What to expect in therapy

“What are counseling sessions like?”

They are very normal and relaxed interactions. You don't have to lay down on couches anymore. If you were to witness a session, it would simply look and sound like people having a discussion with each other.

The truth is, however, that an experience is happening for the client that is much more than that—it's genuine treatment.

Your everyday experience works like this: You have an inner-world (your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and beliefs) and you have an outer-world (your behavior). If you choose to express your inner-world to the outer-world, you're allowing other people to interpret your thoughts and feelings through your behavior. You get to choose how that goes by monitoring the process in real time.

When we monitor our own behavior, we do so from the inside, trying to adjust and stay on track with what we want to express on the outside. This is how and why we form narratives and attitudes over time. We're constructing parameters to efficiently interact with the world.

In therapy, that human interaction process is intentionally collaborative and carefully structured to allow for clear self-monitoring and natural adjustments to your inner-world. You do the changes yourself because you become more aware of the whole process.

“What does the therapist actually do?”

Therapists are good listeners. They are also good reflectors—not unlike a good mirror with a particular kind of frame. They take a lot of information coming from the client and reflect back the more salient and profound things in order to help the client hear it from the other direction. This allows the client to pick out valuable information to be highlighted, focused, and worked on. Judgment free.

The effect this has cannot be underestimated for its value.

Do therapists offer good advice? Sometimes, yes…but it is usually the client who is really driving the process. Through choosing to work on what a client wants to work on, the advice is allowed to surface more naturally. There is a lot of power in allowing yourself to figure out your own problems. Therapists can help facilitate clients to express their own wisdom.

Therapists are also experts at keeping your information confidential. In fact, there is really no treatment at all without tight confidentiality in counseling—it builds trust and develops a collaborative alliance.

In this way, you are welcomed in as the co-collaborator for your own treatment.

Through this intentionally safe structure, therapists create a safe space to explore things you cannot explore elsewhere with other people.

“What eventually happens to me in counseling?”

Over the course of at least a few sessions, you may start to notice less of the symptoms that prompted you to look into therapy. Goals are set and benchmarks are passed.

Increasingly, you will have more and more ability to take control over the original wellspring of toxic thoughts and troublesome feelings that brought you in. You may even start to feel lighter and more confident.

Eventually, your beliefs start to complement your increased energy and support your brighter mood. You are creating a structure in your mind that turns negative problems into positive experiences.

With some clients, a deeper sense of wisdom and broad perspective-shift is accomplished. A strong sense of discovering their authentic selves. This is no small thing.

The wonderful part about all of this is that you get to take it all with you. You are the one doing all of the "heavy lifting"—learning how to be your own therapist. These are individualized, tailor-made lessons for your own inner-world and the ability to interact successfully with the collective outer-world around you.