The Carousel of Therapy: Talking Is Not Enough
Imagine you want to improve your fitness. Would it be sufficient to read about workouts and nutrition, and understand key indicators of health? Would it be enough to watch videos on the “perfect” workout and good technique? Would adding talking to experts in exercise science and personal training change your fitness?
No. It wouldn’t be enough. You need to act. Knowledge is not enough. Engaging in purposeful action based on knowledge (both personal experience and expert opinion), along with consistency, is the core of creating fitness improvement.
Improvements in mental health are the same. This is the problem with traditional talk therapy. Insight without behavior change is pointless. Focusing on talk alone without a reason for the talk amounts to very little, if any, long-lasting help (i.e., changes in what a person does).
Doing something differently makes a difference. A big question that is asked in more practical forms of therapy is, “Now that you have insight/awareness, what are you going to do with it?” If the goal of therapy is to help someone be more psychologically fit, the objectives and targets of therapy need to match. Simply talking about concerns is not enough.
If a client has the goal of processing past trauma and gaining insight into how a childhood experience affects them today, without introducing and practicing skills to manage how challenging stuff shows up in the moment, it does not move a person beyond where they are. They remain on the carousel. Within trauma-informed/focused therapeutic care, there is a critical target that is often overlooked: post-trauma growth. Changes made in speaking and action based on moving from the past. This is the key; otherwise, what is the point?
Mindfulness, present-moment awareness, understanding your values, acceptance, self-awareness, and recognizing self-talk and its impact all support meaningful, lasting behavior change to boost psychological health. Shifting your time and energy toward what and who matter most is what truly counts. Everything else is just going around in circles.
If you would like to learn how a practical form of therapy may help you, contact me, Dr. Glenn Sloman, at 321-345-0579 or gsloman@flpsychcenter.com.
