Mystical Jennifer

Have you ever wondered how therapy actually works?  Do you sometimes think that therapy isn’t for you because “talking about my problems isn’t going to make them go away?”  Do you think a therapist is just going to tell you things you already know, so what’s the point? 

If so, I can honestly say I appreciate your skepticism, and I wrote this blog just for you.  I believe in transparency, and I don’t want therapy to be some mysterious process where the client doesn’t understand what exactly is going on. So allow me to explain exactly what therapy is and how it works. (Keep in mind, this is from my unique perspective and may vary from what other therapists think.)

The best way to understand why therapy works is to have an accurate understanding of why people have issues in the first place.  There are several main reasons people struggle with their mental and emotional health, including: unresolved trauma which results in negative core beliefs and thought patterns and negative emotional baggage, overwhelming current stressors that exceed their ability to cope, lack of social supports, poor nutrition and sleep, environmental toxin exposure, intrusive negative energy from sources outside yourself, and past life energy and karma. (If this last part challenges you, I urge you to keep an open mind and keep reading.  As Einstein said “you can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it,” and you don’t evolve to a higher level of consciousness without entertaining some new ideas.)  

A useful way to conceptualize this is to think of yourself as a unique pie chart, where these main factors make up the majority of the pie, but in different sized pieces.  For example, one person may have extensive childhood trauma that makes up 50% of their mental health struggles, whereas another person may only have 20% attributed to childhood trauma but an overwhelming 60% due to current stressors.  Someone may have only 10% trauma but 40% past life issues and 20% intrusive energy effecting them and causing symptoms. Everyone is unique. (For more information on this, see my Personal Blog #1: What Ails You? Trauma, Toxins, and Intrusive Energy.)  These percentages are just estimates to make the point; there’s no real way to calculate your pie chart exactly.  But at least it gives you an idea of what could be going on and why it’s important to have a holistic approach to healing, so you don’t miss any major factors.

So if we know the main factors that cause problems, the next step is to explore how therapy solves these issues.  Let’s start with trauma, since it’s so pervasive and most therapists will attempt to address it.  I define trauma as anything that happened to you that caused intense negative emotional arousal that you weren’t able to process and completely resolve at the time.  The unresolved emotional energy gets stored in your subconscious mind until you can deal with it, kind of like putting junk down in the basement until you have the time and energy to sort through it.  The problem is, this emotional baggage that is being stored away from your conscious mind can still effect you in your current life.  Imagine storing a bunch of gasoline and toxic cleaners in open containers in your basement. You might not be able to see them, but the toxic fumes are going to make their way to the upper floors where you live and make you sick.  Unresolved trauma creates all kinds of issues, like negative thought patterns, being emotionally disconnected or too emotionally volatile, having issues with boundaries (either setting them or respecting them in others), substance abuse issues, eating disorders, poor self esteem, anxiety, and depression.  

When you engage in trauma work in therapy, you aren’t “just talking” about bad things that happened. You are engaged in a profound process of cleaning out the basement.  When you talk about a traumatic incident, the stored negative thoughts, emotions, and body sensations of that memory come to the surface of your consciousness. By experiencing the rest of that “old stuff”, especially in the presence of someone who cares deeply about you and is not going to judge you, you literally move it out of your system.  You can’t take out the trash in the basement without first hauling it through the first floor to where the doorway is.  

You might be thinking “well, I can think about my trauma and feel it all by myself. Why do I need a therapist?”  The answer is: trauma occurs in relationships, and so does healing. A relationship with someone else is important for this process because of what is known as “corrective emotional experiences.”  It has to do with the fact that, for better or for worse, we take in other people’s reflections of us. Let’s explore a classic example: let’s say one or both of your parents were really mean to you. It could be abusive-alcoholic mean or critical nothing-you-ever-do is-good-enough mean.  Whatever it was, as a child you couldn’t help but take in your parent’s reflections and internalize them as meaning something about who you are. This is what humans do, especially when we’re children and our boundaries are super open.  We don’t have the ego strength to keep out our dysfunctional parent’s erroneous projections. So you grow up and feel that internalized sense of not being good enough. For you, it feels true.  Going to therapy is actually like having a “do-over” with a healthy surrogate parent.  They are going to nurture you, teach you to love yourself, reflect that you’re a wonderful person, protect you from that internalized negative mind that beats you up by challenging what it tells you, encourage you to protect yourself, and maybe set some limits at times because that’s good parenting too.  They are going to have healthy responses to the things you say, just like a healthy parent would.  This is the corrective emotional experience piece.  It corrects the faulty wiring in your system caused by incompetent parents by allowing you to experience a positive and healthy relationship.  When you have a healthy attachment to a therapist based on respect and trust, your whole system begins to balance out as it regulates and aligns itself with a secure bond.  This secure bond helps you become more secure.  (Just keep in mind that therapists aren’t perfect, and will sometimes misstep, which is just human.  But if you talk to them about it, they should know how to resolve it with you with kindness and humility.) And through this interpersonal experience, you will not only flush out that old negative emotional energy, but you will introject (take in) a new reflection of yourself that is much more positive.  This new reflection is what you come to own as true about you, replacing the old idea of not being good enough.  This is how you change not just what you think, but what you feel.  So many people report that they know their negative thought about themselves isn’t true, but it feels true. It is the heart that we have to transform.  And that is done through love, which more easily comes to us from another person when our own love is  blocked by old traumas.  When you are loved, you become more loving, to yourself and others.  Happiness naturally follows from this.

So far, we have only dealt with one piece of the pie. The next piece - intense current stressors - works in a similar way. Your past trauma was at some point a current intense stressor. It’s only a past trauma now because time has moved forward. If you had had someone back then to help you move through that stressor in a healthy way, it wouldn’t be a traumatic memory now.  So processing current stressors with a therapist is one way to keep things that are happening now from becoming more traumas you need to unpack and resolve later. Life doesn’t give us a break to slow down and process difficult things.  But going to therapy is a way of giving yourself that break time to fully digest what is happening with you so that you can release anything that is starting to build up, making sure you are not internalizing any negative and false messages, and are taking appropriate care of yourself.  These are all things a therapist should ideally help you do, with the patience and kindness of an ideal parent.  It helps to have someone in our corner that has our best interests at heart.

Moving on to other factors, no therapist can be a one-stop-shop for all your needs.  Different factors need different interventions.  If you lack social support, a therapist will encourage you to meet new people or join a group that participates in a hobby you like.  If you have too much anxiety to do this because of past trauma, well, there we are with the importance of processing past traumas again.  So a therapist can help you work that out until you have less anxiety and more courage and self esteem to go make more friends.  

For physical issues, I always encourage clients to check in with their doctor and get some labs done, to make sure their symptoms aren’t caused or exacerbated by a vitamin deficiency, auto-immune issue, heavy metal toxicity, or some other physical health issue.  I also let them know that exposure to electromagnetic radiation can cause anxiety, brain fog, difficulty concentrating, headaches, and insomnia.  I encourage them to decrease their exposure to this toxin as much as possible. A good therapist may have some information about what might be contributing to your issues that you didn’t know.

Now for the final section, which I know will challenge some readers.  Intrusive energy, karma, and past life energy are part of my transpersonal approach to therapy that you won’t hear from most other therapists.  In the future I will write many more blogs about this subject as there is so much to say. But for now I’ll just say that I have studied this area extensively (yes, there is a ton of literature on this subject) and have many personal experiences that attest to its validity. I’ll explain the importance of including it in therapy in the following paragraph.

Let’s go back to our pie chart idea.  Let’s say that a client with major depression comes in for therapy.  A therapist without an understanding of the transpersonal and energetic nature of reality might treat this client as if their depression is caused 70% by current life stressors, and therefore spend most of the time talking to the client about their current life.  But if the client is actually experiencing depression mostly for the transpersonal reasons of intrusive and past life energy, talking about current issues isn’t going to do much to help them feel better.  This might be why some people have the experience that “therapy doesn’t work.”  (For an actual case study of this issue, I encourage you to check out Brian Weiss' Many Lives, Many Masters.) The cause of the issue may not have been adequately assessed.  And if we don’t accurately assess the cause, we can’t expect to have a helpful solution.  For me, understanding how energetic influences contribute to, or outright cause, mental health problems has been a game changer.  And having access to a legitimate and useful resource to get this need addressed is priceless.

Now, a quick word on one more important aspect of healing. The title of this blog is How Does Therapy Actually Help Me Get Better?  And I’ve answer how it works and can help, but the last and perhaps most important factor is you.  Therapy doesn’t make you get better.  It can’t do anything if you’re not willing to work it.  No one can heal you against your will.  So it’s important for you to be honest with yourself about your own commitment and willingness to change.  If you don’t follow through with your therapist’s recommendations, then you can’t claim it didn’t work. The truth is you weren’t willing to do everything it takes.  And sometimes you need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get to where you want to go.  If you're not willing to follow through and try new things, you will just stay stuck in old negative patterns. 

The healing potential of a therapeutic relationship is immense and helping someone through their healing journey is a sacred process.  If you’ve tried it before but haven’t had success, don’t give up. Finding the right therapist for you might take a few tries, but when you’ve found the right person to work with, the results will be well worth it.