...a Great Therapist. Or There Should Be!
By UB's Joyce Marter:
One of my clients has over the years referred more than 10 friends and colleagues to Urban Balance. She once said to me that the reason she was able to refer so many people to UB was that people asked her how she did it - how was she so successful in her professional and personal life?
She was kind enough to say that she believed it was due to the work she had done in therapy. She said she believes that therapy is not reserved for people who are “crazy or in crisis,” but rather therapy is something that can help all of us become our best selves. She said, “Behind every successful person is a great therapist---or there should be.”
This perspective is congruent with the mission of Urban Balance. UB aims to destigmatize counseling and psychotherapy. We believe we are all hard wired to respond to stress with either anxiety, depression, addiction, or relationship issues. It is part of the human condition. Therapy is a process that can alleviate symptoms and help people self-actualize and move forward in their lives.
Therapy is a safe and confidential place where you can explore your thoughts and feelings with a professional who can give you unbiased feedback, support, and guidance. Part of the beauty of therapy is that you don't have to deal with your therapist and his or her issues. The relationship is about you and your needs. The therapeutic relationship can be one of the most emotionally intimate and powerful relationships there is. Therapy is a place to get your authentic self mirrored back to you and to make connections with the patterns we all tend to recreate until we become more conscious. Therapy can help with self esteem, identity, coping skills, communications skills, conflict management, stress management, developing a life vision that is congruent with your authentic self.
Contrary to popular misconception, therapy is not about blaming your parents or focusing on the past and on what went wrong. Rather, it is an opportunity to honor your emotional experience and gain insight and understanding as to how it shaped and molded you, and how you are unconsciously recreating past dynamics in current relationships at home and at work Therapy is about acceptance, celebrating strengths and moving forward in your life to be the person you dreamed you would be.
As part of clinical training, therapists are encouraged to seek their own personal therapy. The good therapists are the ones that are working on their own issues to the best of their ability and mindfully helping others to address theirs and move forward in their lives. This is the model for the staff of UB.
Perhaps if we all work on our “stuff” through therapy, generations to come will heal and grow and develop to be more conscious, evolved, loving and good and the suffering that many experience through depression, anxiety, addiction and trauma will lesson and dissipate over time. Certainly, that is what we would want for our children and generations to come.