A couple of years ago, my father said to me: “Therapists are like mechanics. Someone brings in a broken-down car. The mechanic fixes whatever is wrong. And then off the car drives.”
The idea that therapists are there to fix broken people is widespread. And it’s wrong. Let me explain why.
The world isn’t divided into broken people and unbroken people. This is the reality:
· Everyone I know has suffered.
· Everyone I know has developed ways of coping that work for them.
· Everyone I know has developed ways of coping that don’t work for them.
· Everyone I know has managed to survive and function in a way that has kept them going from day to day.
· Everyone I know feels that sometimes they undermine themselves, don’t live up to their values, betray themselves.
· Everyone I know does good and meaningful things.
· Everyone I know sometimes finds themselves doing things they wished they didn’t do.
If you haven’t grown into a wonderful, unique, eccentric, contradictory creature, you haven’t been alive.
The reason why people think therapists are there to fix broken people is because people seek us out when things have often gone wrong. They arrive at places where what used to work for them now doesn’t work. Maybe drinking used to help them calm down, but now it’s out of hand. Maybe eating food was comforting but now they’re overweight. Maybe their relationships muddled along just fine but not they’ve become boring and unhappy. There’s been a death, a breakup, a traumatic incident.
People get to a point – a crisis – where things don’t work for them anymore.
The pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. They want to make sense of their experience.
And they look for help. They come to see a therapist.
But I have other clients who feel fine, who have no crisis, but they know that there’s something not quite right in their life. They want to find out who they are, they tell me. And this is what therapists help them with.
Therapy is the same in both cases: it’s an exploration and discovery of who you are, in this place, in this time. It’s the discovery of what it means to be you, in all your uniqueness. It’s the discovery of your identity.
Who are you, truly, underneath the good face you put on? What do you really feel? What do you really think?
Are you living up to that authentic person inside or are you betraying them?
Therapy is a return to this authentic self. It’s a rediscovery of the YOU that has been lost over the years. It’s not changing who you are. It’s a return home to who you were and lost along the way.
As a therapist part of my job is to help you do this. It’s not fixing something that’s broken. Instead, it’s a great adventure. It’s an exciting journey. It’s something for everyone who has lived, loved, suffered, experienced joy and pain.
To sign up for the journey, contact me at primetherapy.net
Next week, I’ll look at some of the ways that therapy works and the way coaching fits in to the broader picture.
If you want to investigate some of these issues with a therapist, email me at rjurik@me.com or contact me on my website at primetherapy.net
Rjurik Davidson
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