How is therapy effective when you (typically) only talk for one hour per week?
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You build up a model of your therapist in your mind, your inner therapist. You work with it between sessions. During sessions you train and calibrate that model.
You can think of it like exercising. You don’t get stronger during the workout (therapy session), you get stronger as you heal (reflecting and making small behavior changes).
You can think of it like exercising. You don’t get stronger during the workout (therapy session), you get stronger as you heal (reflecting and making small behavior changes).
You build up a model of your therapist in your mind, your inner therapist. You work with it between sessions. During sessions you train and calibrate that model.
Imagine getting fit was a mental issue. You see a therapist on Monday and you talk about how you want to be more fit but you don’t do anything. A therapist might point out how doing pushups is a great way to start getting fit and he asks you to try doing 10 a day and to think about it.
You go home and think and some point on Thursday you realize that you haven’t done a single pushup all week. So you try and you end up doing 5 but that’s okay. You failed to do any on Friday but Saturday you did 5 again and even 6 on Sunday.
On Monday when you meet again you talk about where you succeeded and where you failed. He might offer a suggestion to try doing a sit up if pushups are too hard that day. Bit by bit the therapist will help you develop the tools you need to cope and survive.
As a Brit, I just don’t get the American apparent obsession with therapy just to get through normal life. Perhaps I should have just internalised this like all my other issues……because I’m a Brit.
As a Brit, I just don’t get the American apparent obsession with therapy just to get through normal life. Perhaps I should have just internalised this like all my other issues……because I’m a Brit.
Imagine getting fit was a mental issue. You see a therapist on Monday and you talk about how you want to be more fit but you don’t do anything. A therapist might point out how doing pushups is a great way to start getting fit and he asks you to try doing 10 a day and to think about it.
You go home and think and some point on Thursday you realize that you haven’t done a single pushup all week. So you try and you end up doing 5 but that’s okay. You failed to do any on Friday but Saturday you did 5 again and even 6 on Sunday.
On Monday when you meet again you talk about where you succeeded and where you failed. He might offer a suggestion to try doing a sit up if pushups are too hard that day. Bit by bit the therapist will help you develop the tools you need to cope and survive.
Imagine getting fit was a mental issue. You see a therapist on Monday and you talk about how you want to be more fit but you don’t do anything. A therapist might point out how doing pushups is a great way to start getting fit and he asks you to try doing 10 a day and to think about it.
You go home and think and some point on Thursday you realize that you haven’t done a single pushup all week. So you try and you end up doing 5 but that’s okay. You failed to do any on Friday but Saturday you did 5 again and even 6 on Sunday.
On Monday when you meet again you talk about where you succeeded and where you failed. He might offer a suggestion to try doing a sit up if pushups are too hard that day. Bit by bit the therapist will help you develop the tools you need to cope and survive.
My therapist mostly listened for three or four sessions. Then she tied up everything she heard and gave me one of the heaviest “ah-ha” moments I had had in a long time. I sat there and cried for like 15 minutes because she hit the nail on the head and it was right in front of me the whole time, but it took a second pair of eyes and ears to see it. That one moment of realization helped me re-calibrate a number of very important things in my life that all branched out into more things. I am now a healthier person than I was. Talk therapy is cool.
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