Psychotherapy benefits include a powerful journey towards healing and mental wellness. Seeking help and support from this process is a sign of strength, not weakness. The benefits of psychotherapy can be yours at any age as long as you are willing and capable of doing the work.

Here I explore with you the transformative power of psychotherapy, highlighting its potential to provide relief from spiraling thought processes, negative self-talk, and deep-rooted issues like eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

Understanding Psychotherapy

Effective psychotherapy is a collaborative process between an empathic psychotherapist therapist and an individual seeking help. Its aim is to provide a safe and supportive environment for individuals to explore their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Through this exploration, individuals can gain insight, develop coping strategies, and improve their mental and emotional well-being.

Your feelings map is in your hands.

Pushing Feelings Away

A common coping mechanism when confronted with challenging emotions is the tendency to push them away. This is often seen as a defense mechanism, a way to avoid discomfort. However, it's essential to realize that suppressing your feelings does not make them disappear.

Instead, they tend to fester beneath the surface, causing more significant pain over time. It’s possible to behave harshly without appreciating why because what sets you off are denied feelings. You can push feelings out of your awareness but not out of your psyche.

Anxiety is challenged by calm, wisdom, strength and focus.

Anxiety, whether it comes rarely, or is ever-present or seems to loom on the edge of your experience ready to strike, is a full body and emotional experience. When you are In it you want out of it. That desire to get immediate relief can leave people in a desperate situation where they will reach for food, alcohol, drugs, isolate at home and under the covers, emotional venting on others and even violence.

In my psychotherapy practice, my first goal is to gain trust so that the individual can have an anxiety attack in my presence. Knowing I can bear it helps the person know it’s bearable. She knows she can talk through it, think while it’s happening, and not act out. The first requirement in coping with anxiety and then relieving it is to be able to bear it while it’s happening.

Once that is achieved, we can unravel causes and triggers. We can develop the insight, strength and stamina to face and resolve the issues that cause our anxiety reaction.