Individual psychotherapy is the most common form of therapy. We can seek therapy because we wish to solve a particular problem, overcome psychological symptoms (anxiety, panic attacks, emotional difficulties etc.) or to process something we have experienced. Psychotherapy can offer a different perspective on the matters that affect us, it can offer advice pertaining to significant others in our lives and it can be a place where we work on our relationships with others as well as our relationship with ourselves.

 

Individual therapy creates time and space for the client to tell his/her story which is often a highly therapeutic first step in itself given that we live in modern impersonal and indifferent societies. However, the psychotherapist is not merely a passive listener in the “expert’s chair” but he/she is called to contribute to the narrative with comments, questions and interventions that promote the desired therapeutic change.

 

Therapy is always carried out in an atmosphere of safety, trust, confidentiality, honesty, acceptance and warmth; necessary ingredients of a good therapeutic relationship. A skilled and experienced therapist is of course important but it is the quality of the therapeutic relationship itself that will determine whether the client will experience a reconstructive and corrective process. It requires commitment on behalf of the client towards the process and towards him/herself in order to assume the responsibility for the desired change.

 

This could mean that we might have to visit different mental health professionals, to speak with them and discuss their method and to assess the extent in which we could form a good therapeutic relationship with them before we begin therapy. The psychotherapeutic journey is intricate, often difficult but at the same time beautiful – a journey of personal development and metamorphosis.