Mental Health Therapy

Therapists can help clients feel their feelings more fully by creating an environment where the client feels safe. Helping client’s feel their feelings rather than talk about them intellectually opens an opportunity for the client to enter their own experience more fully. Using open-ended questions to explore the client’s feelings can be effective. Therapists should clarify what the affective word the client uses means; not just assume they understand. Angry can mean many different things to many different people. Getting clarification not only helps the therapist understand more but protects them from overidentifying or misperceiving the client’s experience as being the same as they have experienced. It allows the therapist to enter the client’s subjective world. Entering the client’s subjective world, having the client feel respected and understood, increases the trust in the relationship. It gives the client the opportunity to learn more about themselves and possibly have a corrective emotional experience because they are met with empathy and validation from the therapist rather than the judgement, disdain, and invalidation they may have experienced with others in their lives. Another way a therapist can help a client experience their feelings is by speaking to the incongruence they perceive between what the client is sharing and the accompanying affect. This intervention starts

This is why it is important for both the client and the therapist to be open and honest with each other from the very start when discussing the initial problems/issues.

     Today many people seek professional therapy or counseling for a limited amount of time in order to deal with different life crises. Others seek professional help for the majority of their lives in order to deal with a psychological disorder. After reading this chapter on Therapy, I learned that this was not always the case, and that the way our society views therapy, and the meaning of therapy, has changed dramatically of the years. This chapter not only explains the evolution of therapy, it explores the different therapeutic approaches.

It is important to understand that the client may be upset, anxious, and in turmoil about coming to the appointment. The client may desire relationships with other people, but are fearful and unable to interact with unknown people due to their fear of possible rejection or disapproval. This can be true in building a relationship with the therapist. The first step is to attempt to bring about a rapport with the client; the client may need to feel comfortable to talk and gain a sense of who the therapist is, before deciding they want therapy. If the client feels comfortable the assessment of the problem can begin. The therapist should be familiar with structured questionnaires and interviews (assessment tools)

Therapy is a relationship that works in part because of clearly defined rights and responsibilities held by both the client and the therapist. This understanding helps to create the safety to take risks and the support to become empowered to change. As a client in psychotherapy, you have certain rights that are important for you to know about because this is your therapy and the main goal is your well being. There are also certain limitations to those rights that you should be aware of. Also, l incorporate a variety of therapeutic techniques tailored to your needs and goals.

One crucial element to establishing a therapeutic relationship is listening; listening without judgment, with acceptance, and with receptivity. A therapist should not be judgmental, and listening should

“Research has shown that these therapies help people bring about the changes they want in their lives. Talking therapy may be the only help you need to resolve your issues or it may be recommended as part of your treatment plan”.

In this book we can find an instruction how to step by step make your own therapy. You can learn how to describe your feeling and how to set them on the positive way. Simple exercises can put you through the process without any great effort.

You and the therapist will sit down and just talk about all the difficult subjects previously mentioned. And they will help steer you towards a stronger understanding of yourself and reality.

The therapist on the other hand, has to show the client that he or she is interested in what the client is expressing by using positive non-verbals, active and reflective listening, and paraphrasing what the client has said. Relating information and using some personal experiences also strengthens the sessions to have a healthy

Entering into the professional therapy practice can be an exhilarating, yet comparably frightening experience. The pressure of knowing that these are real lives. Real cases. Real scenarios! We want to be prepared; we want to be able to do what we are trained to do, to efficiently help those who come to us. This Novice intensity of both fear and exhilaration that is experienced by the therapist can produce vigorous results with the client. Therapists must be flexible with clientele and arising circumstances, be rooted in a thriving learning-atmosphere for success, and most importantly, obtain a self-identity. Developing a self-identity within our profession is not only for the clientele’s sake, but for the therapists as well. We must learn from our familiarity and stretch past our discomforts in order to proceed in becoming a better therapist. Voices of doubt may create miniscule challenges and alter them into a larger concern. No matter how “together” we try to be, there will be times when we will stumble. We are human. Mistakes will happen. But our down falls are what will mold us into better therapists tomorrow.

For beginning counselors the therapeutic process can be a difficult one. Especially, during the first initial visit. For counselors it can be quite problematic because many of us undergo feelings of self-doubt and lack the expertise needed upon counseling our first client. As for clients it can be a tedious process because they themselves do not know what to expect. The reason why I chose the initial counseling stage is because it is perhaps one of the most difficult stages of therapy and this is when first impressions are made. Specifically, when it comes to the client, during this stage a client must develop trust and be willing to reveal their most precious accounts of their present and past life events. They also have to make a determining factor whether or not to continue to seek counseling with you, the therapist.

I worry about being judged when asking others for help with my emotional problems. Although I have been in therapy in the past, and it was a phenomenal experience; I still worry whether a new therapist is going to judge me. A new therapist could help dispel my Infotfear of being judged by being honest and open and using the interpersonal process, truthfully. It would feel affirming to have someone notice I’m acting out of fear and to help me process that fear, assuring me that they are not judging me in the process.

To this day I am not cured of my mental illnesses, though I do not allow them to consume me and have been clean of self-mutilation and suicide attempts since May of 2014. Incidents here and there have caused many a thought about returning to that state, but I have been able to pull myself from them with the help of many friends and the medication prescribed to me. Life was seemingly better as I entered the halfway point of my Junior year in high school, optimistic about the future and as happy as any plagued 16-year-old could

From my own personal experience I can tell you that talk therapy is such a great stress reliever. It is not easy to balance everything that goes on in your life and if you don’t deal with your stressors you can end up feeling burnt out. Nobody wants to get to that point. Over the years, I have spoken with many different Therapists and not everyone worked out for me but I never gave up. Eventually I found a few different Therapists that really worked for me. I know that if I ever need to vent out my feelings I have someone to whom I can speak freely and not have to worry about any judgement.