Here’s how I see it:
We live in a world of drastic change, for better and for worse. Over the millennia, centuries, decades, the pace of change has been accelerating. “Every generation throws a hero up the pop chart,” Paul Simon wrote, and a generation, in popular music, is now only about 5 years.
Most people throughout most of human history lived in relatively small villages or groups in which they knew everyone, and everyone knew them, from birth to death. Today, it’s a very different world, and it’s becoming an even more different one. How we understand ourselves and others, how we understand and communicate our needs and experiences, how we make and keep (or don’t keep) relationships, how we find our economic way in the world, how we understand the meaning of our lives and how we seek to achieve our purposes, are all profoundly influenced by this world.
Yet we are also creatures of our biology; both the biology of our species and the biology of our individual bodies. We emerge into this world out of the long trek of human evolution, yet each of us is born with our own distinctive temperament and dispositional tendencies. As neuroscientist Gerald Edelman said, “Every brain is unique in the history of the universe.” To which I would add, “at every moment.”
Creativity, adaptability, compassion, love, the motivation to know and achieve; the instincts (not always well developed) for truth and justice; resilience, the ability to rebound, reinvent, start over; and the potential to learn through awareness of our inner selves, of others, and of life around us, are among the resources we can draw on. Being stuck in habit patterns of thinking, feeling, perceiving, reacting, believing what we’ve been told to believe instead of what is true, trying to relate and communicate but not succeeding, trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools; these are what bring us to seek psychological help.
Sometimes the stresses of our lives produce symptoms like anxiety, depression, unstable moods, inability to relax, inability to self-regulate our emotions, all the categories of the DSM-5. Eating disorders, sleeping disorders, thought disorders (psychotic episodes), addictions of various kinds, all kinds of mental suffering and misery, can all result. In many cases, we can learn to improve or resolve these disorders with our own mental resources and the process of therapy, without necessarily needing medication. In other cases, medication can be an important part of getting better; sometimes on a long-term basis, sometimes until the crisis has passed and we can take over on our own.
Each person is unique, each situation needs to be understood and treated in its own terms, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all therapy.
Conversation, relationship, and psychological skills training are what I have to offer. It can mean a lot to have our experience understood by our therapist, counselor, or consultant. That, in itself, can lift depression, inspire hope, and bring a sense of direction. Increasing our awareness or mindfulness of self and others is the basis for improving our ability to manage our lives. But it’s not always smooth or easy; my song, “I Must Be Getting Better ‘Cause I Think I’m Getting Worse,” refers to this.
(www.elephantinthedark.com)