Therapy Is Not Just Talking About Your Problems
A lot of people come to therapy already understanding themselves quite well. They know they overthink. They know they people-please. They know they avoid conflict, stay busy, disconnect, over-function, second-guess themselves, keep relationships going too long, struggle to rest, struggle to feel, struggle to stop feeling.
Insight matters, but insight alone does not always create change. Most of us already have good reasons for being the way we are. The harder part is what happens underneath that understanding: the moments when you realise you are still editing yourself around other people. Still trying to get things "right." Still expecting to be too much, not enough, difficult, weak, needy or disappointing if you fully let yourself be seen.
This is partly why I think therapy works through relationship, not just conversation. Over time, the ways we protect ourselves often begin to appear in the therapy room too. Some people become highly self-aware but emotionally distant. Some apologise constantly. Some worry about taking up space. Some intellectualise everything. Some fear silence. Some feel responsible for how I experience them.
I don't see these things as problems to quickly remove. Rather than trying to force change, I'm more interested in what those ways of coping have been protecting, and whether something different becomes possible when another person is genuinely alongside you, without demanding performance, certainty or perfection.
I work relationally and integratively, drawing from person-centred, psychodynamic and depth-oriented approaches. In practice, this usually means slowing down enough to notice not only what you think and why, but how you have learned to be with yourself, with other people, and in the world around you. Particularly if you have spent a long time feeling you had to be somebody else.
