READS AND REELS
A life explored, a life lived: Life Ready’s take on mental health
So, you’ve decided to take care of your mental health.
Now what?
This is a question that people are starting to face, between the growing access to mental health services and facilities and the empowering awareness that more people have on the importance of their internal world in relating with and living in their external world.
How do we truly address mental health in ourselves, so that we can live better and more fully moving forward?
The quick answer is there is no one sure or “right” way to do so. Just as there are many schools of thought and practice when it comes to mental health, there are just as many needs that people have for their own growth and healing.
In Life Ready, our approach comes from treating the psychotherapeutic space as the client’s own training ground for lived experiences and a learning ground to better understand and process those experiences. In practice, Life Ready follows a relational and psychodynamic approach. This focuses on what a client brings into the session, what is happening in the session, and what is being unearthed, felt, and discovered from one’s experiences–past history, present dealings, and future worries and dreams included.
Our clients are more than just their presenting symptoms, their pain, or their past–it’s about the working alliance being built in the session and the new experiences and habits being healthily formed, understood, and lived in the space. In other words, the client brings themselves and their stories in the session, and the therapist also relates with them in that exploration, creating a socially relational space where two worlds, two perspectives, two beings are in a connection with each other, utilizing the space for the client’s growth and healing.
That’s why for us in Life Ready, we make it a practice that our own lens, perspectives, and practices continue to grow. With each client we interact with, our experience grows alongside them, not just in the professional sense, but also in a personal understanding of the self and the world.
We believe in a relational approach to therapy. What happens in the session is not just an isolated experience; it is the sharing of worlds, the discovery of something new, and the progression of lives that emerge differently with every session spent together. While the focus and priority will be for the client, Life Ready psychologists understand that self-discovery and growth can also happen in the session with clients, whether in deliberate or surprising ways. We are, after all, humans ourselves, and every relationship is an opportunity for growth.
Life Ready sees mental health as the continuous progress and movement forward. Some sessions may feel like breakthroughs, grand and memorable, enough to spur big decisions and make firm changes in the self. Other sessions might leave you feeling more troubled, more confused, or more triggered–because maybe, that’s where life really finds you and that’s where reality can meet you in that moment.
That’s also why psychotherapy is all about consistency and continuity: we continue to explore ourselves, because let’s face it, life will always happen. Life will continue bringing in the good, the bad, and everything in between. Healing is not a one-time experience.
Life is rarely a one-shot short story. It is a story we write as we continue to wake up. Life decisions can start a chapter or end it. Thoughts can write an entire chapter or two, sometimes even a spin-off story. Feelings can introduce new characters, or write off old ones that no longer sustain a connection healthily. There are even decisions that may not end well or may put us in situations that are not the most ideal–but that’s part of it. Every story’s conflict can be difficult, but they almost always progress it towards a direction.
As we meet in therapy, we can look at the direction your life is currently taking, see where you have been so far, stay longer in chapters that still call you in them, and maybe progress the story forward to see what happens. In Life Ready, what we can assure you is that we’ll stay with you in the sessions. We might need pauses, clients might instigate their own breaks, but at the end of the day, we believe in facilitating that space for your own internal journey.
It’s a matter of being able to ask yourself, “Am I ready?”
And if you are, then we’ll be here.