Psychotherapy offers a structured environment to explore self-understanding, establish trust, communicate, realize potential, and cultivate serenity and authenticity. Regular sessions in a comfortable, private space fosters this process.

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Safety | Therapy is premised on the absolute requirement that the person in need feels physically and emotionally safe to participate. The patient or client must know that they are free to withdraw their consent or leave at any time, without fear of punishment or retaliation.

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Boundaries |  Therapy operates like a forge, in which interactions with intense emotional ‘heat’ are contained and made safe within strong walls of confidentiality, professionalism, and accountability agreements from both parties. The therapist must agree to uphold their patients’ privacy, physical boundaries, time, and health-oriented goals. The patient is obliged to honor the therapist’s time, fee and invitation to participate. Any other arrangements can and should be discussed together, never assumed.

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Witnessing | Therapy is a unique setting where we can freely articulate inner thoughts without fear of judgment, undercutting the isolation that normally lies between people. Good therapists are deeply curious—and even enthusiastic—about attending to the patients’ experiences. They recognize the privilege of bearing witness to our most private expressions.

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Kindness | Knowing that someone is on our side is designed to help us look at areas of vulnerability we otherwise lack the courage to tackle. The kindness of a strong therapist often provides us the security needed to constructively sort through our clever, bewildering, evasive minds.

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Listening | Therapists employ 'active listening' to validate our thoughts and guide us through the complexity of our minds, helping us better articulate unstructured feelings and ideas.

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Attention to emotions are particularly important, as these internal experiences are in fact very detailed assessments, synthesizing a vast amount of information about ourselves, others and the world at large into largely unverbalized stories and beliefs. A careful, patient and thorough exploration of our emotions can reveal much about our particular motivations, ambitions, wounds and anxieties.

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Interpretation | Therapists help us connect our current issues with those from our past, particularly childhood experiences, and subtly guide us to our own self-discoveries. These connections do not typically read like self-help book formulas, but instead account for the complexity of our unique circumstances. Blunt confrontations with reality are not so common in therapy, as these are less often helpful.

 

Relationship | The therapeutic relationship often starts to resemble our general relational patterns. A good therapist helps us to notice this and adjust our emotionally-driven behaviors, thereby transforming our interactions outside therapy. A therapist may also help us feel that the person we are relating to is just that—a person; who may deeply empathize with—and even relate to—our closest held secrets.

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Faith | Therapists have faith that no matter how dire the situations may seem, the specific problems for which we are seeking help can and will get better with effort, honesty and patience. The therapist sees possibilities that may be invisible to us, when we are deep in suffering.

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Judgment | What therapy provides, in part, is an opportunity to refine the lens through which we view—and judge—ourselves. After hearing the constructive, kindly voice of a skilled therapist often enough, it may feel like our own response in the face of future challenges. Eventually, therapy will reform the very mechanisms of our internal judgment.