Who goes to therapy and why?

You may be reading this right now curious about “who goes to therapy and why?” The answer to the first part of the question is “everyone.” In the 20 years I have been in this field, I have had clients who were doctors, teachers, children, college students, married mothers, single women, nurses, psychologists, teenagers, police officers, business owners, veterans, married men, single men, and everything in between.

There used to be a huge stigma that only “crazy” people came to therapy but none of my clients were ever insane. They were normal everyday people who had experienced some type of trauma or rough patch in their life and were struggling to find happiness or to reach their goals. I learned a lot by listening to my clients. I learned that everyone has a story, and their story needs to be told. I also noticed that the overwhelming majority of my clients had experienced some type of childhood trauma. Most people think that childhood trauma means either physical or sexual abuse. Although physical and sexual abuse is definitely considered trauma, most people don’t realize there are other types of traumas. Trauma can include growing up poor and not knowing when you are going to eat your next meal. Trauma can also include losing a parent or a loved one to death, prison, or abandonment. Trauma can include having addicts as parents or seeing your parent overdose. Trauma can include witnessing domestic violence, being bullied or ostracized by your peers, or living with a mentally ill parent.  Trauma can even be hearing your parent tell you, “I wish I never had you” or “you will never amount to anything” or “you are just like your father!” In other words, many things can be considered traumatic.

So how do you know if something was traumatic to you? Let me ask you these questions. Do you consider it disturbing or distressing when you think about it?  Do you think about it often? Do you struggle trying to make sense of it?  If you do think about it, do you feel a sense of anxiety, anger, hurt, or sadness? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, there is a good chance you are dealing with an unresolved trauma. If you still are not sure if something was traumatic for you, ask yourself this question; if your child experienced the exact same thing you did, what would you think about that? Would you be okay with that?  If your answer is “Heck no, I would be pissed! I would be angry!” or “I would be sad or devastated!” Then that is a good indicator that it was probably traumatic for you. You might be reading this thinking “yah, but that was in the past, and that happened 30 years ago, I should be over it by now.” However, most people who come to therapy now do so because they have unresolved childhood trauma that still continues to affect their current lives in some way. Just because we get older and our bodies grow up and we get taller, doesn’t mean we still all don’t have that little girl or little boy inside of us who is still dealing with some unresolved hurt.

So how can unresolved trauma affect us in our adulthood? In many ways. For instance, the little boy whose dad left and never came back may develop intense fear or panic in his adult life if his girlfriend or wife threatens to leave him. In this example an unresolved childhood trauma of abandonment can trigger the same feelings of anxiety and panic as an adult when faced with potential abandonment by a spouse or girlfriend. Another example is a little girl who grew up with a lot of yelling in her household. As an adult woman this woman is afraid of confrontation. She may experience anxiety as an adult when people raise their voices because it triggers the little girl inside her who grew up with a lot of yelling in the household. Another example could be a woman in adulthood who doesn’t express her opinion to others and always says “I don’t care” because she was never listened to as a child and no one cared about her wants or needs when she was a child so she learned “my needs don’t matter.” Thus, she never gives her opinions to others as an adult because she learned her needs and wants don’t matter.

So, can we work on or heal something that happened decades ago? Absolutely! The first step is to identify the negative thoughts that you say to yourself. I have included a handout in this article. I encourage you to read the statements on the handout here: Negative Cognitions and check off all the statements that you often tell yourself. Check off as many as apply to you. Then after your done checking off the statements, start at the top and read the first statement you checked off and ask yourself “Where did I get this message? Who taught me this message?” Continue asking yourself those same questions for every statement you checked off. The goal of this exercise is not to find someone to “blame” for the messages you received, but instead to find areas where unresolved hurt is that is in need of healing with the aid of a competent, licensed therapist.

You are probably wondering “well how is therapy going to help me do that?” I am glad you asked. What we learn can be unlearned. In other words, the negative messages we tell ourselves can be challenged and processed out and replaced automatically with positive messages that we ACTUALLY BELIEVE. Will it happen overnight? No. However, there are some evidence based treatment techniques such as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and other treatment modalities that can help you heal that little boy or little girl from that hurt that he/she has been caring all these years that continues to affect her/him in his/her current adult life. If you are ready to heal from the past and work toward a happier, brighter future, contact us today to get set up with one of our licensed therapists. To learn more about EMDR watch our quick video EMDR Therapy or contact us to schedule a therapy appointment.

This article was written by Licensed Professional Counselor/Masters Level Psychologist, Karen Alvarez. To read more about Karen Alvarez or to schedule an appointment with her, click the link here Karen Alvarez, LPC, LLP