The Four Pillars of Therapy
The purpose of these notes is to give my clients and others who may be interested in seeking psychotherapy some idea of what therapy is about.
I will try to describe the therapy process by exploring the four pillars that form the essential therapy structure. This is a template to follow as an outline to guid us through the therapeutic process. The four pillarsare: Becoming more Selfish. Resolving the ambivalence. Getting permission and Rehearsal and practice of new behaviors.
Becoming more selfish:
Therapy helps clients take care of themselves. Firstly by getting them in touch with their needs and secondly, by teaching them to verbalize their needs to others. Being more selfish is very conflictive for people because they have grown up believing that being selfish is against the moral values of society.
Being more selfish means that one learns how to take care of their bodies and emotions. It is about living a balanced lifestyle. “Self care” is an important skill that is emphasized in therapy. These skills include improving one’s diet, cessation of intake of toxic chemicals (alcohol, opioids, marijuana, nicotine), regular exercise, social interaction, “pro-social behaviors”, good use of leisure time, etc.
When we are focused on our needs, we are able to live healthy and take good care of ourselves. When being “ego-centric” we are more interested in what others think of us. We try to make a good impression on others. We are more interested in what others value rather than our own.
Being selfish also means having a positive relationship with oneself. It is about knowing oneself, to know our strengths and our weaknesses. It involves reflecting on the meaning of one’s life. It requires that we spend time on a daily basis in solitude, reflecting on the meaning of our life.
Being more selfish involves expanding what we consider are the parts of our self. We should include our community, the air we breath, the natural environment and the wellbeing of others as part of ourselves. To not include what makes us live is against our own nature.
Therapy makes us aware of our emotional and psychological needs such as belonging, self esteem and self actualization. If these needs are not met, we are not going to feel truly happy. In order to have these needs met, we need to first recognize that we have them. Then we need to name them and be able to create an environment that can fulfillour needs.
Our family our learning ground,It’s where we learn what our needs are and learn to feel worthy when we have them met. If we learn to feel unwanted or unworthy to deserve good things for ourselves, then we are not going to be able to create a world that makes us feel fulfilled.
An important aspect of becoming selfish is having Self-acceptance and Self-compassion. Often people who come to therapy find themselves struggling to feel good about themselves and don’t feel worthy. They are full of self loathing.
Another way therapy helps people to strengthen their self concept is by working on sub-personalities. These are parts of ourselves that get disowned or split off due to inner conflicts. In therapy, we work to recognize them and to accept them as they are and to reintegrate them to the personality in a positive way.
A person tends to identify with their ego or persona rather than their “true self”. As they journey deeper into themselves, they are able to discover facets about themselves that hold more meaning and purpose than superficial qualities that are fed by the media in an effort to make us better consumers. Being selfish means making contact with a deeper Self that can be called the “authentic” self. We can say this is a spiritual dimension our personality.