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Fear is an emotion that encloses and precludes change... I think the opposite of fear is honesty.  Honesty and belief.  

- Stephen King

Who looks outside, dreams.  Who looks inside, awakens.

 - C G Jung

How I  Do Psychotherapy

I usually prefer to schedule weekly meetings for one hour.  I rely on you, the client, to determine what we talk about.   What I want to talk about may or may not be relevant. What you want to talk about is important by definition!

 

Therapy is an exercise in emotional honesty, which generally requires courage and stamina.  It often requires both of us to take a good look at the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and assumptions which may be holding you back in some way.  In psychodynamic models of psychotherapy, these limitations have to do with our “defensive style.”  Defensive styles, when they are flexible and reality-based, protect us from stress and keep us consistent over time.  But when our ways of protecting ourselves against emotional pain become rigid, inflexible, or unrealistic, we end up suffering for it.  

 

My style is warm and inquisitive, supportive and searching.  However, my approach will vary depending on the defensive styles you show me.  

> Learn about different models of psychotherapy

The Frame of Therapy

 

The therapist has been hired to provide psychotherapy serviced to the patient, and owes the patient undivided attention during a pre-established, mutually-agreed-upon, regularly scheduled time frame.  These are the minimum, necessary-but-not-sufficient requirements for effective therapy.  Collectively and over time, the therapist’s reliable presence in the patient’s life (constant, but representative of change) becomes a powerful influence in and amongst the other countless dynamics and influences within the psyche.  

 

I once saw a bumper sticker which read something along these lines: “My role is to comfort the distressed and to distress the comfortable.”  Although the formula is far too simplistic to adopt as a methodology of psychotherapy, it does capture something of the spirit of the psychotherapist’s stance:  the therapist must spend a significant percentage of time on the leading edge of the patient’s consciousness, and must stand for adaptive change.  The therapist’s business is not business as usual!  The therapist must notice what has not been noticed, remind of what had not been remembered, and reveal what has been hidden.