Musing on the very concept of “sessions” for therapeutic benefit: It is my observation (and that of some others) that much, if not all issues needing to be addressed are a matter of bringing about the client’s fully experiencing and digesting that which they tend to resist within the self, because it involves some type of pain. Often, we need to have someone we find appropriate to work with us, to help guide and accompany us through that process, and we often turn to an “auditor”, or “therapist”, “councilor”, etc for that assistance.
Why can’t or don’t we just work through a friend or family member? Why can’t or won’t they be right for that? I think there might be one simple root reason, and it is also the reason why sometimes the “auditor”/”therapist”/”councilor” doesn’t work out.
The person who would take on that role, or is asked or required to take on that role sometimes has something within himself (or herself) that resonates with the distress that the person in need is emanating (which needn’t be an issue, in fact it can lead to, or be, empathy), and that person mistakenly acts to resist accepting and experiencing that energy, and goes down the bad road of “trying to do something about” that distress.
Understand this aspect: When one person appears to be resisting the energy of another, what they are actually resisting is the experiencing of that energy of their own that resonates with the other person’s energy. We aren’t actually resisting something about others, we are resisting something about ourselves.
Emotional “charge” is not resolved through reacting, it is resolved through being fully accepted, experienced and digested. Friends or family members may tend to react in some way, involving some form of withdrawing or resisting, offering “solutions”, philosophical platitudes, medical or other well-meaning advice, and simply demonstrating that one cares enough to try to help in some way is not without some therapeutic value, certainly.
But what resolves that energy is being there along with it, fully accepting, not resisting or reacting, not injecting any effort at all, with sufficient love and interest to invite it, and the person himself (or herself) to be fully exposed and accepted to be completely digested and experienced.
There can be an infinite variety “systems” and “methods” to help this process along, but these will only be effective to the extent that the above is present.
Love, Dex