What Factors Cause Meaningful Changes in Psychotherapy?

         I would say most people entering therapy hope to change things about themselves or the way they see situations in order to feel happier and more productive. But what really causes those inner changes through the therapeutic process? The most important in my opinion is the client's ability to be honest with themselves. The purpose of therapy is not for the therapist to back up all your perceptions of yourself and your relationships, rather it is to identify unconscious patterns that are self-sabotaging and that cause you to find yourself with the same type of problematic relationships and situations repetitively.

    You are the common denominator of all your relationships. The human mind can justify all sorts of things and compose theories to fit the narrative they want to believe. Therapy is a challenge to you to examine and investigate your own thoughts and feelings, to take accountability for situations in your life and to see what role you are playing in sustaining them. It is not the world's responsibility to avoid triggering you, it is your responsibility to empower yourself and work on your triggers so the power to affect your mood does not stay in someone else's hands. You can't change the way other people feel about you or make someone feel or act a certain way towards you. People will form their own judgements as the relationship progresses.

     When you look into the world and think that people always feel a certain way about you, this is very likely something within yourself that you project outwards. A common one is jealousy; sometimes this is used as a defense mechanism by people who are not likeable (believing everyone is jealous of them) so that they do not have to do the inner work to change what it is about themselves that causes people not to want to be friends with them. They may be aggressive, selfish, domineering, or critical, yet think others are are mistreating them when they try to defend themselves. They may enjoy giving other people negative feedback but be unable to receive the same in return. They may have high expectations of other people but not realize that to have these fulfilled they also have to fulfill the other person's expectations of them. As a result they find themselves lonely and isolated, never able to form long-lasting and healthy relationships and justify this by blaming others for being jealous. You can keep blaming other people but at the end of the day there is no one with whom to share an intimate and trusting bond with.

    As a therapist, I can validate the way you feel about something or someone, even if I don't agree with it, because that is the way you feel. However, the objective reality based on facts may be different than what an individual feels and this may be a source of their interpersonal problems. I ensure to point this out these discrepancies as well. Sometimes people will project the same feelings they have with people in their life onto their therapist and these are great learning opportunities to point out self-sabotaging patterns, if the client is open to hearing them. It is not the therapist's responsibility to change you, it is your responsibility to be honest with yourself in order to drive the change you seek.