Tag: on line therapy
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How Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Manifests in Psychotherapy
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is one of the more complex psychological conditions encountered in mental health practice. Although many people associate OCD with repeated handwashing, checking locks or arranging objects in a particular order, these behaviours represent only one part of a much broader psychological picture. OCD exists on a spectrum, varies considerably from one person…
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Why Endings and Separations Can Be Difficult
Every meaningful relationship in life has three stages: a beginning, a middle period, and eventually an ending. Psychotherapy is no different.
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Attachment and Dependency in Psychotherapy
When people begin psychotherapy, they are not simply choosing a treatment. They are also entering a new and potentially important human relationship. The patient may initially be looking for help with anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship difficulties, emotional distress, or other problems affecting everyday life. However, before meaningful therapeutic work can develop, the patient must also…
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Why Patients Sometimes Become Angry With Their Therapist
One of the greatest misconceptions about psychotherapy is that sessions are always calm, thoughtful and emotionally comfortable. In reality, psychotherapy often involves strong emotions, and one of those emotions is anger. Patients sometimes become angry with their psychotherapist, and although this can feel uncomfortable for both people involved, it is not necessarily a sign that…
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Why People Test Their Psychotherapist
One of the most common experiences in psychotherapy is that patients, often without fully realising it, begin to test their psychotherapist. This is a completely natural part of the therapeutic process and, in itself, should not be seen as a sign that something is going wrong. In fact, many experienced psychotherapists expect this to happen…
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When Avoidance Becomes Part of the Problem
One of the most common misconceptions about psychotherapy is that people avoid difficult subjects simply because they do not want to talk about them. While this can sometimes be true, the reality is usually far more complicated. In psychotherapy, avoidance is rarely just a habit. More often, it is a carefully developed way of protecting…
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Why Some People Fear Getting Better
It may sound strange to say that some people fear getting better. After all, most people come to psychotherapy because they want relief. They may be struggling with anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, trauma, stress, emotional pain, or long-standing patterns that have made life difficult for many years. On the surface, they want things to improve.
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Why People Avoid Certain Subjects in Therapy
One of the questions that often arises during psychotherapy is why some patients continue to avoid certain subjects even after they have been attending therapy for weeks, months, or sometimes years. At first glance, this may seem surprising.
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What Resistance in Psychotherapy Actually Looks Like
One of the biggest misconceptions about psychotherapy is that once somebody decides to seek help, they are automatically ready to change. In reality, this is often not the case.
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Why Patients Often Return to the Same Topics Repeatedly
One experience that frequently occurs in psychotherapy is that a patient keeps returning to the same subject again and again. Sometimes this is very obvious. The patient may bring up the same relationship, the same conflict, the same fear, the same loss, the same traumatic event, or the same question in almost every session. At…