If You Decide on Therapy

this photo is a detail from a 1910 postcard

The relationship with a therapist is not like any other we will ever experience.  She is not a friend,  for friends ask about each other, a two-way street.  She is not a teacher, because she does not tell you how to think or what to do.  She is not a sister, mother, cousin or any one of those sticky relations.  But she is always there.  I suggest she is in your mind, even after you leave her office.  She is there, nodding her head in agreement,  or asking you to take a second look from a different perspective.   She is the one who reinforces who you already are...not so much a guide as a scribe.  Thru her you can hear what you have always been trying to say; a conduit.  She can light the map on the pathway to yourself. 

Don't begin visiting an affective therapist until you are ready to see what you have hidden within yourself.  She will not openly share your pain...she allows you to feel it all on your own.  There is no "I am sorry that you feel this way," but she will keep her kleenex box well stocked.  Waiting in her anteroom is not unlike waiting in the dentist's office.  You know you are not going to be comfortable for the next hour, but you don't run away,  because intuitively you know that this is the way to be healthy.   With your therapist you can grow roots and this growth will go dreadfully deep.