Why I do Counseling

Written by: Stephen Higgins

The most fulfilling parts of my career have been when I’ve landed in a role of helping others. From selling supplements at the local natural foods store in high school to becoming a psychotherapist over the past several years, I’ve always valued being able to bring healing into the world. 

I do counseling because I believe in the human spirit, with all its inherent healing power.

I do counseling work because I believe that people can become the best versions of themselves—especially when they’ve got quality support for doing their inner work. As one of my early Hakomi teachers said, “We are always looking for the next self-relevant experience:” our systems are always looking to grow, hoping to blossom, and longing to achieve greater integrity and more beautiful complexity. Change is tough for humans. We all resist and rail against it. But we also crave what’s next for us—our “version 2.0”—and it’s a simple fact of our nature as warm-blooded creatures that we’re more likely to take the risk of growing when we feel safe, we feel well held, and we feel like we’re not alone in our experiences. 

“A safe and trusting relationship is the core of psychotherapy precisely because it provides the emotional support and regulation necessary to counterbalance the emotional and biological stressors of change.”  Louis Cozolino

I do counseling because I want to offer folks a sturdy, lovingly-supportive container in which they can uncover and integrate important parts of themselves. I believe that having a strong therapeutic alliance is often a necessary part of our inner work, and offering this kind of relationship to folks is deeply meaningful to me. I do counseling because we’ve all got automatic, unconscious parts of ourselves, and through counseling work, I get to help people discover conscious, preferred ways of being instead.

I help people uncover even more authentic ways of being—with themselves and others—and I love it!

I typically don’t offer short-term, “solution-focused” therapy. I do deep, long term work with my clients. And things like “finding solutions” and “symptom resolution” end up being a natural outgrowth of this deep work. I value long term relationships in psychotherapy because—as my own therapist said to me 8-or-so years into our process when we’d gotten to something new and juicy that we’d never uncovered before— there’s a power in staying. I believe that it takes time to create enough safety and a sturdy enough relationship in order to begin to profitably mine the core of ourselves; and I believe that it’s absolutely essential to have respect for and to build trust with the healthy, protective aspects of a person before digging deeper. 

“Accumulating a long history with someone, really knowing them and finding a way to continue loving them despite whatever comes your way that might make it difficult for you… there’s enormous growth and beauty in that.” Orna Guralnik

I practice somatic psychotherapy because it includes big respect for all aspects of our being—body, mind, and spirit. I practice mindfulness-based, somatic psychotherapy because I believe that any growth process goes better with the addition of a bit of non judgemental slowing down and careful attention—and because I believe that we can learn and change and develop more fully when we include the wisdom that our bodies hold. Since “the body may remember what the mind cannot,” it's often unbelievably helpful to folks’ personal growth when I can assist them in listening more closely to their bodies. 

I also practice somatic psychotherapy because it helps to keep my clients and me grounded in the present moment. And because being grounded in the present moment with another person helps to keep neuroplasticity in place—the possibility for therapy to actually make changes in the mind and the brain—it’s often more effective for folks than talk therapy that’s “just cognitive.” 

“The body places us in the here and now where change happens.” Marilyn Morgan

Frankly, I also practice somatic psychotherapy because… it’s fun! I mean, how cool is it that I get to help others earn their own calm instead of anxiety, aliveness instead of depression, and regulation instead of trauma... all while committed to staying curious and loving enough to be equally surprised by clients’ hidden gems?!

References:

• Jon Eisman. META Institute Comprehensive Training, 2016.  

• Cozolino, L. (2021). The Development of a Therapist. W. W. Norton & Company. (p. 18)

• Dr. Orna Guralnik: from Showtime’s series “Couple’s Therapy” 

• Morgan, M. (2015). The Central Role of the Body in Hakomi Psychotherapy, Chapter 4 in Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy. Ed. Weiss, et al. (pages 35&36).