 South Mountain Counseling ServicesBringing heart and mind together for healthy living |
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| 16 Walnut Street, Middletown,MD 21769 Tel. 301-371-3707 Fax 301-371-3706 |
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Life is full of opportunities and setbacks, joy and pain, insight and confusion. There are many avenues available to human beings to live more fully. There are lifestyle changes, career changes, self help books, talk shows, spiritual paths, good friends, exercise programs, nutritional decisions, recreational activities, twelve step programs, and many other roads to health and happiness. Why choose psychotherapy? People usually turn to therapy either when they are in pain or when they want to grow. |
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| Psychotherapy provides the opportunity to work one on one with a skilled professional. This therapeutic relationship is key to facilitating success. Within the therapeutic relationship a therapist seeks to form a dynamic relationship, which could be called on in service of greater analysis and self-awareness for a client. Clinicians pay careful attention to relate to clients with so deep a respect and attention to their problems that these clients could then carry the qualities of esteem from this relationship to parts of their life outside of counseling. There is power and sanctity in a relationship where two human beings are in deep relational contact with one another. | |||||||||
| A safe positive alliance with the therapist is the greatest avenue for healing in the context of psychotherapy. The human heart yearns for contact. Above all it yearns for genuine dialogue. Each of us secretly yearns to be seen and heard, to be touched in some way, to be understood, recognized in our uniqueness, our fullness and our vulnerability. At the successful resolution of the issue that has brought a client to therapy, there is a greater feeling of autonomy as a client has learned to internalize a sense of his or her own esteem and a greater sense of self-awareness. | |||||||||
| A therapeutic relationship is one that is generative in such a way that it seeks to transmit positive affect, insights, self-awareness, and self-knowledge that is applicable for a wider range of issues that a client will face when they terminate their relationship with a counselor. A vital portion of the process is to use awareness to observe all of the factors that contribute to the client's difficulties; the physical, emotional and cognitive energy that is invested in maintaining behaviors and creating perceptions, which meet or fail to meet certain needs. | |||||||||
Carl Rogers: "Therapy is not a matter of doing something to the individual or of inducing him to do something about himself. It is instead a matter of freeing him for normal growth and development." |
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| When a supportive environment is not available or the natural processes that aid development are not working properly, the interventions of therapy become a vital necessity. Psychotherapy provides the opportunity to explore new ways of being and behaving, to heighten self-awareness, to energize self-support, to express what is unexpressed or on the edge of awareness, to re-own the disowned aspects of the self, to complete unfinished business, to rehearse and practice options for new behavior. | |||||||||
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Group Therapy, Is It For Me? Some clients find groups of therapeutic value. Facilitated by a therapist, groups use the combined energy of clients identifying with one another, supporting one another, at times confronting one another. There is the authenticity of interacting with others who share some of the same history, addictions, and problematic behaviors. While it may take awhile for members to learn to trust each other, the sharing can be powerful and the effect greater that the sum of the parts. |
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How Do I Know If Therapy is Working? Simply if the symptoms which brought one to therapy abate, therapy is working. Reduction of symptoms may cause a shift in a family or even in a job situation, which will take some working out as well. An individual decides when to terminate the relationship. One person may decide to stop for example when he or she learns to cope with anxiety by using relaxation techniques or substituting thoughts. Some one else might choose to continue to explore deeper into the source of these anxieties in order to gain insight and understanding. The kinds of symptoms, the level of incapacity they cause, the motivation of the client, the support the client has, and the skill of the therapist all play a part in determining the length of treatment. If a client has been seeing a therapist for ten or twelve visits and there has been no relief in symptoms, no change, it is probably time to change therapists or even the mode of treatment. |
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Copyright ©2006 www.southmountaincounseling..com. |
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