Can individual therapy help me? This is an important (and vulnerable!) question. I’ve wondered about this in my own life. If you are asking, it might be time to see for yourself. My name is Anne Warner, and I am a therapist in Orange County.
I think it’s pretty universal to be curious if something will help you or not. Hopefully the answer is a clear YES. Therapy can offer so many things that are generally helpful to a person: a space to be heard, to reflect on your life, to tell your story, to look within, to be known by another person, to reduce symptoms, to gain freedom, etc. But I hope it can offer you so much more!
We Live with Pain Like it’s Normal
The reality is that so many people live in incredible emotional pain, suffer great loss, keep their problems hidden, experience anxiety all alone, stay in harmful relationships, repeat unwanted patterns, hate themselves, medicate instead of investigate, or live in a fantasy that something will solve itself.
Perhaps there is another way. Perhaps therapy could be a place to reset, gain freedom, stop suffering, experience love, find your own value, get out of a bad cycle, conquer a fear, quell the anxiety, truly rest, be present to yourself, and start living the kind of life you are longing for.
It’s scary and risky for sure. It’s also a huge investment to take on. If you give it time and honestly give yourself to the process, you might be surprised with what you encounter.
In the models of therapy that inspire my work—particularly Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy—there is a belief that buried underneath our defenses and symptoms is something vital and alive: your capacity to love, to feel fully, and to live without apology. When we stop avoiding what hurts, when we look directly at what we fear, something begins to soften and change.
Maybe There’s A Path Forward
No matter how long you’ve struggled, you don’t have to keep living in the same stuck place. There is a path forward. It won’t be perfect or tidy, but it can be real—and that can be enough to start again.
If you feel something inside you stirring as you read this, maybe it’s time. You deserve a chance to find out who you are when you’re not having to hide from your own heart. I believe therapy can help.
