What’s the difference between talking to you or my best friend or family?
A mental health professional can help you approach your situation in a new way– teach you new skills, gain different perspectives, listen to you without judgment or expectations, and help you listen to yourself. Furthermore, therapy is completely confidential. You won’t have to worry about others knowing your business.
How does it work? What do I have to do in sessions?
Because each person has different issues and goals for therapy, therapy will be different depending on the individual, couple, or family. You are in charge of what you would like to work on – the overall goal(s) – and my job is to help you with the ‘how’ – the process of change. This is a very collaborative, experiential process. In general, you can expect to explore your hopes for the future, impacts from the past, and places of ‘stuckness’ (what’s getting in the way of meeting your hopes now in the present) so that we can then work on CHANGE – changing the impacts, changing patterns, making new decisions that allow for more freedom, peace, and harmony within yourself and in your relationships. In general, you can expect to explore the impact of current events happening in your life, your personal history relevant to your issue, and report progress and changes from the previous therapy session.
How long will it take?
Depending on your specific needs, therapy can be short-term for a specific issue, or longer-term, to deal with more difficult patterns or your desire for more personal development. Either way, it is most common to schedule regular weekly or bi-weekly sessions initially, and then space them out as you see progress.
If I commit to therapy, what can I expect? How can I get the most out of therapy?
It is important to understand that you will get more results from therapy if you actively participate in the process. The ultimate purpose of therapy is to help you bring what you learn in sessions back into your life. Beyond the work you do in therapy sessions, it is important to integrate these learnings into your daily life. ‘Homework’ may be given for you to practice new decisions and new changes made in sessions in order to support and anchor your progress. Some examples of homework include: journaling, practicing mindfulness, paying attention to certain emotions or behaviours and doing something different from past patterns, making time to intentionally connect with your partner or child, and so on.