I am on a search to find a psychotherapist. I’ve been curious about psychotherapy ever since reading Carl Jung, but what really put me over the fence was reading Carl Roger’s On becoming a person. I found the book by accident, a friend shared an excerpt on Facebook, and I resonated with it deeply, so I bought the book (I guess Facebook is useful sometimes after all).
Carl Rogers strongly believes that psychotherapy is for everyone, and it is an important process to becoming:
“When a person has, throughout therapy, experienced in this fashion all the emotions which organismically arise in him, and has experienced them in this knowing and open manner, then he has experienced himself, in all the richness that exists within himself. He has become what he is.”
and a longer version of how a genuine relationship with a therapist can benefit:
“If I can create a relationship characterized on my part: by a genuineness and transparency, in which I am my real feelings; by a warm acceptance of and prizing of the other person as a separate individual; by a sensitive ability to see his world and himself as he sees them; Then the other individual in the relationship: will experience and understand aspects of himself which previously he has repressed; will find himself becoming better integrated, more able to function effectively; will become more similar to the person he would like to be; will be more self-directing and self-confident; will become more of a person, more unique and more self-expressive; will be more understanding, more acceptant of others; will be able to cope with the problems of life more adequately and more comfortably.”
I was blown away when I first read the book. I have never thought of therapy on such terms before. I thought of therapy as problem-solving (or in other words, fixing), not considering how rare it is to be with another person who is capable of mirroring without judgement or noise: who we are and who we can be, back to us. Sometimes what we need is not fixing or improvement, but the liberation of being discovered, accepted and received.
Perhaps I’ll share more about my process and journey in the next few posts.