Therapy: what is it?

Perhaps one of the toughest questions a client can ask and not just clients. My counselling students often begin with that question; to start with a firm understanding of what therapy entails and what benefits it might bring. Makes sense to me. My experience of fear is that frequently it is dominated by the unknown. We are fearful of what we don’t know, what we have yet to experience. We fill those gaps with something we have read or heard from others and then, sometimes, with thoughts that can seem dark and foreboding.

My answer is often, initially at least, a disappointment: therapy is about the client so their experience of it is personal; in essence the client owns it.  So disappointing because it fails to fully remove the unknown element. To step into the therapy room and not know what this might mean.

It may help to hear that, as therapist, I don’t know either. At least I don’t know what the therapeutic process is going to be with a new client. Working without expectations can seem daunting but once I was used to that aspect to the work I found it liberating. No client is indicative of any ‘type’, I can honour the truth and individuality that is the person sat in front of me.

That may seem to contradict all of the experiences we’ve had in the past and probably the way we often treat others. All those stereotypes we use to try and make sense of the world and the people we meet. In therapy, though, assumptions can cloud the truth of who someone is.

Therapy, then is an open, quiet space into which you can walk and explore feelings, thoughts and experiences without the baggage of assumption. Therapy belongs to the client and I think that might just be definition enough.