Will Therapy Fix Me?

Will Therapy Fix Me Allow Me to Embrace All My Parts?

Therein lies the problem, let’s change the language. 

Therapy isn’t magic, but it can lead to small magical moments that add up to a hefty shift in your mindset. If you have a great therapist and you’re a dedicated, willing client, therapy is certainly effective. Therapy isn’t about fixing, it’s about acceptance, confrontation, and change. Clients come in wanting to “fix” themselves, or their therapist to fix them. We’re not in the business of fixing people— because there isn’t anything to fix. You are a collection of parts and ALL of your parts have been necessary to lead you to where you are right now. In fact, you couldn’t have survived without all of your parts working together (+ sometimes against themselves). Internal Family Systems (IFS) gives us a deeper scope of how parts can work together to allow us to reach the core self. The goal of IFS is to come into balance and harmony within the self. We want the core self to call the shots, to have the courage to be an effective leader. So even if you’re not in an IFS style type of therapy, we can still identify where the core self lies. Think about when you feel the most in balance. Then identify a few behaviors that are most common when you’re out of balance.

Here’s an example: 

I feel most in balance when I’m grounded, have moved my body, read parts of a book and engaged in a morning routine. When I feel out of balance, I’m anxious, highly critical of self, and am living in the future instead of the present. All of these “parts” are wanting to have a positive effect on self, but may not be going about it in a way that allows me to come back into balance.

The anxiety wants to protect me from any potential threats, my critical self wants me to be the best version of myself, and my futuristic tendencies want me to have the life I dream of. 

So, instead of beating myself up for these parts surfacing, I thank each of them and acknowledge their acts of service. I encourage you to practice this exercise and ask the question, “what is this behavior trying to teach me or help me with?” It can be extremely difficult to confront yourself in the midst of crisis, so take small steps at a time and think back to situations where you know you weren’t in balance and work from there. 

The biggest learning lesson in therapy is to find acceptance in who you are and make small shifts to become better, in contrast with hating who you are and wanting to change everything about yourself. No one who hates themselves has much motivation for change, right? 

Therapy isn’t going to “fix you”, but it will help you identify the ways in which you’re working against yourself and help you work with yourself to create the best plausible outcome that you’ve envisioned. Your therapist wants you to succeed, we think about you outside of sessions and are continuously rooting for you. Our goal is to help you root for yourself too— all of you.