Here at Counselling Connections this week our discussion was about not being here. Everyone who works as a therapist undergoes their own therapy. It is a core part of any training programme and it serves the therapist well in their work. In our practice we like to avail of our experience of our own personal therapies to continually keep in mind what the experience of coming to therapy is like. And even what it is like not to come at all. Because this week when we sat down to talk we drifted onto the subject of those days when you really don’t feel like going to therapy. You just don’t want to go there at all.

There was general agreement that an important part of getting past any reluctance to attend is to discover the reasons why you feel like avoiding therapy in the first place. Sometimes these things are difficult to put words on and instead of being openly discussed they get played out. What can happen is that we can cancel sessions at short notice or find any number of reasons to skip a week here and there. This all adds up to a playing out in our attendance or lack of it some inner fear about going to therapy. Things that are difficult to put words on are sort of a specialty of ours here and we find that if this fear can be gently and respectfully explored it can be overcome.

We feel that it is important not merely to try to overcome a resistance but rather in the first instance to respect it. What we are paying respect to in this regard are the very real reasons why that resistance might be there at all and where we might have learned it from. There may well be very good reasons why we feel resistant about something. These defences which we have built up over the course of our lives are in place in order to protect some vulnerability in us. We are firmly of the view that they ought to be treated sympathetically. At the same time we will make no progress if they are not faced in one way or another.

We might want to avoid therapy because we feel reluctant to face something painful from our past. Even though we might feel on one level that to work through this could be beneficial we may still fear that to bring it up may leave us feeling overwhelmed. We may have feelings of guilt, shame or regret and it would be natural to feel a temptation to avoid experiencing these again. Sometimes a good first step is to be able to say out loud that there is something difficult that we feel afraid to talk about and that we don’t want to talk about it. In our practice we are inclined to simply acknowledge this and the fact that it has resulted in a reluctance to go further. Then the way is open to explore what exactly it is that we are fearful might happen.

It could be that one fear is of what way the therapist will react. Building up a relationship of trust with your therapist is important in allaying this fear. It is not unusual either for us to try to minimise traumatic events to try to cope with them. We may be fearful of an explosion of strong feelings if we finally face up to these events. Sometimes a reluctance to engage may be about something more basic like a fear that you may not be fully heard or understood. It could be that you have experienced those same feelings at other times in your life and that the risk of a repeat is not worth taking. This is an understandable fear.

We would hope that to get in touch with an ability to discuss all these things with your therapist will open a path to more freedom in expressing the story of your life. Fears, resistance and defences can be overcome in a respectful atmosphere of honest enquiry. The purpose after all is not to hurt you in any way but to open up new ways of expression and new understandings. Our hope is to be present with you as these new insights are learned and mastered and as fear of the influence of the past is finally overcome.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.