One of my mentors once wrote that therapy is not so much about “cure.” He was fond of saying, “Life is not a disease, but an experiment to be lived through.” That means, he said, “What we do with clients (like with ourselves) is to help find the creative possibilities.” We help find what’s being overlooked. We help people see where they are blocked. “Then we develop the creative aspects, we open up the roads forward!”
As projects of nature, we humans are very adaptable. We’re resourceful. Were this not true, we would not have been able to survive down through hundreds of thousands of years. We adapt to what’s thrown at us. And that’s a good thing in that it earns us a living. But at a certain point in life most of us start to pay more attention to our own souls. Some of those times we’ve “adapted” to what life threw at us cost us a great deal. Some of this “adapting” harms us, mind and soul.
At a certain point in life we start to count the cost. All the adapting that has helped us fit into our family, or helped us fit in at work, if we allow it to go too far, can become a trap. One clue that our “adapting” may have gone too far can be a chronic feeling of emptiness inside.
There is help and hope, however. Most of us, with God’s help, deep down “know” what is really right for us. Sometimes we may need a guide to walk beside us for a ways. Someone to hold up a mirror for us. Someone to reflect to us the parts of ourselves we can’t quite see– Or have grown numb and blind to. This is what dynamically-trained counselors do. Because, in the end, we are MORE than just ‘social animals.’ We are meaning-makers. This is how our higher power created us. Sometimes we just need a little help, another set of eyes and ears to help awhile, to get back on track.
As a wise therapist once said, “The least of things with a meaning is always worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” (Carl Jung)
Lisa Tolliver CPsy, LPCC 