The first step in therapy is to realize that your soul needs help, that not all of its needs are met, and that life has lost harmony and meaning.
If you are dissatisfied with yourself and life, tormented by worries and anxieties, not satisfied with relationships with loved ones and realize that time after time you live the same internal scenarios that lead to suffering, and you cannot change them alone, this is a reason to seek help from a psychotherapist.
Making a decision to help your soul is the main step that gives you the necessary energy to start therapy and a fundamentally different attitude to your life.
Choosing a specialist and method is the second important step in therapy.
You have already realized that you need help and now you need to find the right specialist. One way to do this is to find out if someone in your community has already sought help and can share their experience and recommendations.
It is good to study the issue yourself and decide which method of work is closer to you. It is not an easy task, because there are many directions of depth psychology: Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian analytical psychology and others. In addition, there are alternative methods, such as psychodrama, Gestalt, existential-humanistic, cognitive behavioral and other therapies.
The third step is to agree on the terms of interaction with the therapist and to fulfill this agreement.
The basis for building a trusting relationship. It is necessary to agree on the time and place of meetings, and most importantly, to fulfill the agreements regularly and accurately. This will effectively form a therapeutic space in which the healing of the soul will take place.
The fourth step is to create contact with the unconscious.
Contact with the unconscious, an essential part of the psyche, is a feature of depth psychology. The psyche is often compared to an iceberg, where the upper, visible, part is consciousness and the unconscious is a huge block underwater.
Depth psychology utilizes the inexhaustible resources of the unconscious to heal and restore wholeness. The main methods of work are active imagination, analyzing dreams and images.
The fifth step is insight, living a new experience in relationship with the therapist.
Psychotherapy is a process in which the client, with the help of the therapist, works to debunk pathological beliefs that prevent the psyche from living a full life, negatively affect self-esteem, prevent him from achieving desired goals, make him bury his dreams and cause suffering.
Changing such beliefs is helped by new experiences lived in the therapeutic relationship: the client unconsciously tests his attitudes in interaction with the therapist. In the work comes the realization that the former beliefs are irrational and harmful, that they no longer help as before.
The sixth step is to create a sustainable therapeutic relationship.
The therapist-client relationship is the most important tool for healing the soul. They must be safe. The client follows his unconscious goals and plans in therapy, and his progress in therapy is governed by unconscious evaluations of danger and safety. A person progresses in therapy if they believe they can do so safely for themselves.
The seventh step is to analyze traumas and complexes.
A necessary step in the therapeutic relationship, without it effective therapy is impossible. Often painful reactions are caused by so-called negative transference: the client experiences unpleasant feelings towards the therapist, thus reliving traumas that he or she could not experience in relationships with other people. This is the most dangerous period in therapy, when there is a great desire to end the process, because the states can be very challenging.
The eighth step is the synthesis of wholeness, spiritual growth and development.
This is the stage at which a person no longer feels the pressure of complexes and traumas, can accept himself and is not afraid to come into contact with reality. He becomes internally balanced and begins to trust himself and notices that now his psychic energy is sufficient to release his unique personality from the subjugation of conscious and unconscious limitations. This is an opportunity to go beyond mere adaptation to the collective and social aspects of life and to follow the path of spiritual growth and development.
