A psychotherapist's reflection on his own experience as a psychotherapy client
"All I do when I talk is say whatever comes to me about the matter I'm concerned with -- what it feels like and how blocked I feel and whatever else comes to mind about it. And the person I'm talking with just helps me say it all out and avoids advising, criticizing, or getting in my way.
"At this point, an interesting thing begins to happen. As I open myself inside so that I say whatever comes to mind, all sorts of new perspectives open up also. What seemed a hopeless situation gradually comes to have other possibilities. Some of these "solutions" are impossible; some are very real but not available to me right now; and some -- suddenly I realize -- really are on target. Yet, something strange has been happening to that target, to the matter that seemed so big and firm and unyielding; it is undergoing a change . . . .
"All along, a part of what's been happening is . . . an implicit awareness of myself in relation to the choices I face. When the process goes well, that awareness changes somehow. I think of myself differently, or feel my presence and possibilities differently, or know something new, or remember something I'd forgotten about myself.
“Although this description may sound very vague and pretty mystical, I can't reduce it to terms that would be acceptable to most of the psychology I learned in graduate school. One thing I know, though, is that what eventually comes out of me is more than was put in . . . . Something has been created."
"At this point, an interesting thing begins to happen. As I open myself inside so that I say whatever comes to mind, all sorts of new perspectives open up also. What seemed a hopeless situation gradually comes to have other possibilities. Some of these "solutions" are impossible; some are very real but not available to me right now; and some -- suddenly I realize -- really are on target. Yet, something strange has been happening to that target, to the matter that seemed so big and firm and unyielding; it is undergoing a change . . . .
"All along, a part of what's been happening is . . . an implicit awareness of myself in relation to the choices I face. When the process goes well, that awareness changes somehow. I think of myself differently, or feel my presence and possibilities differently, or know something new, or remember something I'd forgotten about myself.
“Although this description may sound very vague and pretty mystical, I can't reduce it to terms that would be acceptable to most of the psychology I learned in graduate school. One thing I know, though, is that what eventually comes out of me is more than was put in . . . . Something has been created."
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-- J. F. T. Bugental
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