In Praise of Process & The Quiet, Ethical Wisdom of Therapy

You may have noticed a trend in the coaching world and in alternative healing communities of claims and insinuations that such-and-such a method can take you farther in one or a few sessions than “years of therapy,” or even claims that therapy “doesn’t work” (and that therefore, whatever method is being sold or hyped up does) or that therapy can even make you “worse.”

As an open-minded person, I’ve given ear to some of these claims. I certainly don’t feel that the Western clinical world holds a monopoly on humanity’s best understanding of reality. And I’ve experienced and witnessed the power of ancient shamanic healing methods as well as Shipibo plant medicine ceremonies. And I know that time-tested, sacred traditions carry within them a tremendous potency that can powerfully catalyze multi-layered healing processes. And of course, those processes continue from there in a non-linear way. There is no state of “completely healed” perfection I’ve yet encountered.

And while I’m sure there are some irresponsible therapists out there, or therapists whose hearts aren’t in it, and while there is certainly such a thing as a poor fit between client and therapist, I still find many of these claims (about newer or proprietary systems or methods) pompous, dismissive, and potentially even harmful. It’s arrogant to claim one understands more about processes of transformation than a profession full of individuals who have dedicated many grueling years to learning about said processes. You have to have a deeply devoted heart of service to have the stamina to earn a therapy license in the first place.

And maybe some of the individuals making these kinds of claims do know something that many therapists don’t know. There is simply a lot to know about what helps people move towards greater wholeness and wellness. You could spend lifetimes studying this and still not know everything there is to know. And yet it still strikes me as condescending and hubristic to talk about therapy (as such) in such a dismissive way. It also strikes me as very convenient to an anti-process, results-driven culture to claim or imagine that nature’s cocoon-times, womb-times and winterings are now obsolete because a “superior method” has been discovered or is being sold.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our life experience and processes of transformation are cyclical and often need to happen on their own time– often on a timeline that the ego would abhor or rail against. (And this certainly has been true in my personal and professional experience.)

Look at nature. You can’t pry a bud open or a butterfly from its cocoon or spring from fall.

Furthermore, our professional code of ethics prevents us from using the kind of marketing tactics coaches use including but not limited to the practice of making any kind of unfounded promise or claim (freely made in the wild west of the coaching world). We are even prevented from using testimonials, even when clients ardently want to provide them.

And in the cacophony of sales tactics flooding all of our inboxes (complete with all the playbook classics of scarcity, time limit, exclusivity, claims/promises and powerful marketing language), I fear the quiet wisdom of the therapy profession often falls into obscurity in a sea of shiny promises.

But my intuition tells me that a tradition has the staying power of a perennial plant if it acknowledges the difficulty of life and it honors process as an inescapable face of nature (of which we are all a part). Trendy new healing methods will surge and retreat like the tides. And those of us who have been patiently, humbly, quietly tending to the many faces of the mystery of life will still be here, plying our craft.

If you’re ready to let go of shiny, expensive promises and honor the sacred process being born through you, reach out here.