Therapy Talk Helps You Heal

It helps to talk. I don't mean just any talk. There's jibber-jabbering talk about trivial stuff that means nothing to anybody. It's jaw-flapping, a waste of time and energy. It goes nowhere and has no positive effect. And then there's another talking. It's heartfelt and meaningful. It comes out of concern, anxiety, and often much pain. It can also come from simply wanting to relate, speak, listen, and connect with another human being.

Genuine connection with people and self matters. Few are those who get there. After forty years of doing depth psychotherapy, treating the root of the problem and not just the symptom, I've seen that many folks do not truly connect with others. Symptoms of anxiety and depression, by and large, stem from people problems. Damaged bonds from childhood can disable our bonding ability with others and self. We can't connect in satisfying ways with others or be content with self. The answer to many of our psychic issues is discovering lasting connections.

Therapy talk helps you feel connected with self and others and satisfied with who you are and how you live. It happens when you go to a professional therapist and strike chords of sincerity and truthfulness. Therapy comes from the Greek word therapeia. It means healing. There's healing because things are honest, in the moment, and heart-to-heart. It's real talk. It can be soft or intense. It can be tender or firm. What matters is that it's two people emotionally touching. There are moments of clarity, emotional getting it, and relief in that psychological closeness. It's a healing and satisfying experience.

The article “Going Beneath the Surface: What People Want from Therapy” in the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry states that people do not want quick-fix answers for psychological pain. Instead, they are willing to work hard over time to unearth the root of the problem. The article explores how therapy is a worthwhile investment in one's life and worth making. I would also add it is not only professional therapy that helps people root things out. When we hang in with relationships through thick and thin, as long as each person is working hard and is honest and engaged, there is hope for healing and growth. A colleague, still doing therapy after fifty years, once remarked, "If we just stick with it, change happens."

So, therapy talk helps you work life stuff through. Honest and sensitive everyday talk with those who matter to us also helps us feel better and heal. In the end, staying with the relationship conflict or personal pain and talking with another person who gets us, who understands, sets relief and healing in motion. All talk is therapeutic if it's based on felt truthfulness and understanding. And professional therapy talk intensifies the working through process. Therapy talk is talk that connects, understands, and heals.