I Find It Hard To Believe In Psychotherapy But I Need Help: What Should I Do?
Current times, full of alternatives, strategies and techniques that promise healing or mental and emotional balance, can lead us to confuse and make us feel lost in a sea of proposals It is to be expected that in a vast list of possible alternatives to care for ourselves and feel better, we distrust some or many of them.
Since ancient times, at the beginning of human history, there has been the figure of the healer or priest, who was turned to in search of relief from pain. Today the expectation towards doctors, psychologists, counselors, or towards those who invite people to be healed is the same. People have always needed to believe in something or someone, having faith calms us and makes us feel better In the case of psychology and all its aspects, its development and application do not consist of an act of faith.
At a time when humanity is once again facing external uncertainties related to the economy, water scarcity, social conflicts, pandemics, wars and various issues that overwhelm our minds and intersect with the internal anxieties of each person, we require guidance to understand ourselves, accommodate our thoughts and emotions, and adjust to the demands of reality and our internal possibilities.
It is a fundamental task of all human beings to pursue the search for knowing themselves. And throughout time we have observed that the more one searches, the deeper the desire to find oneself grows. There are great obstacles on this path, such as denying that we are the product of historical evolution as a species and as individuals, as well as the denial that everything that happens to us can be understood and explained by natural laws that psychology has dedicated many decades to studying and researching
Psychotherapy, based on science and various disciplines and theories, has progressed in its understanding of human beings and their behavior, but since ancient times it has preserved a primordial element between doctor and patient, therapist and client or between priest and his client, and This essential element is the use of the word as the starting point of any healing process in which a relationship is established between those who seek to be cured and those who place all their faith and trust in a specialist.
It is precisely this element, the word and trust, that have given power to methods that deceive and produce superficial or temporary changes in people with deep needs to be helped and desperate in their search to find answers Fortunately, today, not everything has to be based on a leap of faith alone.
To allow ourselves to be helped by a well-trained and qualified psychotherapist, more than that is required, such as our own elements that allow us to go to ask for help, the conviction that we have a problem, that this problem is due in part to ourselves and of that we can do something to influence the development of our lives. These personal elements, which do not depend on anyone else, are the key so that our search points towards a mental health professional who can help us face our difficulties responsibly and consciously.
It is common, in clinical practice with patients or in everyday conversations with various people, to find that they wonder how psychotherapy works, how talking or, in the case of children, playing, is carried out. an event of reflection and change within people. Much of the success of a treatment will depend on the patient’s own qualities to think about himself, to take responsibility and tolerate confrontation with his most chaotic and destructive aspects
Another part will depend on the technique used by the mental health professional and their training and experience in dealing with various problems. But, in short, there is no magic in psychotherapeutic work, what must exist is a specialist who has been conscientiously and ethically trained and trained in what science has left as a legacy and application for the improvement of human beings and their quality. of life.
The difficulty in believing in psychotherapy lies in how complicated and painful it is for many to endure the findings that occur in a treatment and then make the changes in ourselves that would represent a better life and mental health.
Psychotherapy requires the patient’s commitment to believe not in the therapist as a savior or magician but in his ethical and professional integrity and in the process of human development that involves allowing himself to be helped by a professional. If you have already tried several strategies or methods and you still feel that your internal search offers more, it is time to let yourself be helped and opt for a treatment of greater duration and depth
