On therapeutic process

Therapy is a place of delicate trust and mutual, smooth chemistry. Therefore, being with and talking to a therapist should feel right to you. You may have to look for a suitable therapist.

Through shared moments of feeling, a truly profound healing slowly begins. Sometimes you sit with those feelings and experiences again and again. And slowly, the way in which those experiences and feelings have unconsciously limited or directed your life begins to ease.

Because I have repeatedly returned to the help of professional therapists over the years, I am also often asked about therapy.

I myself felt at a young age that I did not know how to get outside the boundaries of my own mind, my emotional experiences and my own perspective, and I wanted to get help and support when I began to outline and try to understand my own inner self and experiences.

That is why I have returned to therapeutic support at many different stages in my life. Partly also because it was only a few years ago that I found the last missing keys, so that my self-understanding and my own inner work of integration could progress to the last critical steps.

Because I find the work of therapists and the support they provide so valuable and fruitful for anyone's growth and emotional integration, I also want to open up about these things, if it would make someone dare to reach out for the support they need. There are a lot of prejudices about therapy and the therapeutic process, and few people open up about their own process. 

When I talk about healing in this article, I mean the slow process of “healing” of emotional life and thinking that occurs during therapy. The therapy process and its outcomes are so multidimensional that it is difficult to define what “healing” is for each person. Healing in this case might be better described as a situation in which something fragmented becomes more whole and complete.

I am not a therapist myself, and I do not offer therapy services. I want to offer these clarifying perspectives because I may tell a client that therapeutic support could be helpful to you. I also want to clarify why therapeutic work with oneself is also important from the perspective of our spirituality and the rest of our humanity. A good coach can also support you on your journey of self-understanding.

Today, there are countless different therapies available for different targeted needs. Many people have a clear situation where they need help. There may have been a certain experience, life change or turmoil that has brought a certain issue to the forefront, and help is needed to resolve and clarify it. Others are more or less clearly aware that therapeutic help would be beneficial, even if it is not so easy to clarify their own need for help.

When choosing a therapist, it is important to listen to yourself and your own feelings when you meet with a therapist – is it good to be there and how you feel after the meeting. Are the more difficult feelings more your own resistance to the process itself or reactions to the situation and topics,or are the feelings due to the therapist her-/himself. Therapy is a state of sensitive trust and mutual, smooth chemistry. Therefore, being with and talking to a therapist should feel right to you. You may have to look for a suitable therapist. And your smooth might be different than somebody else’s smooth.

The therapist's theoretical background is the model of human understanding and psychology, with which the therapist has been trained to perceive the human psyche and various "disorders" of the emotional life. Based on their training, they can recognize where the problems in the client's thinking and emotional life lie. Trained professional therapists also learn important skills during their training that make them safe professionals. They do not mix their own emotional knots, their own views or for ex. their desire for power into the client's process. In addition, they have the skill and understanding to move the client's process forward in a healthy way.

I personally feel today that if the therapist  is so-called healthy and balanced person, she/he will naturally grow beyond her/his training philosophy, unless it is a question of some truly dogmatic method and type. In my experience, therapists grow a certain theoretical neutrality through the work itself, because the theoretical basis is refined and expanded through practical client work.

 Therapists understand the mechanisms of humanity, the mind and emotions based on their education, and they grow a certain human wisdom through the experience brought by their work. However, each patient and their experiences are individual, and therapists know how to take individual needs and experiences into account. Different therapeutic schools may just emphasize a certain perspective, approach or "solution method" more.

The therapist can quickly recognize what is rubbing in the client's psyche and what process is needed for healing and empowerment, but they have the patience required to live with the client through the client's own journey of insight and healing.

The therapist's purpose is to act as a mirror of the client's own thinking and emotional life. As a listener and witness to experiences. To help you realize what is happening and has happened inside you. To help you hear yourself and perceive everything that is happening inside you. And sometimes to wake up healthily to the emphasis or coloring of thinking or attention with the help of good questions or observations - to help you find doors forward.

You can also recognize a good therapist by the fact that she or he does not forcefully try to rub some view or lesson about humanity into you. Rather, the therapist is the safe companion who helps and supports you on the journey to your new understanding. You can only recognize the right therapist and therapeutic method for you by how you feel after the encounters and the change brought about by the process.

Other challenges open up more quickly, and an event that has weighed heavily on your mind and emotions can quickly surface. Sometimes it takes a long time to get to the essential things. Life history, traumatization, or the painfulness of experiences can make them open up slowly, and therapy requires perseverance. It is important to understand that you must commit to therapy – to go regularly at times, even if it feels like things are not progressing. For others, committing to regularity is an important journey towards slowly growing trust and gathering inner courage, so that the most difficult things can eventually be addressed.

As your relationship with your therapist deepens and therapy progresses, eventually even the most difficult and painful experiences can come to the surface “raw”. It takes trust and courage to share your most painful experiences. You can’t always put them into words – therapeutic sharing can also be a moment when you sit stuck with your painful emotions with your therapist. You only feel what you feel inside, and another person is with you. You may be able to let those repressed feelings out to felt for the first time ever, and you don’t have to be alone with them.

This safe, even wordless, experience of sharing has enormous therapeutic significance if you have been alone with your difficult emotions and experiences. A trusted person makes it easier to bring up and feel difficult experiences, and is your safety net in a situation. A professional can help you slowly come out of your feelings if necessary. And as you face your feelings again and again, you slowly learn to be with them and support yourself in them.

Difficult experiences and difficult feelings heal – when you let them be felt and you just be with them. Emotions want to unravel out of us. Only after the emotion has unraveled out and has been faced can you find what each emotion wants to give or teach you – they often lead somewhere forward.

Therapy is not just about digging up the past. Sometimes digging up the past is the starting point from which to start. There is something behind that the mind wants to understand. But often in therapy, the past is left behind and replaced by this moment. All our experiences and feelings breathe in us at this very moment. By going through this moment and understanding this moment, we often also open the arc of emotions far back.

The key to “healing” is feeling. You can talk about and analyze past and present events to your heart’s content, but feeling is ultimately the way to move forward with things. Emotions are literally physical sensations. The stories our minds tells around them are something else. Feelings can be painful, even physically, and feelings can last a long time. If you deal with difficult, deep emotional wounds, they can be your constant companion for days, weeks, months, repeatedly, before healing slowly begins and the edge of the emotions eases.

With shared moments of feeling, truly deep healing slowly begins. Sometimes you sit with those feelings and experiences over and over again. And slowly, the way in which those experiences and feelings have unconsciously limited or directed your life begins to ease. Facing unmet experiences and feelings brings wholeness.

With healing liberation, you can take control of new things in a different way. An unconscious feeling no longer makes you avoid experiences, react in the usual harmful way or bend to something harmful to you. An understanding and recognition emerges in you at the moment in which you can reflect on what you really want. How can you or how should you achieve what you want and act in such a moment and situation.

If the idea of ​​therapy has been on your mind, I warmly recommend it. 

Even a short therapy period with a professional can bring about significant changes and improvement in your life.

 Psychotherapy professionals in Finland you can find from Kela or Minduu, and of course by googling!