What Happens In Psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy generally starts with the client and the therapist identifying
and exploring the stressors and problem areas in past and current daily
living that are causing the client emotional and psychological pain - the
issues that are 
bringing you to therapy in the first place.
At the same time, the Therapist and client are looking for and locating the strengths and personal resources we all possess. People coming to therapy are often out of touch with these resources in themselves.
Identifying and mobilizing these strengths will be important to working through current difficulties.
It can be important to look to the past for clues as to why we are operating
the way we are today..
But once we have done that, we need to find ways to begin to resolve old
wounds and establish or re-establish a healthier and a more satisfying
daily lifestyle.
Ultimately, clients must then be willing to act on what they are discovering in their therapy. Together with their Therapist, they find ways to reduce past self-defeating patterns and maximize new more effective thoughts, attitudes, feelings and behaviors. Clients then try out these new behaviors and explore with the therapist what helps and what does not.
Insight can be important and comforting to a person in emotional pain.
So, it is an ongoing goal in Psychotherapy.
But insight is usually not enough by itself. Without appropriate action, nothing changes and we tend to stay stuck in the very self – defeating patterns bringing us to Therapy in the first place.
Action plans to modify and replace these old patterns, based on new learning,
then become the basis for growth and change during and after your Psychotherapy.