v
Expect a good
therapist to challenge you about your role in your problems.
v Learn new skills and practice them away from therapy. It's helpful to have a therapist who sometimes
gets impatient with you, who sees in you the ability to do things better.
v
Learn the skills
to be happy--how to laugh, play, work and to take pleasure in other people and the workings of your body and mind.
v
Don't expect
drugs to do all the work. Drugs may help to alleviate some of your symptoms but not the thought and behavior patterns that
got you and are maintaining you in a destructive cycle.
v Therapy is not all about your feelings and how they impede you. The goal of therapy is to make
you more comfortable with your feelings while discouraging you from acting on them in a destructive manner.
v It is important not to stop therapy when you experience conflict. Working it through will be
helpful. The patient-therapist relationship represents the nature of all other relationships you have, so learning to resolve
problems in a therapeutic setting provides you with skills that are invaluable.
Learning how to connect despite difficulties is healing. Human
beings wither when they are not connected with others in some meaningful way. When you are able to develop that connection
with a therapist, you create a trust that enables you to feel safe enough to explore your vulnerabilities.
Expect a therapist to challenge your views and to make you work.
Therapy is a form of re-education in a supportive partnership to help you resolve the problems causing you the most pain.
