Psychotherapy:
What it is, what it isn’t,
and what no one told you
An honest journey through what healing truly means.
Most people arrive at therapy expecting someone to explain why their life isn’t working and, while they’re at it, provide quick solutions. What they don’t know is that hey are going to have to look in the mirror. And that mirror has a cruel peculiarity: it doesn’t lie.
First, what psychotherapy is NOT
There’s a lot of confusion out there, and it’s no one’s fault—the "express wellness" culture has done its job.
- It is not someone telling you what to do with your life.
- It is not venting for 50 minutes and leaving feeling good (that’s called having a patient friend).
- It is not receiving constant validation that everyone else is wrong.
- It is not a two-week process or an app with motivational notifications.
- It is not magic, although sometimes—just sometimes—it feels like it.
Important Note:
If you are looking for someone to tell you that everything you do is right and that the universe is to blame, psychotherapy might not be for you. There are Instagram accounts for that.
So, what is it?
It is an encounter. A rather uncomfortable one, if done right. From the perspective of Family Constellations, every person comes into the world to occupy a place in a system larger than themselves: their family. And that system has invisible loyalties, unwritten mandates, and wounds transmitted from generation to generation with the same punctuality as inherited eye color. What we believe we are is often simply what our family system needs us to be.
Jung would put it differently: there is a part of us that remains in the shadow—the things we didn't want to see, what we were taught to hide, what simply didn't fit. And that shadow doesn't disappear just because we ignore it. On the contrary—it grows, organizes itself, and starts running the show from behind the scenes.
To look at the future, you must look at the past and heal it. Because what isn't healed doesn't disappear: it is dragged. And dragging it is far more exhausting than facing it.
What happens in a session
The sessions are a space to understand your history: where you come from, what place you occupy in your family, what type of personality you have developed, what you truly want for your life, and whether who you are and what you do is aligned with that—or if you have spent years living someone else's life.
And here comes the part that no one advertises in the brochure: the process involves confronting your own narrative. Listening to the stories you tell yourself and asking, with honesty, if they are true. Because we all tell ourselves stories. Some protect us. Others, simply, imprison us.
Becoming aware of resistances —those internal forces that do everything possible to keep us from seeing what we need to see— is part of the work. Not because we are bad people, but because the psyche has a fierce survival instinct.
It prefers familiar pain over unknown change.
- Understanding your family history and your place within it.
- Recognizing repeating patterns you didn't consciously choose. conscientemente.
- Distinguishing what is yours from what you inherited without asking.
- Confronting the "comfortable lies" that organize your life.
- Healing from the root, not just masking the symptoms.
Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Is it worth it?
Yes. Absolutely yes.
Not because discomfort is virtuous in itself — masochism is not growth. But because the truth, once seen, cannot be unseen. And that vision, even if it hurts, is what allows us to let go of what no longer serves and build from an authentic place. Jung said that we do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. In Constellations, we would say that what is not honored is repeated. In both cases, the message is the same: there is no shortcut.
Final Warning:
This process may have side effects such as seeing with more clarity, making decisions that previously seemed impossible, or stopping the endurance of situations you've put up with for years. Don't worry, if symptoms persist, you are on the right track.
Psychotherapy is not for those who are broken. It is for those who are willing to look at themselves, and that, dear reader, is a beautiful task—simple, but not comfortable at all.