The following articles are related to ‘Therapy’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life.
Young children need someone to look at the same things they are looking at to enjoy or understand their own experiences fully. This is a deep need that stays with us for life and perhaps explains something about how therapy works.
Empathy facilitates understanding between counsellors and clients who do not speak the same language. What about online therapy, in which the language is there, without the bodily resonant experience of empathy?
I’ve been privileged to have worked with so many good people, wanting to grow, motivated to learn, willing to self-examine, and appreciative of the understanding and support I might provide.
In a multicultural society, it’s inevitable that counsellors, like everyone else, will come across people whose first or even second language is not English. But if therapist and client are — quite literally — speaking different languages, how can therapeutic work even begin to take place? The answer lies in the gift of empathy.
Buddhism and Taoism have emerged into the mainstream of therapeutic thinking. But Confucianism seems to have been left out, which is a shame, because this ethical and spiritual pillar of the East has much to say about the therapeutic process.
“How do you know when your clients are lying? Their lips are moving!” a mentor once quipped to me. I believe clients’ lies have as much to say about therapists as they do about the people under our care.
Once we have a clear sense of a whole problem there inside our bodies, the time comes to ask it: alright, I hear you, now what is it that you really have to tell me? Where do we go from here?
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