Changing your emotional template through psychotherapy

We can go through life assuming that other people have similar perceptions and interpretations of what’s happening in the world around us when in fact everyone is living in their own perception of the world and what’s possible.

In some ways, this is very exciting. The variety of intelligence, skills, and opportunities that people experience creates vibrancy in society. Different people perceive some aspects of life as more important than other aspects and commit their lives and their creative energy to those endeavors. Everyone has the task of figuring out how their specific skills fit into the environmental opportunities to which they have access. Goodness of fit facilitates mastery and control and can make work challenging, rewarding, and meaningful. New social movements, inventions, and norms are all the consequences of unique individuals perceiving problems and opportunities in a new way and creatively bringing their ideas into being.

In other ways, the reality of our lives being based on our interpretations can make people feel stuck and even trapped in their world. Work may change, relationships may change, you may even move to a new place. Wherever you go, there you are. You find that the interpersonal dynamics that cause you suffering exist regardless of your life circumstances.

Psychotherapy specifically changes the emotional template that creates the assumptions you have about how relationships will go.

As you enter into the psychotherapy relationship vulnerably and with dependency, you have the chance at a helpful, caring therapeutic working relationship. In addition to the working relationship helping you cope with symptoms that cause you suffering, the relationship itself can change the way you relate to other people.

If your emotional template says that you are worthless and helpless, living within a therapeutic relationship can increase your sense of worthiness and responding effectively to your emotions can increase your efficacy. Sometimes we’ll use cognitive restructuring or cognitive distancing to help you relate to unhelpful and painful thinking patterns more effectively. Oftentimes, talking about what it’s like to be in a safe and secure relationship changes your sense of worthiness naturally.

If your emotional template says that the world is dangerous and you better not trust anyone or you are going to get hurt, being vulnerable in the psychotherapy relationship is a direct challenge to that belief. Challenging that belief isn’t just a matter of changing your thoughts. It’s also an experiential process that is painful at first, but will provide you relief over time.

If your emotional template says that nothing will change and there is no hope, engaging in a psychotherapy process that assumes that you can change is a direct challenge to your hopelessness.

Psychotherapy is helpful because it strives to not only teach you more effective ways to cope with your emotions, but it can also change the way you perceive what’s happening in your world. It can change your outlook, which changes your options.