Tag Archives: Is Therapy Working

By Will

The big question that comes up time and time again in therapy is results focused. Is this therapy doing me any good? Is it making me worse? For me, I have discovered that therapy is both those things. If indeed a false self was created as a child, as a way of coping with deficiencies of their parents, then a deep groove has been cut into oneself, a pattern has emerged, one branch of the tree has began to grow away from the main trunk. Trees do not grow straight, they bend and bow towards the light, so part of us slips further and further and more distant from our true nature. As such, much of my anguish is based on a fixed idea of how things are supposed to be, but when that idea is not met, my nemesis the wolf comes in and shows its teeth.

In one respect I am now reading situations with more clarity, like never before, a new fresh day has come. I know when I am angry and I can breathe deeply into it, disappointments no longer resonate as much, these feelings always pass. In another respect I feel that I have regressed with my feet placed firmly in adolescence or even earlier in the labour of birth. Neuroses seem to have intensified and generalised anxiety can be heightened to what can seem like a dangerous level. I stay in much of the time as I feel that its only the wolf that wants to go out and dance with its ego. So the once unnoticed driving forces I was unaware of have been illuminated, there’s nowhere to hide anymore, the process is fully underway.

Many Psychotherapists and scholars believe that we cannot ever change intrinsically, and I believe this too. However, the wind now makes me smile, I watch stressed out children and my eyes are filled with tears, the grass feels amazing beneath my feet and I tickle my back at night and it feels good. If I acknowledge all the rough edges of my humanness – Pain, Courage, Fear and Celebration and I ask myself if Therapy is working, the answer would be that I am learning how to love more deeply. The heart is breaking open and communion with oneself, just occasionally, has a sacred order.

I yearn for understanding, and yet I fear, I am further from the answers, than ever before ~Abigail Baker