Therapy: Can Someone Be Looking For A Mother/Father Figure When They Have Therapy?

After not being in a good way for however long, someone could come to the conclusion that they need help.  Due to this, they could end up looking for a therapist locally or online.

They might not care about whether they work with a man or a woman, or they could have a preference. Assuming that they do have a preference, they could have the need to work with a man/woman.

The Next Stage

Now, once they have found a therapist who seems like a good fit, they could book one session. This will allow them to see if they feel comfortable with them and want to take things further.

They may find that they soon feel comfortable with them and get the sense that this person can assist them. The person they are working with could, for example, be a cognitive behavioural therapist.

The Focus

If so, the work that they do together will involve changing their ‘negative’ thoughts and beliefs. By doing this, they might soon find that they start to feel better about themselves and their life.

It will then be clear that their ‘negative’ thoughts and beliefs were the issue. Thanks to the progress that they have made, it might not be long before they decide that they no longer need this type of assistance.

The Same Story

If they do, as the days, weeks and months pass, they could continue to be in a good place. What can help with this is that they can continue to apply what they learnt whilst they were having therapy.

Alternatively, they can find that as the days, weeks and months pass, they gradually go back to how they were before. At this point, they can believe that the techniques that they are using are no longer working.

Going Deeper

This could be the case, but, then there could be far more to it. What this may show is that it wasn’t just changing their ‘negative’ thoughts and beliefs that allowed them to make changes; no, there was also the impact that the therapist was having on them.

So, this would have most likely been someone who was present, listened to what they had to say and cared about them. Naturally, being around someone like this would have had a positive effect on their wellbeing.

Another Element

There can be more to it than this, though, as, at a deeper level, they might have seen the therapist as a mother/father. If they worked with a female therapist, they might have felt loved.

And, if they worked with a male therapist, they may have felt supported. This will show that there were the needs that were being met that they were aware of and the needs that were being met that they were not aware of.

A Big Impact

But, although they were not aware of certain needs, these needs would have still had an effect on their wellbeing. Now, when it comes to why they would have seen the therapist as a mother/father at a deeper level, what is likely to have played a part are their unmet developmental needs.

These will be needs that were not met during their formative years. Many, many years will have passed but these needs won’t have disappeared and will continue to influence their life from behind the scenes, so to speak.

Way Back

At this stage of their life, they may have had a mother or a father who was emotionally unavailable. This would have deprived them of what they needed to grow and develop in the right way.

For them to handle what was going on, the pain that they experienced and a number of their developmental needs would have been repressed. From this level, these needs will impact how they behave and how they see others.

An Unconscious Search

Therefore, these unmet developmental needs would have played a part in why they worked with a male or female therapist and this would then have been a time when this person represented, at a deeper level, the mother/father who they needed but didn’t have. To this part of them, they would have finally had a mother/father who could give them what they needed.

The trouble is that as this therapist was not their mother/father, not to mention that it is too late for them to receive what they missed out on all those years ago, the positive impact that this person had on them would have soon worn off. It will be a bit like painting something when it rains; the paint will soon wash off.

Another Outcome

With this in mind, for them to sustain the changes that they have made, they will need to face and work through the pain that they experienced as a child and express their unmet developmental needs. This is something that will take courage and patience and persistence.

This won’t be something that takes place overnight but it will allow them to make changes that don’t fall away overnight either. What they can keep in mind is that they are on a healing journey.  

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk