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Psychotherapy helps clients work through pain in a safe setting, says Jean Faugier
SUMMARY
Unlike other 'talking' therapies, psychotherapy centres on transferance. While it can be a painful experience, people feel and function better for it.
Keywords
Insight * Psychotherapy * Transference * Corrective emotional experience * Meaningful interpretation and intervention * Art form * Sense of self
'The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness', according to Dostoevsky. In many ways, that simple truth lies at the heart of psychotherapy.
The stuff of psychotherapy can seem obvious: we look at our friends, family and colleagues who are in psychological pain and crisis and wonder why they cannot see what they need to change.
People start psychotherapy because they are lost or stuck and experiencing thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviours that repeatedly cause pain and unhappiness. Clients often talk about having lost track of something in themselves. They are aware in a profound way that they are unhappy, but have been unable to change the feelings and behaviours that cause their unhappiness.
The aim of psychotherapy is not to tell the patient what to do about these patterns, but to help them to reach their own answers.
Thus psychotherapy is not coaching or counselling; neither is it advice nor unconditional positive regard. Rather, psychotherapy is likened to an art. You could make analogies with...