It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. And, it usually takes a lot of time to muster up that courage.
But, by the time you ask, you’ve most likely internalized your problems.
Internalizing problems over a long period of time can lead to ‘absorbing’ the problems into our identity, meaning you begin to define yourself by the problems. This not only exacerbates your problems, but it also becomes a malicious adversary in our lives.
When you realize this, it’s time to begin to view problems as being ‘other’ and therefore able to be influenced, challenged, changed, even eradicated.
Therapy can help challenge any preexisting internalization of the problem. That is to say, therapy can be understood, in part, as a process by which the individual can begin to be separated from his/her problematic symptoms.
No matter how educated we may be and intellectually or emotionally sophisticated; in the quiet moments when our problem presents as overwhelming how long until some version of the internal message ‘what is wrong with me?’ enters into our consciousness.
We live in a society that relentlessly facilitates the internalization of our problems; intertwined into the habitual fabric of our lives. Some of us grow up in homes where shameful messages were ever present. ‘Something is wrong’ so often became ‘something is wrong with me’. If our problematic symptoms are indivisible from ourselves then we are condemned to being ‘less than’, ‘broken’, being ‘apart from’.
But this is not true.
- You are NOT your symptoms.
- You are NOT your problems.
- You are NOT your thoughts.
- You are NOT your problems.
Through Narrative Therapy, we can help you externalize the problems and affirm that you are not the problem, rather the problem is the problem.
We are here to help.