Who am I?

Many people come to therapy feeling that they don't know who they are any more. They feel disorientated and confused and cut off from a solid sense of 'self'. Most of us move through life in a fairly unconscious way. We get up, go to work, repeat behaviours and patterns in our lives and relationships that we generally don't question, until something goes wrong that is.

It's typically at a crisis point in our lives, such as adolescence, midlife, illness, the arrival of a child, or the end of a significant relationship, that forces us to confront our pre-existing beliefs about ourselves and to face the puzzling and often upsetting question of 'who am I'?

A therapist can help guide you through the tangled web of confusion that you might find yourself in. We can help you to navigate the unchartered territory of your unconscious mind, to make sense of the turmoil you find yourself in and to bring you into contact with yourself in a new and transformative way.

Freud compared the mind to an iceberg; claiming that what we see, or are conscious of, is really only just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface we find a whole unexplored world of unconscious thoughts and desires that we repress or deny in order to maintain an identity that we feel is acceptable to the world around us.

Therapy is a place where we can come to find out who we really are, or at least uncover more of the truth about ourselves. Our passions, our struggles, our unresolved conflicts, they can be brought into the light, or made conscious, and thought about in a new way. Old wounds can be healed and as a result a more cohesive sense who we really are can emerge.   

It takes courage and commitment to take this journey inwards towards the truth of who you really are, but I can't think of a journey more worth taking; as Socrates said' 'The unexamined life is not worth living'...

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Counselling Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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