WHEN SHOULD YOU GO TO THE PSYCHOLOGIST?

PSYCHOTHERAPY, WHY?

On one occasion a man told me: “I'm going to bring my grandson to you so you can change him.” I was thoughtful... How could I change it? The grandson in question turned out to be a 25-year-old man, who had shown no interest in changing and, consequently, it never occurred to him to go to therapy.

Many people are wary of going to therapy for fear of what change means. We can change many things, our eating habits, daily customs, lifestyles, hobbies, but what we are afraid to change is ourselves.

What does it mean to change us? Popularly people tend to resort to that proverb that says: “Genius and figure until the grave.” Obviously it is not about changing our essence, but perhaps those ways of thinking, feeling, reacting that lead us to suffer existential discomfort.

The changes that arise from therapy affect, therefore, the way of facing situations and not the essence of the person. It's about changing the ways of doing things and approaching life, but without ceasing to be ourselves. That's the challenge.

My origins, the place where I was born, the circumstances experienced, the factual conditions: genetic endowment, age, biographical history, family and historical context; They are aspects that I cannot change and that impose a framework on me that I can only accept. Reflect on what we can change and what we must accept, asking ourselves what may be preventing us from doing things differently: Loyalty to the family or partner? Guilt? Fear? Emotional dependence? The important thing is not the things that happen to us, but how we face them. It rains, it rains for everyone, but what do I do when it happens: Do I open the umbrella and run out to take shelter? Or, on the contrary, do I raise my hands towards the sky and while I get soaked, lament and say: “My God, why do you allow me to get wet?”, or do I exclaim: “How wonderful!” while I sing ecstatically in the rain.

The goal of psychotherapy is not to avoid suffering or the discomforts of life, but to learn from the experience. We can understand existential crises as an opportunity for personal development towards greater autonomy. This is the change we can aspire to if we take as our goal the motto of William Ernest Henley, as formulated in his poem Invictus: “I am the captain of my soul; "the owner of my destiny"