The soul voyage: why therapy is more than just symptom management

As human beings, we tend to make meaning or seek meaning from life events. We question why certain things happen to us, and we often wonder why people, including ourselves, behave in a certain way. Yet, when we lose our sense of meaning or purpose in life, whether that be through some sort of loss of identity, through bereavement, or through a break-up, we can experience what some people in spiritual circles might call a dark night of the soul.

Clinically speaking, this might present itself as depression or anxiety. There may be a complete loss of meaning where we see there is little point in what we do, or discouragement that life carries little meaning. Or we add meanings to certain events, such as associating going to a certain place with feeling judged or misunderstood. It is human nature to seek meaning, or to feel a loss of meaning.

So, what does this have to do with a soul voyage in therapy?

The mechanics of the voyage

In some therapeutic approaches, the different journeys we all go on in life can be addressed as narratives or even as stories.

In cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), for example, stories may be addressed as the narratives we tell ourselves within our thought processes (which then impact our emotions, the sensations in our bodies, and our behaviours). For example, a CBT therapist may notice a client can have "black and white thinking", which means they perceive reality in absolute terms when using language such as "always" or "never" when describing situations, events or qualities of themselves. Their thinking pattern may tell the story of extremes, which then can impact their well-being and distress levels.

With a therapist, the client could go on to develop self-awareness of when they do have this type of thinking, to understand what purpose it may serve, and even to progress with altering their thinking patterns through such insights. 

In contrast, in Gestalt therapy, the focus can be on the different parts of the self we may encompass, such as the child ego, the adult ego and the parent ego. For example, the child ego within the self may relay patterns of childhood, whereas the parent self may have the voice of an actual parent or even of an authority figure, and the adult self may speak to the self in a more rational and responsible way.

In Gestalt, all these parts serve a function and make up the whole self. A Gestalt therapist may help a client to look at these parts of self and ask them to explore collaboratively what stories each of them tells and to understand their root, their meaning, and their impact on the client. 

Therapy is a journey, not a destination

If we were to use the analogy of life as a journey we take on a boat, we could safely say the journey will inevitably have challenges on the way, as the sea is not always calm or steady, and the boat itself will require care and maintenance.

To deepen this analogy further, we could say in therapy there is the journey we entail back to ourselves, where at some point we feel it is time to integrate different parts of our lives, our experiences, and parts of ourselves after certain events, or circumstances, or mindset patterns, alongside the professional support of a therapist. 

The anchor and sails of therapies

With CBT,  we can focus on our self-talk. What language do you use to talk to yourself? How do you address yourself? How do you talk to yourself in your head? What stories do you tell yourself, and how do these impact your decision-making, attention, and problem-solving?

This internal dialogue is like a captain’s log, where we keep an internal record of how we travel on our journeys. CBT can be useful to help us identify where our internal voice has become a critic rather than a guide. Yet, rather than demonising the critic or compartmentalising certain thoughts, we learn to understand what functions they serve. Compassion towards the self blows the sails. 

Through acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), we focus on making sense of what actually occurs in our minds, emotions, bodies and lives, and face these. We can make sense of how our identity and our idea of self relate to our environment, and also how our contexts relate to us.

By facing what these mean to us, we can adjust to what reality entails and align our values with who we are, how we want to develop, and what we want our lives to mean. ACT is like a bridge to our soul and our self, because it asks: "What do you stand for?" It encourages us to accept the rough seas of difficult emotions while staying committed to the direction of our chosen values.

The maps used in therapy

Most people start therapy because their current map of the world no longer works. There can even be lots of resistance to start a new journey, or to instead settle for the place we know that is familiar, rather than seek a new destination or a new approach to how we will get there. Therapy can support people to reconnect with meaning and identity. 

It may be important to remember that feeling stuck is also part of our journey, as beginning therapy is no easy feat for many of us. As it means we will likely be on our way to a challenging but enlightening journey of ourselves. Therapy can help us identify the scripts we’ve outgrown and allow us to write a new chapter with our therapist as a compass point.

The goal of therapy as a practitioner isn't necessarily about counselling people to believe life is without pain or without problems, or to merely manage symptoms, but to support clients to build a life that feels authentic and deeply understood. In rewriting our scripts and reclaiming our stories, we move beyond the desire for a life without struggle and toward the quiet, profound courage of a life truly lived.