Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.
Bit of a head scratcher, eh? One of the most challenging tasks of the therapeutic process is discovering the cluster of issues that energize a person’s behavioral, cognitive and emotional distress. What the client presents with at the therapist’s door (or inbox) is rarely “the problem”. Most people are not deliberately hiding their hurts, but you could say that the hurts hide themselves, often underneath layers of avoidance. So the initial phases of therapy are often about excavation and explication. Neither client nor counselor knows what the heck is going on right away—and the truth can be elusive.
Of course, the process is not as linear as I’m making it sound. We’re not grabbing a metaphorical shovel, unearthing a shiny “problem” and tinkering with it until it’s fixed. Therapy is about the process itself, which is why I like the Perls quote so much.
Some years ago, I was sitting with a client who suffered with chronic anxiety. This person’s anxiety could be paralyzing, but we worked hard to examine the interpersonal wounds that made hyper vigilance necessary to begin with. This client had pretty good insight and self-awareness when those wounds got activated in the present. Something in our conversation caused their anxiety to spike and my client lost their ability to self-regulate. It felt like we were rocketed back in time to the very beginning of our work, as if all progress had been stripped away. The defenses that had been keeping them “safe” for many years snapped back into place; what had previously become visible and manageable got hidden away again, and fast.
We did some calming breath work, the client regained some equilibrium and we were able to debrief after a few minutes. What came to mind for me to say was this:
Shit’s gotta get real before it can heal.
It was kinda the perfect thing in that moment—an extremely rare event, in my experience. My client smiled broadly and clearly got it. What I realized later was that my improvised locution was just an earthier version of:
Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.
