The Goal of Therapy

I used to think the goal of therapy was to eliminate pain. Then I realized that pain is an inevitable part of life. We can't keep the ones we love from injury, sickness, or death. And we can't keep ourselves from suffering the same. What we can do is develop the skill to deal with the pain. This entails learning how to identify our feelings, developing the capacity to reflect on these feelings, and cultivating the discipline to act on our reflections. If we feel, think, then act, we learn to live with our pain. If we rush straight to action, the pain stays acute. Like an untreated wound, it never fully heals. This is why therapy is so challenging and promising. It challenges us to acknowledge our most painful feelings. But promises that if we do so our life can improve, we can finally move on, and find new sources of joy.