When You Don't Know Where to Turn / A Self-Diagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy

by Steven J. Bartlett

[[1]] Lewis R. Wolberg, Hypnosis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), p. 238. (In this guide, see Chapter 15, on hypnosis.)

For diverse reasons, many people—even people who are suffering greatly—do not want to change. Their unhappiness, pain, and confusion can serve numerous functions. You may not believe this right now, but from time to time as you read this book, and later in your life, this question may occur to you, if only for a moment: "How may this unresolved problem benefit me?"

The plain truth is that even suffering can confer benefits on us. This is at the root of much of the tragedy of emotional problems that prove to be resistant to treatment. The distressed, despondent, overwrought, and trembling person seated before the therapist may have found a way to gain the attention he was unable to get otherwise. Or perhaps his suffering is a way to lighten a burden of guilt that eventually caused an inner collapse. There are many "benefits," many very good reasons to want not to change but to try anyway.

So, before you begin to seek a specific type of therapy, try to be realistic and keep these thoughts in mind:

1. Specifying clear-cut goals and understanding why you feel troubled are not essential now. Certainly it will be helpful if you can translate vague complaints into concrete problems, to help both your own understanding and eventually your therapist's. The more specific you can be about what is troubling you, what situations especially distress you, and what has motivated you to come to therapy, the easier it will be for you to find help and for the therapist you choose to help you. But in times of crisis, clarity can be very hard to gain, so be patient.

2. If you do have clear-cut goals and a good understanding of yourself now, use these to plan how to proceed, remembering that openness to change will profit you and that, in all likelihood, your initial perceptions of yourself will change as you become involved in therapy.

3. You may, at least now, need your symptoms, however painful they may be. How successful therapy will be for you may have a great deal to do with your willingness to let go of the possible benefits of being troubled, in pain, or disabled.

4. Resist digging ruts for yourself. Try to refrain from locking into a particular course of action until you have given yourself time to consider alternatives. Once you have chosen a direction, if after a reasonable time the therapy and the therapist you have selected do not seem to be helping you, it is essential to try another approach. This is especially difficult once you have invested your time, energy, and money and perhaps have developed a good relationship with your therapist. You may like him or her, feel comfortable and comforted, but if you are not gaining what you want, you have to stop and try again.

5. Finally, have a thorough physical examination before entering therapy, if you have not had one recently. Be truthful and open with your physician. Some emotional and mental problems are produced by underlying physical conditions, many of which can be treated effectively (see Chapter 8).