The art of therapy is helping a person grow. When change happens inside, it reshapes his world outside.
But here's the catch: the therapist himself can become the obstacle. Neither the client nor the therapist will understand why they’re stuck in place.
The reason? A false assumption by the therapist: “I already know everything.”
I remember a story about a professor scolding psychoanalysts: “You should be ashamed to understand at your age. Your ‘understanding’ blocks your client’s growth. Now, try not understanding him again.”
It’s like sealing a plant inside an airtight box with a label. Sure, it’s easier to store and move around. But inside that box, there’s no water, no air, no sunlight—nothing it needs to grow.
A therapist must hold uncertainty and stay open. Open to what?
To the primal essence of personality that can emerge at any moment. No clever template can predict the divine spark.
Psychoanalyst Marie-Louise von Franz warned about the danger of “nothing but”:
“If something is in the process of growing and I say, ‘This is that,’ then it can still change. But if I say, ‘This is only that,’ I’m locking it in place, cutting off transformation and the chance for further growth. When the intellect doesn’t say, ‘So this is how it seems,’ but instead clamps down with, ‘I know—this is only that and nothing more,’ this subtle shift invites a kind of Luciferian destruction, especially devastating to anything still in the process of becoming.” (my rough translation)
Therapy heals when it describes things as they truly are.
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.