How To Make Your Therapy Move Faster: More About Secrets

Usually people come to counselling with a true willingness to change or improve their lives. Even with that approach however, there can be a part of you that holds back. Holdback is usually about fear, and it gets labelled, by many therapists, as resistance. That label can stop them from trying to help you.When we see resistance as fear or as a meaningful part of who someone is, then we can help our clients.

The fear can be from past experiences, about anxiety about the unknown, because you do not trust your therapist. It may be because you fear how someone around you will think of you if you change, or how you will see yourself.

The best way to handle those fears is to talk about them with your therapist. Let your therapist know what you are not telling him or her, what you are afraid to talk about. I had a client once who said to me, " there is a part of me that does not want you to be right." Just saying that was helpful for her to move past that barrier.

You can tell your therapist that something is going on, and tell him that you are not ready to talk about it more than that. This is legitimate. But at least you have said something.

In some ways, unspoken thoughts and feelings are like secrets. If you have ever kept a secret, you know that it can become a burden, and you know that letting someone know is a relief. That is true about telling about past sexual abuse, about sexuality issues, or about being the one who took the last piece of cake. The fewer secrets you are keeping, the more you will be able to help yourself. That is true in the relationship with your therapist as well as with people in the rest of your life.

Individual and Couple Counselling: On Forgiveness

I think the concept of forgiveness is one of the most important aspects of individual health and also the health of couples. It is about self acceptance, and acceptance of someone else's weaknesses.

Forgiveness is not easy nor simple. Janic Abrahm Spring, in her book, " How Can I Forgive You?" talks about three types of forgivenss--
1. cheap forgiveness
2 acceptance
3. genuine forgiveness.

It is the latter which is the most fulfilling, but can only happen with someone else's engagement, or with engagement with self. Sometimes, all we can do is accept and move on. True forgiveness is also about work on the part of the injured party--they have to be willing to risk and let go, rather than hold on and self protect.