Los Angles psychologist addressing eating disorders, anger management, bereavement, disaster management, stress reduction and trauma practicing individual, couples, marriage, family and group therapy.

You are here. You clicked this link. This "What is psychotherapy" link. What are you hoping to find? My guess is you are having some difficulties in your life and you are looking for someone who has something to say. Someone with something that resonates within you.

This someone; Los Angles psychologist, must be a person with whom you can relate. Hopefully, there will be a chemistry between the two of you. They must be someone with whom you feel you are able to trust your inner being, fears, scars and cares. A wise person who can reach through your defenses, denials and fears and help guide you through whatever curative emotional work and life changes you need to make.

Maybe you want someone who can promise you a quick painless cure like a dentist might for a toothache. If you find them and they can produce please call me I would like to find that as well and for that matter: study under them.

Great change requires great work and great emotional change requires great emotional work andLos Angles psychologist Dr. Ralph Diner can help you meet them.

A: Psychotherapy is an art like gardening. Gardening which requires a team effort. We are tending the roses of consciousness. And from my experience on both sides of the couch I have learned that:

For every bloom in the rose of consciousness there is a thorn thrust through the heart... And the removal of that thorn ain't that much fun either.

For the sake of conversation and illustration let's talk about one on one therapy (as opposed to marital or family, etc.) Someone bravely sifts through websites and finally contacts one or two of the psychologists. Something is wrong in their life. They may not be experiencing a high quality of happiness, or their marriage may be having difficulties. Perhaps they have a phobia (a fear), or they have a major loss in life. Perhaps they have recently been diagnosed with a lifestyle caused medical condition such Type II Diabetes, or want to prevent one like lung cancer from smoking. Their job and direction in life may seem unsatisfying, or they feel in a rut, etc.

Whatever the issues are they have gotten to the point that they feel in need of help. Anxiously they schedule a session; anxiously wondering what is going to happen?

Usually in an initial meeting several things happen. The patient/client explains the situation, talks about their issues, concerns, fears, personal history and what they would hope to get out of being in and doing therapy. The psychologist takes a history and ask questions necessary to help clearly understand what is going on, what the roots are and whether the psychologist feels they can help.

The psychologist and the client are assessing whether they feel comfortable and able to work with each other. If the fit is good and both are comfortable usually some therapy goals are agreed upon and the work begins.

And work it is. There are many therapists out there that promise an approach I call the "plop plop fizz fizz" approach. By that I mean they promise an almost painless end to all your concerns: just come in and in 5 session I will have you good as new. I think that is a bit misleading. Yes, just going to get help can be experienced as positive but the work itself is usually far from painless.

We all have areas of pain in our lives. Just discussing them is painful. To think that the therapist can somehow wave the magic wand and the pain disappears is nothing but misleading advertising.

Rarely is therapy a walk in the park. It is more a walk back through our histories, with special stops at the painful areas where a good therapist can help facilitate "corrective emotional experiences." Corrective Emotional Experiences are when an individual revisits the difficult events that may have occurred when they were 10 years old and reinterpret the events with the eyes of an adult. If A 5 year old witnesses his drunken father hitting his mother - the appropriate response is to hide under the bed. Maybe if the child were 17 the correct approach might have been to call 911 and physically engage his Dad. If such an event happened when 5 and a person, to this day cowers at conflict and rues that they did nothing - revisiting with mature adult eyes may free up much that was bound in the misinterpretation made when 5 years old. By "re-seeing" and re-experiencing these events with different "eyes" a person can change the way those events affect them. It requires bravery, bold searching, reliving pain and the fortitude to prevail through the period of change. But as a famous Esalen era poster read:

The modern climate of medical care has been defined by managed care companies and they want everyone to believe it can be done in 5 - 20 sessions...or take this pill (this antidepressant, this mood stabilizer, this...) again the plop plop fizz fizz approach. Now I am not dissing medication. I have gone so far as to get a Post Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychopharmacology. I believe medicine has its place. But most often it is not the first choice. And far too often that is the place it is assigned to anyone seeking psychotherapy. That is a therapeutic ideal that pleases insurance companies and it is easily clung to by those who want the pain to just be lifted away. It is far cheaper to give you a $5 pill seven days a week than a $100 - $200 therapy session every week for two years. Heaven (and your insurance company) forbid you should go twice a week.

Moreover, there are consequences for seeing a therapist and billing insurance. It stays on your record for 7 or 8 years. If you should change insurance carriers because of job loss or better rates, etc. you may find coverage denied based on previous therapy - or at least no mental health benefits, or added premiums that could amount to 25% additional cost because you are now more of a "risk" to insurance companies. And make no mistake about it - no insurance company has gone into business to pay claims.

However, this little essay is only about what is psychotherapy and that alone is the subject matter of countless books. The insurance industry and managed care countless more books. Most not suitable for your or my eyes.

Do you hurt? Have things happened you need to get a handle on? Are you fairly certain life could be more if you had a few "emotionally corrective experiences?" Then roll up your sleeves, contact a therapist or three, interview one or ten until you feel good chemistry (that does not mean that you've found a magician/ cheerleader/instant cure person.) Then begin traveling the road. It will take strength and perseverance and it will pay off to the extent you work it. There are no shortcuts - but you can get lost.