“What is Therapy?” Part 1

What is therapy? The answers to this question can be quite polarizing. There are a multitude of factors that will inform one’s definition of therapy, such as whether they are a provider or recipient. The dynamics of culture, race, ethnicity, age, sex, socioeconomic status, and religious or spiritual beliefs have profound influence over one’s perception of therapy. And, of course, one’s lived or vicarious experience with therapy, be it positive or negative, will significantly inform their response. No matter who you are, or what factors contribute to your present upstanding of therapy, you will leave here today with a more enlightened view of what therapy is, at least, the STS brand of therapy, starting with our “5 Rs”.

Realize

To realize is to conceive something vividly as real—to be fully aware if it. One of the most essential aspects to healing and becoming is realizing that you have the power to do so, to begin with. You were born with a self-healing and creative power. It is innate within you. Too many people erroneously believe that their power to heal and become is external to them, that it lies in the hands, the hearts or the minds of someone else. When you think and behave this way, you forfeit your self-determination. Your ability to heal and become, literally becomes determined by what someone else does or doesn’t do to you or for you. Not even your therapist can heal you or make you become. Rather, a good therapist will hold up a mirror and help to clear your blurry vision, so that upon observing your reflection, you will consciously realize that, not only do you possess the power to heal and become, but that you have had it within you all along.

Reclaim

To reclaim is to regain possession of something, often something that was taken from you against your will. No one of sound mind would ever willingly forfeit their self-healing and creative power. However, unpleasant life circumstances that are outside of your control, often strike unexpectedly. While you are in a vulnerable and weakened state, opportunist external forces usurp your power, which you must be prepared to fight for to regain. Sometimes, though, it is not an external force you need to reclaim your stolen power from. In many instances, it’s you. Your own negative and dysfunctional thinking patterns can convince you that you are powerless—powerless to heal and powerless to transform your life. Therapy will help you to break free from the mental shackles of bondage, so that you may reclaim your self-healing and creative power.

 Restore

To restore is to bring something back to its original state. You have a finite amount of energy, which is the fuel for your self-healing and creative power. When your energy depletes, so to does your power, for they are inextricably linked and synonymous with one another. Whether your expenditure is due to your career, school, family, relationships, or just the natural stressors of life, daily debits and withdraws are being made from your energy/power bank. Chronic stress and unhealed trauma make automatic and substantial withdraws from your account, often without warning. And life offers no overdraft protection plan. This is where self-care activities, or as I like to better call them, “self-restoring” activities, come in. Just as there are negative people, places, personal habits, experiences and ways of thinking that can diminish your self-healing and creative power, there are positive alternative ones that serve to restore them. Therapy, in and of itself, is a restoring process. Through it, you will learn and identify effective ways to restore and sustain the balance of your self-healing and creative power account.

Redirect

To redirect is to change the course or direction of something. Power is power. It is neither good nor bad. It is how power is used or directed that determines its nature as positive or negative. Your thoughts and beliefs, for example, are incredible forms of power, which undeniably shape your overall self-concept, as well as your perception of reality. If they are constantly oriented in a negative direction, you will manifest nothing in your reality but more negativity. For, negative thoughts lead to negative feelings, and negative feelings lead to negative actions. Alternatively, positive thinking leads to positive feelings, which lead to positive actions. The seeds of self-healing and creative power cannot germinate in negative soil. Therapy will teach you how to orient your self-healing and creative power in a positive direction, so that you can maximize their potential.

Redefine

To redefine is to define something, such as a concept again. It’s an act of reimagining. Too often, you have allowed outside forces to define who and what you are, as well as who and what you can become. Your past traumas, your present stressors, your diagnosis, people who have harmed you in some way, and/or temporal undesirable circumstances have all sought to define you and your life. But no more! You are the author of your story. You are the painter of your self-portrait. Therapy will help you develop the self-determination to redefine who you are and who you want to be, independent of external influences and circumstances that have attempted to dictate your life.

So, what is therapy? Therapy is healing. Healing is the art of realizing, reclaiming, restoring, and redirecting your power to heal and to become, for the purpose of redefining your life and creating your masterpiece (i.e., the greatest version of yourself)! We are here to help make your vision a reality!