30/01/2026
Have you ever wondered what therapy even is?! 🤔🤷🏻♀️🤷♂️
Strap in - it’s a long one!! 😄
There are lots of common misconceptions about therapy - and therapists! One of which is that we just ‘sit and listen’. This is so far from the truth!! 🙈
Of course we listen, but there is rather a lot more to it than that, otherwise we wouldn’t need all those years of training would we!
I want to break down what therapy means to me:
Therapy is so much more than simply supporting someone with their mental health. That’s really just the generic catch-all phrase that we use.
It’s also helping them to break out of unhealthy, often toxic or abusive dynamics that have affected their sense of self; destroyed their confidence and obliterated their self-esteem.
It’s helping them to reclaim their own identity and develop a belief in themselves that they are worthy of love, care and consideration for being exactly who they are.
It’s helping them to live with purpose and feel safe and confident to be authentic without apology.
It’s hearing someone’s story, and validating their experience. It’s holding their pain so they don’t have to hold it alone.
It’s reassuring them that they aren’t broken or going mad.
It’s being a lighthouse in the storm for them with things feel turbulent and out of control.
Helping them to navigate the waves and make it to shore safely.
It’s helping them to look at the beliefs they hold about themselves and question if those beliefs are really theirs or someone else’s.
And if they do belong to them, are they still helpful and valid or are they causing them to stay stuck, small, anxious and afraid?
It’s making people feel seen. It’s making them feel held and understood. It’s making them feel cared for; that they matter to someone.
It’s helping them to recognise that they were never the problem. They are reacting to the difficult, painful, abusive, traumatic things that have happened to them.
They are not broken. They don’t have a mental health condition at all. They are not a set of labels that the medical model of psychiatry and psychology has decided they have.
They are a human being reacting to the conditions they find themself in, with the programming and conditioning they had growing up and the tools and resources that they had available to them at the time.
It’s teaching people a different perspective. It’s encouraging a growth and self-compassionate mindset.
It’s passing on my knowledge, skills, experience and understanding of helpful tools and resources to help people grow and build resilience all while being themselves.
It’s that and so much more. I could write an essay on all the ways therapy can help people.
Ultimately, therapy is a chance to grow.
It’s a chance to change things for the better.
It’s not the therapy alone that is somehow going to magically make everything better. The person coming to therapy has to be an active participant in that change.
But I’ve witnessed some pretty miraculous things over the years when it comes to human struggle and thriving after adversity. 💫
People never cease to amaze me for the strength they can unearth when they’re willing to do the work.
My hope is that with this post I might have challenged some of the misconceptions about therapy and made even just one person think differently about it and its benefits.
If you want to experience all of those things and more with me, I’d love to hear from you. I have spaces with no waiting list and would love to support you on your healing journey.
📧 hello@therapywithjanine.co.uk
Have a lovely weekend,
With love,
Janine x
