I have been working on understanding why I do what I do as a therapist and counselor. As much as anything, the phrase I coined “Solutions tailored to fit you.” states what I am about.

Initially the phrase was directed toward my anger clients. The ideas was that I do not do generalized “psycho-education.” Rather than teaching or delivering every idea or tool to every client, I look closely at each situation and help each client determine what they need to resolve their particular problem. That approach has worked well. Some clients needed to take a time out. Some clients needed to ask. Some needed to realize that they were using anger to distract people and keep them from discovering a personal secret. Some clients needed to learn assertiveness.

My Solutions phrase was an intuitive leap. I decided to check in and see if it still fits. As I move more into understanding the difficult life events that people have had to cope with… and as I help them find what works for them so they can feel better about who they are and what they do, it is a bit amazing that the phrase still seems to work.

Why my Solutions phrase works

Every person is “unique.” Each of us has a unique life history. We are biologically unique, our DNA is unique. We may share a culture with people, but taken as a whole, our experience of that culture is unique. I wrote about the multiple “selves” that are involved in “self-esteem.” The things we collect, pay attention to, and value is unique to each of us. If we are unique, then perhaps the tools, clothes, solutions we need should be “tailored” to that uniqueness.

But if we are unique, who are we really? Are we the exterior that people see. Are we the things we collect? Are we our memories? Whitfield (1987) wrote the book, Healing the Child Within, and the term “child within” has entered our popular culture. In a later edition he equates the child within to the “real self“, a term that works a bit better for me.

While I was doing some “technical” reading I ran across this quote (Gabbard, 2004):

“A final principle of psychodynamic thinking is that we don’t really know ourselves. Because of a variety of conflicts, prohibitions, anxieties, and defenses, we tend to hide from ourselves, and the task of the psychodynamic therapist is to pursue the patient’s true self.”

That makes a lot of sense to me… and helping find a True Self (mine too) is what I like to do. The “true self” in this quote is the “child within“, and the “real self“… and the “You” I am talking about in “Solutions tailored to fit You.” So, the You in my Solutions phrase seems to be connected to some of my deeper values.

Gabbard also summarizes ideas from Winnicott (1960) saying

“infants whose initiatives are consistently thwarted by parents who cannot receive or validate them will find an alternative pathway to connect with their parents. This strategy usually involves the development of a false self whom the parents recognize and appreciate. The true self may become shrouded in shame, however, and some degree of authenticity is lost. In psychodynamic therapy, the therapist pursues a uniquely subjective truth for each patient.”

Putting this all together, the uniqueness of the individual is the imperative. The immediate concern of counseling and therapy is to help people who have had difficult life experiences find what works for them . A longer term objective of therapy that resolves problems at their deepest level is to rediscover the True Self. When this happens, we are able to like who we and what we do… we can just be our True Self. After quite a bit of study, I am back to thinking I took a pretty good intuitive leap when I coined the phrase “Solutions tailored to fit You. ”

How much better is a life when we feel comfortable with being who we truly are? A few months of therapy to find my True Self and what works for me, followed by a lifetime of being my True Self… and liking it. Now that is a great investment opportunity.