Consider your millennial girl-next-door. She meets the man of her dreams and on the fifth date, she comes home with starry eyes and is convinced that he is in love with her. Would you agree with her? Would you think she is falling for the same old pattern and is unable to see it? The shunning truth might be that love doesn’t really happen overnight. At best, what you experience towards someone in the early days of your budding relationship, is an intention to love and to commit to someone. What we derive from this example, is that the truth, for some people, could be in plain sight and very obvious to understand, while for some others, it could be camouflaged among alternate realities, or even distorted.
A therapist’s job primarily involves helping you sort those realities and helping you to look at your own life and choices through a different light. The therapist will help you navigate your life, identify patterns and speak openly about yourself. Their job is to listen with an open mind, steer the topics that are important to you, and ensure confidentiality in all that is shared. With many assumptions that are also reached in the process, let’s take a look at a few concepts and myths around therapy and see how a better understanding can help us develop a better approach to the process.
How exactly does therapy work?
Therapy sessions could be viewed as problem-solving workshops, wherein you and the therapist work equally hard to reach a certain outcome. In each session, the discussion involves analysing where you stand, and the status of the issue that brought you in. You can talk about anything that’s on your mind, and your therapist will listen with no biases or judgements. You can speak openly and vulnerably about yourself.
After you unpack your feelings, your therapist might provide you with some insight in response, or help you deconstruct and synthesise what you just shared. They also might give you a task or something to think about if they think it’s important for your process. It is important to note that therapy is a step-by-step process that happens with time and growth. Each therapy session serves as a step in your progress. Overall, you will be able to unpack and disclose whatever is bothering you and receive constructive feedback in therapy, in order to help you improve your mental health.
What is ‘the Ehsaas approach’?
In a nutshell, Ehsaas works on making you the hero of your story, and then finding a way to change the narrative. This approach uses the EUA way of analysis, which involves three primary stages:
· Exploration
· Understanding
· Action
We first start by offering a bias-free platform to people, to talk about their life, how they might have been the victim of certain situations, describe their childhood, what they were deprived of and everything that falls within their comfort zone. The goal for the exploration stage in counselling is to build a rapport with your client, gather adequate information about the problem at hand as well as your client’s background, and experience all the relevant emotions. As a counsellor, what we hope to accomplish in this stage is to basically build a relationship of trust with our client and help them make discoveries about themselves. When our client is able to see themselves objectively, we help them see certain patterns and why they respond to it in a certain way. They get to the point where they are able to see the problem, why it’s a problem, and understand that they can change it.
Stage 2 of this approach entirely focuses on making the client the hero. In the understanding stage, they are made to be in charge, and taken through a journey of awareness, wherein you can reflect on why the suffering is happening and what are you doing to change the situation. A lot of work goes into this stage, which is often the crux of discovering the problem, and unfortunately, this is also a stage where a lot of people also decide to quit therapy – either because they expect to see results too soon, or they never expected to take on this intensity of emotional labour.
One of the biggest myths about therapy continues to be that people expect to come and sit in a classroom, with their face in their hands, and expect all the hard work to simply happen. It is important to note that therapy is not one final solution, in fact, it is a complimentary guide to help yourself. A therapist can surely give her 200% to you in terms of listening, building the patterns, identifying the issue, but the person involved has to be prepared to do some of the weightlifting too. At the end of the day, the real work happens when you break through the discomfort, whether we’re talking about mental health or a physical workout. You won’t be able to move ahead in life, if you push reality away or don’t reflect over why these patterns are repeating in your life. That’s when you will also find light at the end of the tunnel, in the last stage.
Some popular myths around therapy
· “Therapists are people who tell you what to do with your life”
While most people do come to get advice or a different perspective on their problems, therapists are different from regular life coaches. They will guide you to solutions on the basis of tried-and-tested, studied methods, but will not directly tell you what’s the solution. It’s up to clients to apply what they learn during sessions, while a lot of work and analysis is put in, back end.
· “Therapy is all about talking and venting”
Therapy is an interactive process because it is a relationship, and is surely not all about venting but finding constructive ways of dealing with problems. In the beginning, therapists might speak less or ask more questions since they are still getting to know their clients. But as time goes on, they start sharing more of their thoughts too, if and when they will be helpful.
· “Therapy is expensive”
There are all kinds of therapists in the market. Many of them can be very affordable. You also have the option for opting for Group therapy, free counselling in schools (if offered) or online therapy from licensed therapists, if either of these work for you.
· “Therapy is about people lying down on a couch”
This is nothing more than a cliché that’s seen in films and on television. Many therapists will have couches in their offices, yes, but few will insist you lie down on it and look away from them. This perception is thanks to psychoanalysis and Freud’s influence on psychology. Back then, it was common for therapists to insist that patients lie down on a couch and look away from them because they believed it made the patient more open and less shy. This does not make sense today, since it makes it more difficult to bond with your therapist.
· “Therapy will ‘fix’ you”
It won’t fix you, in that sense, because you are not broken. This is one of the areas where therapy and medical treatment vastly differ. With medical treatment, the best outcome is a cure where you eradicate the illness and ensure it doesn’t return. In therapy, mental illnesses, negative beliefs and maladaptive behaviours are not diseases. Therapists will help you uncover strengths and learn new skills that will allow dealing with the challenges in your life. A successful therapy experience does not mean that a client is cured, it means the person has the inner and outer resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.
· “Therapists can read minds”
As much as people would like to believe, therapists really don’t get their kicks from “reading minds”. Some potential clients worry that therapists will predict what they are thinking or break down their problems in a Sherlock Holmes-style demonstration of analytical prowess. They are known to get questions like “What am I thinking now?” or “Are you analysing things all the time?” In fact, people aren’t seeking the right help for that reason. Remember, good therapists want to help you. You’re not a specimen to them. You’re a client, someone they care about.
Understanding the way therapy works, would be the first step to a better life. Once you have figured out how to leverage it, it has the potential of changing your entire world. It takes one crippling episode of depression, with a few sleepless nights in a row, to disturb everything around you and that can cause absolute havoc. In such times, therapy helps to continue school or work life, work on your symptoms and improve your social as well as romantic life.