In her book, Maybe you should talk to someone - A therapist, her therapist and our lives revealed, author Lori Gottlieb, talks about the multitude of questions, problems, reflections, and emotions that rear their heads in therapy. She takes us on a journey through her life, a Hollywood television producer, a terminally ill newlywed, a young woman trying to find herself, and an older woman trying to accept love.
We all have our demons -big, small, old, new, quiet, loud, whatever. Therapy helps us discover and confront these demons. And it’s with this discovery that we can create a different relationship with our demons, one in which we no longer try to reason our way out of an inconvenient inner voice or numb our feelings with distractions like too much wine or food or hours spent surfing the internet.
What comes out of it, you ask?
Therapists help us take responsibility and thereby gently nudge us to take action and change our predicaments.
What if our problems are caused by everyone and everything else, by stuff out there, why should we bother to change ourselves?
It’s a reasonable argument. But that’s not how life generally works. Sometimes — more often than we tend to realize — the difficult people are us. That’s right — sometimes hell is us. Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our way, something astonishing happens.
Lori says that "A therapist will hold up a mirror to patients, but patients will also hold up a mirror to their therapists. Therapy is far from one-sided; it happens in a parallel process. Every day, our patients are opening up questions that we have to think about for ourselves. If they can see themselves more clearly through our reflections, we can see ourselves more clearly through theirs. This happens to therapists when we’re providing therapy, and it happens to our therapists too. We are mirrors reflecting mirrors, showing one another what we can’t yet see."
So, who goes to see Lori?
She says that "It all starts with a presenting problem. By definition, the presenting problem is the issue that sends a person into therapy. It might be a panic attack, a job loss, a death, a birth, a relational difficulty, an inability to make a big life decision, or a bout of depression. Sometimes the presenting problem is less specific — a feeling of “stuckness” or the vague but nagging notion that something just isn’t quite right. Whatever the problem, it generally “presents” because the person has reached an inflection point in life. Do I turn left or right? Do I try to preserve the status quo or move into uncharted territory? (Be forewarned: therapy will always take you into uncharted territory, even if you choose to preserve the status quo.)"
And how do she/therapists help?
Lori says "Therapists talk a lot about how the past informs the present — how our histories affect the ways we think, feel, and behave and how at some point in our lives, we have to let go of the fantasy of creating a better past. Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past. Therapy helps you explore insights like 'Is this something that’s being done to me or am I doing it to myself' The answer gives you choices, but it’s up to you to make them.”
- Geeta S Gottipati