“Can Therapy Help Me Find Love at Last?” 5 Ways It Just Might

By: Thomas Rousing

Therapy is not a magic wand. It does not make you another person entirely, or give you a perfect fairytale life.

But it can indeed help your love life, and here’s why.

5 Ways Therapy Helps You Find Love

How exactly can therapy help you find love?

1. Therapy helps you figure out who you really are.

Imagine if you hired someone to build your dream house for you. And they said, great, so what does it look like? And you said, I have no idea, but I expect you to just build it for me.

That’s sort of what it’s like expecting someone to love you and build a strong relationship with you when you don’t really know who that ‘you’ is. Is it any wonder others find you confusing, or that you go along too easily with others’ desires only to then then panic and run from love?

If you grew up having to please others and do what is expected of you, then the real you gets lost in the shuffle.

Therapy is all about digging out that real you, and learning how to understand yourself at last.

2. It helps you finally understand what love even is.

Did you grow up in a family where love was in short supply? With parents who were, say, distant and cold, or always fighting? Or simply unable to give you the unconditional love you needed?

By: State Library of New South Wales

It’s very hard to know what a healthy, loving relationship is if we have never seen one in action. Or to know what unconditional love is really like if we haven’t ever truly felt it.

When we grow up in a loveless environment, we tend to then form unrealistic ideas about love on one hand. And on the other, we harbour unconscious core beliefs that push love away. These can sound like, ‘love is dangerous’, ‘I can’t be myself and be loved’, or ‘if I love someone they’ll just reject me’.

A therapist knows what love and healthy relating is. They’ve studied it, they are hopefully living it, and they have worked to help many others live it too.

Your therapist helps you find a new perspective on love that works, and assists you to identify and change your unhelpful core beliefs about love.

3. You will finally identify your real blocks to love.

If you think your blocks to love are that you are not pretty/smart/wealthy/successful/fit enough (you get the picture), think again.

The things that really block love are almost always psychological. They include things like:

• cognitive distortions (unrealistic thinking)
• negative core beliefs about yourself
• anxiety
• codependency
• abandonment issues
• attachment issues
• low self-esteem
• lack of identity
• control issues
• fear of intimacy.

Once you start to work on such blocks as the above with a therapist, you’ll see real changes in the ways you relate to others.

4. The process of therapy uncovers the difference between what you think you want and what you really want.

By: jessica mullen

Too many of us don’t even know what deeply matters to us, and what we actually want from life and relationships, until we attend therapy and have a non-judgemental therapist who isn’t invested in our choices to talk to.

We live blinded by the expectations of our families, friends, and colleagues. We don’t even realise we are trying to impress others, we only know that we are unhappy.

Is it hardly any wonder if you have been sabotaging all your relationships with the success-driven, family-orientated partners who look good on paper (and match your parents’ values) when they don’t really match your true personal values? When really deep down you long for a creative, adventurous, and free life, for example?

[Read our article on personal values to know more and start finding yours today.]

5. Therapy gives you a weekly example of what a solid, trusting relationship actually is.

Here’s the thing about therapy – it’s actually a relationship itself. Yes, one that you pay for, but a trusting, consistent and supportive relationship none the less.

Every week, by meeting your therapist you get a chance to relate to someone else who has healthy relating skills. This in itself can start to change your ways of being around others.

For many, therapy is also their very first time actually trusting someone with all of whom they are. Trust is at the core of all lasting romantic relationships, so learning it is a true game changer.

Did you know that there are certain types of therapy that are designed just to help you with your relationships? Sign up to our blog now to receive an alert when we publish the next piece in this series, ‘The Types of Therapy That Help Your Love Life“.

Harley Therapy puts you in touch with London-based psychotherapists and counselling psychologists who specialise in helping you with your relationships. Not in London? Try online therapy which helps you wherever you are.

Andrea M. Darcy is a mental health and wellbeing expert and mentor, with training in person-centred counselling and coaching. She often writes about trauma, relationships, and ADHD. Find her on Instagram @am_darcy