Being there for your kids - Will I Be in Therapy Forever?

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Getting into psychotherapy is a big, big deal. Some people jump right in. Most, however, are reluctant to invest the time and effort into healing. Go figure. With encouragement and commitment, therapy will begin. Your healing is a journey, while therapy is the process that can focus and energize your healing journey. This piece identifies the four stages of the therapy process and resources to facilitate your journey. Check it out. Blessings, Jon

John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. I want to share with you a dilemma that many folks have, and the question that comes up is, will I be in therapy forever? Some folks put off beginning psychotherapy for the fear that the process will last forever.

Ugh. Some people see therapy as self-indulging navel gazing. Some ask themselves, why bother? I've got my mom, my wife, my BFF to talk to. What's the difference? Other folks use therapy as an indulgence, or an avoidance of their real lives.

Famous actor, writer, and director, Woody Allen, told a biographer once that he had been in twice-weekly Freudian psychoanalysis for over 50 years. Of course, late in his life, he married his stepdaughter, so there's that. There are four stages of therapy, each varying in length.

At first, your patient is in a stage of unconscious ignorance. That is, people who love him and interact with him consistently, see problematic behavior, feelings or moods, but he doesn't see it at all. He doesn't know that there's a problem, and he doesn't know that he doesn't know. In these cases, ignorance is not bliss. Friends and family may want to help him out, but nothing seems to stick. While sometimes people get an aha moment and seek therapy on their own, mostly others bring issues to their

loved ones' attention. With such helpful confrontation, your patient to be enters a stage of conscious ignorance. Here, he knows. and accepts that there is a problem but doesn't know what to do about it. With this mindset, people seek counseling and come into psychotherapy. The bulk of the therapy experience involves your patient's healing journey through the stage of conscious awareness. That is, he's addressing issues and working them out. With your empathy, active listening, and compassion for your patient's experiences,

he becomes able to take what was in his life and put it in a way in a box in his mind. While in this stage of conscious awareness, therapy becomes a safe place where he can work on things, try out new relationship strategies, and step outside of his comfort zone to continue his healing journey. With mental and psychotherapy, patients learn to focus more on what is to be present in their lives and to live in their now. They also become able to focus on the positives in their lives and develop and use skills to change their extreme thinking on their issues. This is where you can introduce your patient to tools and techniques to help them stay present and positively reframe their issues. What I have found helpful is the use of behavioral prescriptions and therapeutic homework. For children, that might be helping them use the good kid chart.

Sometimes a therapeutic journal helps people gain control over their thoughts and feelings. Committing to behavioral contracts for weight management or social anxiety strategies can help patients focus and actually see the progress they are making. because activity is an antidote for depression, to-do lists are very beneficial. Over time, and with clear symptom relief, patients gradually move from the stage of conscious awareness to the stage of unconscious awareness. This is where our brains develop new neuropathways that embrace healthy normal. We go from thinking about being and doing better to simply being and doing better naturally.

Your patient meets his treatment goals, has occasional relapses, handles every circumstances better and more quickly, getting back to his new normal. The old neuropathways eventually wither and die from disuse and the new pathways continually strengthen. Our brain's capacity for neurogenesis creates lasting healing. Will you be in therapy forever? No. Your healing process will last a lifetime, but your length of treatment will be defined by how much you invest in the process, how well you defined your treatment goals and how consistently you soar with your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You were once stuck in the mire of downward spiraling. Now you soar out of your stuckness

with upward spiraling to new adventures and thriving. For more on these stages of healing and the impact of mental and psychotherapy, check out my new book. The title is The Healing Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path of the Good Life. Blessings, Dr. John. If my comments stir questions of your own, contact me through my website at www.org, thereformykids.com, or email me at John Robinson 0.0.000 at bell south.net. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist, and author of Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, and my new book, The Healing Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, and this has been Teachable moments. Teachable moments, building blocks of Christian parenting is available online at Amazon

Books.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at t-M-C-P-I-N-C.com.