrained and follow us into our adult lives.

I believe at the core of our being, we know what we want, we know what we need. It’s  just been wrapped up in years and years of conditioning and expectations, guilt and shame that tie us in knots, and leave us bewildered as to how to even identify what we want and who we are. This because we shift the barometer and measure of who we are based on how palatable this is to the outside world; from our loved ones or family to strangers on the street. So it's no wonder that some of us struggle to identify what we want, never mind ask for it. We've spent so much of our time either navigating how to keep others happy in order to be accepted, or keeping people away to avoid getting hurt, that we daren't even consider being ourselves and asking for what we want from people. 

Therapy, in Person Centred terms, is about introspection and starting with exploration of your life experience and processing / making sense of this along the way, and leading to some (or lots) of profound insights. We do this by exploring what these experiences mean to us, how we actual feel (the important "F" word - yes I said it) about it when we pay attention in an environment without judgment or expectation, and how they've shaped us as a result. In doing so, we can start to make sense of and understand ourselves and then make decisions about what we do with this information and what direction of travel it sends you in.

That's not to say that we sit like nodding dogs, rather step into your world to see through your eyes, reflect your lived experiences and start the journey through the layers of who you've become and to the core of who you are. 

Come on in, the water's fine and you've got all the swimming aids you need.