Therapy as the Open Door to Change
By Chris Horton
How are you doing so far this January of 2025?
Just as our ancestors chose Janus - Roman god of doorways and new beginnings - to name this month, countless generations have seen this time as an annual point of tension, where we see ourselves once again poised between past and future. It’s a moment when many of us turn inwards to consider how we might make changes in our lives: a communal acknowledgment that we humans are, at a fundamental level, creatures of change and development throughout our span of life.
You may have already read media posts making light of the fact most research confirms only one in five of us carries any change resolutions beyond the end of this month. Such regular reminders have always seemed a type of gallows humour to me, an instance of how we use laughter to defend against the disappointment and even pain of our failures to change or grow.
One thing we can learn from this repeated period of commonly broken resolutions is that it can be very difficult for us as individuals to change in isolation. For the vast majority of us it is hard to make changes in ourselves without the support of others. The great expansion of the talking therapies in our society is testament to this. And in no small way, this new year period of established self-reflection mirrors what we go through when we think about committing to such therapy.
We can compare this season’s cultural focus on reflection and change with other moments in our lives when pressure rises from within us to surface a need in ourselves to be ‘more than’, ‘other than’, ‘better than’ or even, hardest of all perhaps, ‘just as’ we are. Even more pressingly for some can be the urgency we feel to change due to a crisis in our lives to do with loss, despair, unhealthy behaviours or relationships fraught with difficulty. At such times, the idea of making change for ourselves alone can only serve to increase our sense of isolation.
When we enter the therapy room for the first time we are quite literally opening up a doorway to potential new beginnings. It takes courage to do this because the experience presents the challenge of actively moving out of our familiar life and relationships into the unknown. It is often the case that we need to know more about who we are before we can decide if and how we want to be different.
All purposeful therapy is about gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves and the options available to us to live differently if we choose. Stepping out of a situation where we are trying to make changes in isolation, we can find an effective therapist offers us their companionship and collaboration. We are not alone in therapy. Its process works better for change because we have a guide on the other side of the door, someone who will meet us in all our individual complexity and patiently facilitate our greater self-awareness and capacities for agency.
Even if you are not one of the many struggling to keep new resolutions for change this January, you may still find a course of talking therapy the best way to new beginnings for yourself. If that’s the case, please don’t hesitate to contact me here at The Open Door. I’d be glad to meet you.
Contact: info@chrishorton.org or call 07541 308196 or visit www.chrishorton.org