Why Therapy? Four Good Reasons to See a Counselor or Therapist
Why do people go to a therapist or counselor? These are the four levels of therapy and counseling that will benefit or contribute to your life in fruitful ways, and in some cases, in ways you can only guess at.
The first level is symptomatic or problem-based counselling. If you have a specific problem, such as disturbing nightmares, recurring eczema or skin problems, irritation, negativity, or relationship problems, counselling, usually short-term, can be of great benefit. The goal is obvious and clear: deal with the problem at hand, not go too deep and find a solution, a way to overcome the problem. Usually anything from 6 to 10 sessions should suffice and an effective professional should get the job done.
The second is therapy that goes a little deeper than the first level of purely symptomatic counselling. Therefore, it is almost certainly involved looking for the underlying causes of the problems that occur. For example, a middle-aged man experiencing a crisis of confidence discovers that his relationship with his domineering parent is the underlying cause of his current concerns, which negatively affect his functioning in the workplace. job. Or, in another example, a thirty-something woman who discovers that she is attracted to younger men rediscovers her unlived adolescence lost to early security, marriage, and motherhood when she left home at age 19 to marry a man. man who had material security. . But even though he offered her financial and material security, she was unable to get to know her emotionally and intimately in her relationship. In both examples, a deeper cause or association is the key to solving the problem.
Third is what is known as classical psychotherapy, depth psychotherapy, or major psychotherapy (so many names!). In this approach to inner work, the client (or the patient if it is an analysis) enters into a long-term commitment to a competent professional whose training and ability enable him to competently guide him through the inner terrain to the very source of the inner work. client’s psyche. Deep existential questions can arise such as: Who am I? What if my purpose? How did I come to be? And for the spiritually or religiously inclined, the source of being, or an experience of the numinous dimension of life.
Finally, the fourth level of psychotherapy and counseling is transpersonal or psychospiritual. This can include all three levels above, particularly depth psychotherapy, but goes beyond personality, character, and associated issues into the spiritual, transcendent, and divine realms of human experience and reality. Arguably the cutting edge of inner discovery, this approach is considered by many (including myself) to be vital today as it is directly related to ecology, political strife and injustice, bigotry, religious intolerance and the ignorance. The intent of psychospiritual therapy is not only to awaken the individual seeker-client, but also to awaken collective humanity.