Becoming Yourself

People are a bit like plants. They need certain things to thrive. My houseplants need water, light, the right soil and room for their roots to grow. If they don’t get that, they keep going as best they can – spindly, pale, withered and stunted, never achieving their full glory. In a dark room and under watered, they live, in a way: but they’ll never flower.

Our psychological wellbeing depends on much more than a well-watered pot and a windowsill, but still revolves around nourishment. We need love, acceptance, hope, validation and many more less tangible inputs, and these will vary wildly from person to person.

With my clients, I usually start in Person Centred mode.

This psychological theory proposes that we have a “self actualising tendency” – described by American psychologist Carl Rogers (1902-1987), the founder of this school of thought, as an “inherent tendency of the organism to develop all its capacities in ways which serve to maintain or enhance the organism.”

This is often taken to mean “fulfilling your potential”, one of the pillars of modern personal development. But maybe it also means an appreciation of yourself andyour unique gifts, using them wisely, and understanding how to look after yourself.

What you are truly capable of is unknown: life is full of unpredictable twists which can change your path, and there are always external undercurrents that influence the speed and direction of travel. And we need to accept and incorporate all that.

We may have ended up in the wrong profession, or in a toxic relationship. Alcoholism or other addictions will put a hell of a spoke in the wheels, as can loss, grief, or anxiety. Anyone who flees their home country to seek asylum has to ditch their entire life and start again in a foreign country: imagine the struggle involved in that.

In Person-Centred work we seek to use the intrinsic human quality of self-awareness – the ability to think about on our own experiences, see our lives from the outside and make conscious choices about our direction. For me, this means listening and encouraging the client to reflect on their life and to achieve more clarity. I trust clients to find their own answers; they are after all, the authority in their own lives.

One consequence of being self-aware is that we develop a complex scheme about who we are, based on the values we have learned from ourselves and others. We seek to create a life where what we do, and how we are seen, are aligned with this blueprint. And sometimes the blueprint itself – our idea of who we really are – is defective. Often, for example, our underlying values are not entirely our own. Many have been inculcated by others – after all, the things our parents told us when we were growing up are not necessarily useful when we’re older.

If we are happy living in this scheme, our values align with our lived experience and we can thrive. But if they don't, we can struggle.

In the therapy room, then, we often end up addressing the fundamental gap between who we really are and who we think we should be. The client heals by re-evaluating these two realities, and of finding truth and reconciliation. The therapist’s job is simply to provide the space where this can take place.