For people to heal, they need someone there with them. A good therapist will provide a save space to attune to the person and their emotions. Therapists cannot take the pain away but they can be there with the person in the pain, because relationship and presence are the needed ingredients for healing. Therapists cannot rescue people from their pain and sadness, but they can offer to walk beside the person as a fellow human being. Therapy is meant to be a place of grace, a place where people are accepted as they are for the sake of who they may become.
Therapy is about understanding what makes you YOU, your true self. The false self we often try to protect is made up of what we have, what we do, and what people think of us, but that false self is constructed out of false attachments. Therapy is about getting to the core of who you are, not just that image you want to protect or the mask you want to put on. Healing comes from just sitting in the presence of a person attuning to you and desiring to know the real and authentic you. And hopefully, you start to experience that in other relationships as well.
By Carmen Eby LPCA, Trauma-informed