How mental health therapy should ACTUALLY work.

When it comes to experiencing life, we are all  limited by our own perspective. Even when we have close friends or family to talk things out with, we are almost always getting some type of invested or biased feedback. Therapy is a cool opportunity to engage with a professional who can provide 3 unique services that can enhance your life.

1. A judgement free place to talk. This speaks to how a therapist’s role in therapy is never to judge their clients decisions, experiences or thoughts, whether this be in regards to wisdom, ethics or morals. An argument that  I have heard people make here is “how can you tell me a therapist won’t judge me. OF COURSE that person is going to have their own opinions on the matter. The way I explain it is like this.
   
   Yes, a therapist is a person who has their own opinion about all sorts of things, and yes they of course have their own ethical and moral compass as well. However, the selling point here is not to say therapists are above that. It is to say that a good therapist knows that the nature of their relationship with their clients is not one of which judgement is an appropriate response.
   
   A good, authentic therapist knows how to leave their own biases and judgement at the door. Is this to say your therapist is a robot that can just turn off judgement? Of course not, but rather that is to say a therapist should know how to identify their judgement and compartmentalize it in a way that it does not impact their perspective of you or their role in treating you. Think about watching an animated cartoon with a character that is making all sorts of dumb or morally ethical decisions. Are you aware of your feelings about that cartoon character’s decisions? Yes, of course you are. Are you judging them? No, you most likely are not because the nature of judgement is that we do not apply it to fictional characters.
   
   Similarly you can perceive your relationship with your therapist to be similar. They can observe the decisions and thoughts that you have but it is not the nature of their job to judge you for it.

2. A place to receive coping skills.  Therapy should be more than just a place to talk. Your therapist should be providing you with tangible skills, tools and techniques to be able to take away from a session. In the same way that it is important for therapy to be more than just talking; a good therapist should be making sure that therapy is not just a list of coping skills in response to whatever it is you are coming in to discuss. Therapy should have a healthy balance of processing/talking and practical tools.

3. A place to better understand and potentially challenge your perspective. Whatever it is that is bringing you into therapy is driven by perspective; in therapy your therapist should help you better understand your own perspective on whatever the topic is and then provide you with potential reframes. 

   
   Finally - in starting therapy, come with intention. Do not overthink it. I always tell my clients to take therapy one session at a time. Do not worry too much about what to talk about or what the most important issue is. Simply take some time between each session to consider what comes to mind and come in with something intentional that you would like to talk about. This way you do not feel like a deer in headlights when your therapist prompts you and furthermore, your therapist does not need to feel like they need to interview you to figure out a starting point. Over time, themes will present themselves.

   
   If you are unsure about starting therapy but want to learn more about the process, Philadelphia therapist Noam Dinovitz can be reached by the form below or
   
   By phone: 484-424-7722
   By email: Noam@Dinovitzcounseling.com