Are You on Your Mobile Phone? Click here for 2800+ mobile optimized, self help and self growth articles.

Does Psychotherapy Work?

By Dr. Margaret Paul
September 21, 2009



Discover what kind of psychotherapy or counseling works and what doesn't, so you can stop wasting your time and money on what does not work.



Inner Bonding Facilitation Many years ago, when I became a psychotherapist, all I knew was the traditional psychotherapy that I had learned in school, and that I had personally experienced with many different therapists and many different forms of therapy. For 17 years I practiced what I had learned, and I was never happy with the results.

I saw that people often felt better for the moment, or resolved a particular issue, but that when new issues came up, they didn't have a process for dealing with them. In all the years of my own therapy, I had never learned a process either - a process for loving myself and taking responsibility for my own feelings and needs. In fact, taking responsibility for my feelings was never a part of any of the therapies I had experienced. I had learned to express my feelings - which often turned out to be a form of control - but not how I was creating my own feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, hurt, guilt and shame.

I no longer practice traditional psychotherapy because, in my experience, it doesn't work. For the past 37 years I have worked with clients with the Inner Bonding process. In fact, I have many psychotherapists in my practice learning this process, because they are discouraged with the results of traditional psychotherapy in their work and in their own lives.
 

What Works and What Doesn't Work

So, does psychotherapy work? It does if what you are learning about is how to connect with your own feelings and take responsibility for them; how to discover the false beliefs that are creating your painful feelings; and how to connect with a personal source of spiritual guidance that teaches you the truth and the loving action toward yourself. It works when you are willing to learn to take loving action on your own behalf and share your love with others. It works when you are willing to stop blaming the past, your parents, your partner, society, events, or God for your suffering and learn that you are the cause of much of your own suffering. It works when you are willing to stop seeing yourself as a victim of others and circumstances and learn to be loving to yourself.

What does not work is spending years analyzing the past. While the past shaped our beliefs and our wounded self, and it is important to understand where we learned what we learned, dwelling on it is a waste of time. In my experience, if we stay current with discovering the false beliefs and self-abandoning behavior that cause our painful feelings, the past will become illuminated. When we realize, for example, that we spend much time and energy judging ourselves, it is easy to go into the past to see where we learned this. Did one or both of your parents judge you? Did they judge themselves? What was the role modeling you grew up with? Did either of your parents take responsibility for their feelings, or were they victims, blaming each other or you or others for their misery? It is not hard to learn about the past when we are willing to examine our current choices and behavior toward ourselves and others.
 

Your Spiritual Connection

Psychotherapy that does not include developing a spiritual connection does not work. Our spiritual connection is the Source we need to turn to for wisdom and comfort. In order to deal lovingly with the challenges of life, we need to know that we are not alone, and that we always have our higher guidance to turn to for the truth and loving action toward ourselves and others.

True healing is about learning how to take responsibility for our own feelings and needs. It is about moving out of self-abandonment and emotional dependency and into emotional freedom. When you find a therapist, facilitator or coach who helps you to do this, then you will receive great benefit.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."



Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND


Send this article to a friend    Print this article    Bookmarked 7 time(s)
Bookmark and Share    Share with Del.icio.us    submit 'Does Psychotherapy Work?' to digg Share with Digg    Share with StumbleUpon
There are no videos, Click to add one to the gallery!
There is no audio, Click to add audio to the gallery!
There are no pictures, Click to add one to the gallery!

Comments


More Help

Looking for help with Does Psychotherapy Work??

Search for solutions on Does Psychotherapy Work? within the InnerBonding.com website using Google's Site Search.




 
 



Daily Inspiration

Today, notice the funny side of things. Let go of taking things so seriously and laugh at the absurdities of life. Lighten up with laughter. Laughter heals and enlightens body and soul. Today, open to the gift of laughter and create the lightness of being that opens you to Spirit.

By






Explore More Inner Bonding

 

DAILY INSPIRATION

Today, notice the funny side of things. Let go of taking things so seriously and laugh at the absurdities of life. Lighten up with laughter. Laughter heals and enlightens body and soul. Today, open to the gift of laughter and create the lightness of being that opens you to Spirit.

By

INNER BONDING EVENTS

Inner Bonding Events

03/19/2025 08:00 AM
5-Day Virtual Intensive
Dr. Margaret Paul

All Inner Bonding Events