When It’s Too Hard to Do It Alone

Abstract

If your childhood was particularly hurtful or the hurt went on for a long time, you may need to find professional support. Even if you feel that your family life wasn’t that bad, you are likely to heal and grow more quickly if you reach out for help. You can learn a great deal from other people and apply what has worked for them to yourself and your relationships. You can find positive role models in therapy and in growth groups, and you can get some of the things that you needed that you did not receive as a child.

The therapist can interpret, advise, provide the emotional acceptance and support that nurtures personal growth, and above all, he can listen. I do not mean that he can simply hear the other, but that he will listen actively and purposefully, responding with the instrument of his trade, that is, with the personal vulnerability of his own trembling self.

Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!: The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients