Therapy is time set aside by you and the therapist to discuss together the issues that are troubling you. This might include talking about life events, (past and present), feelings, emotions, relationships, ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour. The therapist will help you to look at your issues, and both of you together try to make sense of how and why there is such a struggle, making and creating meaning brings intimacy, increases mutual respect and deepens integrity. By understanding difficulties it can help to recognize and then accept the causes of difficulty and the wish to find a way to cope or the means of their cessation
Talking about these things may take time, and will not necessarily all be included in one session. The number of sessions offered can be limited, and so it is best to ask about this in advance, for example, brief therapy or short term therapy might provide a maximum of 6, 8, 10 or 12 sessions, and long term therapy e.g. Jungian Analysis is open ended meaning no ending pre- planned at the beginning of the therapy.
Therapy is not advice giving or persuasion orientated to the therapist’s point of view. It is not the same as talking to a friend, parent or sibling because the therapist is not involved in your day to day life so is objective and impartial The agreement made between the therapist and client is that they both meet a specific time to focus on the client’s emotional world. There are no demands on what you should and shouldn’t talk about, you can talk about difficulties, thoughts, ideas, dreams to help you find what you need.
