Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

My job is to understand people’s problems. More correctly, it is trying to understand people’s problems. To do this, I will have to work myself deeply. To have understood my own problems, my own conflicts. This process of mine takes years. In addition to university and graduate studies in psychotherapy, I had to see severe psychopathology in psychiatric clinics and of course train in special settings to be able to do this work. So after all these years of study and psychotherapy, and after going through various theoretical directions, I understood what psychotherapy is and what it is not. So let’s first say what is not a cure. Therapy is not counseling. A real therapist doesn’t tell you what to do. And treatment is not the application of techniques where you will solve your problem in 10-15 sessions. I have a bunch of people in my office who have supposedly been in therapy for many years and come to me after going through 3 or 4 different therapists. And they solved their problem.

Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

It is really frustrating but also tragic to ask for help and not be able to solve your problem. Let life pass, ten, fifteen or twenty years and you go round and round about the same subject. The least a therapist should do when they see they can’t help is to refer someone else. I do not accept all prospective patients. I need to do one or two sessions to be able to understand if I will be able to be really helpful. Another misconception in the field of mental health is that therapists have an opinion of their own. Error.

If the therapist is truly trained in a psychoanalytic approach to the psyche, he does not speak his own opinions but opinions which are clinically and research confirmed. I often hear the following: “the therapist’s point of view is”. There is no therapist’s opinion. If the therapist speaks his opinions, then he is not a therapist. Everyone can have an opinion. This does not mean that this view can be correct.

My job is to penetrate into the depths of things with a look that results from my many years of training and try to understand what is happening in the intrapsychic conflict. I try to see the nature of the conflict, its place and time, its nature. I approach the conflict diagnostically and at the level of understanding what is happening. Example: 30-year-old man presents with severe anxiety attacks during the last six months. I need to first figure out if this anxiety is real or neurotic.

Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

Understanding Problems And Self-awareness

Understanding Problems And Self-Awareness – The Real Cure

If the anxiety is neurotic, that is, if it appears without knowing the cause, then we proceed to the second level. We are looking to find the cause. The unconscious cause. That is, the cause which is hidden, repressed in psychoanalytic language. There I know that a deeper treatment is needed which will return the patient to his childhood experiences. To do therapy there, you have to know depth psychology, that is, to be able to approach things at the level of psychoanalysis so that you can work on the psycho-emotional development of the patient. Over time, a dependence is created on the face of the therapist. This addiction is a tool you know how to use if you are psychoanalytically trained. The patient dependent on the face of the therapist, stays there to repeat the problem through transference (a psychoanalytic concept that has to do with the feelings the patient attributes to the therapist). When this begins to happen, the therapist, against the pressure put on him by the patient to play the same tape and repeat the problem, stands in a different way. The patient pushes for the opposite. He wants to repeat the problem, gets angry, shouts, manipulates the therapist, uses him, attacks him. The therapist who knows his job does not fall into this trap. The trap is called projective identification. The treatment progresses and the patient begins to see what he has been doing for so long. He feels guilty, begins to change. Now he sees. He begins to see. The treatment is already done. But it took time. I am very sorry when I hear irrelevant so-called experts who have decided to play with people, come out and say that they can heal in ten sessions. But that’s the way the world is today. To understand just one problem can take you a long time and it is not always certain that you can understand it. Even if your own therapy is good in some ways, it does not mean that you can understand and solve all problems. If I accept someone for treatment, it means that I have studied the case or I have seen too many similar cases. But again I’m in no rush to accept someone into treatment.

The process of psychotherapy requires commitment, dedication and is addressed only to those who seriously see that they need to change their lives. If you are thinking of starting this journey, please call me at 211 71 51 801 to make an appointment and let’s see together how I can help you.

Mixalis Paterakis
Psychologist Psychotherapist
University of Indianapolis University of Middlesex
Karneadou 37, Kolonaki (next to Evangelismos)
I accept by appointment
Tel: 211 7151 801
www.psychotherapy.net.gr
www.mixalispaterakis.gr