Psychotherapy is, first and foremost, a method\/process of treatment for adverse conditions, difficulties and problems of a mental, emotional and psychosocial nature. People often seek help driven by worrying symptoms and\/or crisis situations (such as depression, anxiety, loss of self-esteem or interpersonal conflicts). Thus, psychotherapy aims to provide a deeper understanding of difficulties, suffering and the context in which they arise, as well as their resolution (or acceptance of what we cannot change, in order to deal with these conditions with less suffering).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This resolution involves developing more adaptive responses to the vicissitudes of life that triggered the crisis (as Einstein states, we cannot solve problems with the same solutions that created them); it also assumes the development of a more adaptive range of responses to future life situations, taking advantage of current difficulties to promote learning and development, useful for other eventualities, in order to avoid dependence on professional help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since life is multidimensional, multifaceted, unpredictable and diverse, this resolution implies the development of greater flexibility and adaptability, the ability to find diverse solutions, as well as a varied and articulated defense system. This presupposes emerging in openness to discovery, to the new, to (re)inventing oneself, to experience, to challenge and to the creativity that is constantly renewed and renewing the plot of life, so that it is not just a woven life. Although psychotherapy emerges as a response to problems and psychopathology, its purpose is broader and more comprehensive since it is closely linked to mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mental health is not merely the absence of disease\/symptoms; it concerns the entirety of the human being, all dimensions of his or her life, including self-realization and the capacity to produce within society; it ultimately implies an existence with personal meaning, well-being with oneself and in relation to others. This demand for satisfaction and a life with meaning can be observed in today's society, which offers a wide range of choices and opportunities dedicated to well-being, such as sports, yoga and spas. In this regard, it is also worth highlighting all the opportunities for travel, providing the most varied cultural and leisure experiences in any part of the world. Today, we can enjoy all these possibilities according to our choices and preferences, since we live in a society that values \u200b\u200band encourages development and progress, with personal enrichment in the multiple dimensions of existence being an epitome of the contemporary cosmopolitan Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this context, psychotherapy stands out as a process of personal development, not only as a method of treatment in crisis situations. We can enjoy all the advantages of evolution, the most sophisticated resources, we can travel, do sports, have a healthy diet, but if we are unable to understand and transform our internal\/emotional world, we will not have a good quality of life and may even become ill. We can have a dream home and live unhappily in it. Psychotherapy therefore aims to (re)build our inner home, which we want with solid foundations and wide windows. It is a reconstruction of the self and of the self with others, since human beings are social and relational beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the broad purpose of psychotherapy, it implies a deepening of self-knowledge; only this makes it possible to resolve symptoms and problems in an enlightened manner, as well as to promote development. This broad and profound awareness of oneself and one's history, in which unconscious patterns and processes become conscious so that they can be transformed and become more malleable, can only occur in a relationship of trust, in which existence can be thought of as a couple. Psychotherapy is, therefore, a meeting between two specialists \u2013 the patient, an expert in himself, in his own life, and the therapist, an expert in mental processes, but also endowed with his personality, with the human sensitivity that enables the bond and security necessary to explore the most difficult and challenging intricacies of the unconscious. Therefore, in addition to the essential technical and scientific knowledge, sensitivity and personal style are important, the relationship that is (co)constructed \u2013 therapy is a union of science and art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In poetic synthesis, we think of psychotherapy as a meeting place where, in safety, a comprehensive and transformative relationship can be developed and built, where it is possible to (trust) a journey through the inner world, through personal history, (re)discovering and integrating the different parts of oneself... Traveling to such depths is also cultivating the ability to dream and play, reinventing the Self, discovering the creative and creative potential that lies within us, and which, continually nourished in the new relationship, dreamed of and understood in it, is replanted and expanded. In this encounter, marked by unconditional acceptance and understanding, the possibility of a more authentic expression and sharing of the totality of the being arises, becoming freer to (re)know oneself and to relate genuinely, freer to find oneself and, in the encounter with oneself, to find the other as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daniel Figueiredo<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Psic\u00f3logo cl\u00ednico, Psicoterapeuta, Membro da SPPC<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"