Under the surface

So I'm back in school now- yay! I'm actually excited, believe it or not. I want to get done and start working with real people as soon as possible. Even though that's a year away (sigh). Anyway, I wanted to share the therapeutic process with you. You might have wondered, how do therapists talk to someone and find out what's bothering them? It's easy to look at a sad person and think, "they must be depressed." But why? We therapists are trained to look for what's really going on, or what we call the "underlying issue." It's like when your mom or boyfriend is angry at you. They might avoid your call, be quiet more, avoid giving you hugs or kisses. Those are symptoms of their frustration. What's really going on is that they're upset that you forgot their birthday, for example. But often it's hard for people to verbalize what's really bothering them, so it comes out in little ways. Mental illness is another matter entirely, but it's similar in the respect that things are often not as they seem. People have many layers, and beneath the surface is where the truth lies. It's just often hard to get there. We break up, run away, move away, and cheat because of a million reasons, one of which is fear. You're scared of falling in love, of being vulnerable, and of getting hurt. Why? Because of issues you might not even be aware of. You have a bad relationship with your father because he was never around- that could be why you always sabotage your relationships before they get too serious. Our lives are linked like this. Things that happened 20 years ago reflect who we are today. The one thing we can never run from, is our past. For better or worse, it's part of who we are.