What is Therapy?
Question: What is Therapy?
A supervisor once asked me to come up with a metaphor for therapy. The idea was that the metaphor would be a helpful reference for framing therapy for the client. It would also be a useful reference to help me stay anchored in the therapeutic process.
What a glorious exercise! I revere metaphors because they convey more meaning through imagery than words alone. And this prompt forced me to get clear on some core conceptualizations: What is therapy? Why do people go to therapy? What do people want from therapy? How do I support people in this vulnerable and personal process?
So, I set out to identify the ideal metaphor for therapy. I searched my beliefs, my goals, my experiences, my hopes for myself and my clients. Ultimately, I viewed myself as a steward for anyone who stepped into my office, and so I settled on the image of a park ranger.
A park ranger helps visitors navigate the wild edges of nature as safely as possible. They don't set up your camp or pack your bag for a hike. They offer guidance based on what you are hoping to accomplish, help you prepare for what you might encounter, and step in when necessary during an emergency. In my mind, the park ranger was someone who felt called to care for the world and help visitors access and appreciate its true nature because it was important and meaningful work.
What a beautiful image. I even purchased a tiny Smokey the Bear figurine to place out of the corner of my eye during sessions to remind me of my role and the process.
A Question I Couldn't Answer
A couple of months later, I revisited this metaphor with another supervisor. They asked me a question that rattled my whole conception of therapy:
"Why are you in the metaphor at all?"
I was floored. I could not fully understand what they meant, but I knew they were pointing to something important. Somewhere in my brainstorming process, the question had shifted from "What is therapy?" to "What is my role in therapy?" My identity had become tangled up in the metaphor. Because, of course, the therapist is involved in therapy. The therapist is crucial to the process. Right?
That was the assumption hiding underneath my metaphor. I viewed therapy as a partnership in which I walked the path with the client, offered guidance, created a space free of judgment, and made sure I never did the work for them. It was well-intentioned, but I had still made the therapist the center of the story alongside the client.
As I re-examined the beliefs and assumptions baked into my role as a therapist, I realized how much of it stemmed from my desire to be perceived as helpful, wise, and insightful. I DO love offering insights and feeling useful. To me, those insights signify that I understand and can make a difference. But what if that is more for me than for the client? What if my desire to be useful sometimes becomes a desire to prove my usefulness?
That simple question from my supervisor changed how I thought about therapy. I began to see the therapist as a piece of the whole rather than the center of the process with the client. The therapist is not there to provide answers, but to support the conditions in which a person can discover their own. What the client needs is not another person telling them who they are. They need space to encounter themselves without judgment, labels, or pressure. Ultimately, the therapist can be an important part of the conditions that make change possible without being the source of the change itself.
So, what is something that unequivocally has no stake in how a personal reflection lands and supports both client and therapist? What is something that consistently is able to be whatever is needed for the client at that moment?
The Mirror
For thousands of years, humans have turned to Nature as a source of reflection, wisdom, and meaning, long before contemplative traditions and, more recently, ecopsychology gave that instinct a name. Nature is an objective mirror, not because it always gives us a clear reflection, but because it has no agenda for what that reflection should be. Take water, for instance. It does not judge what it reflects, nor does it ask us to change what we see. It simply gives us something to encounter in that moment, on its own terms: still or turbulent, clear or muddy, exactly as it is.
In Nature Informed Therapy, we often refer to Nature as the co-therapist in the session, each part in relationship with the others, all working together.
Client × Nature × Therapist
Nature can be the background, the teacher, the physical grounding, the container, or simply the life force that is there. Nature does not need to explain itself. It simply gives us an opportunity to notice what is present and how we relate to what is happening in our lives.
And perhaps that is what therapy is ultimately about: learning to see ourselves in relationship to the world we inhabit.
Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Learning to notice the different parts of ourselves and how they interact. Learning to look at what is there without immediately defining it or deciding what should be different.
And when I say "see," I mean something much bigger than sight. We use the word because language has its limitations. Seeing yourself can mean understanding yourself, experiencing yourself, feeling yourself, and eventually embodying what you discover. In Nature, we are reminded to engage all our senses, not just our eyes. The goal is not simply to create a clearer picture of ourselves, but to have a fuller and more honest experience of being ourselves in this moment. To know ourselves deeply.
If this is true, I think of therapy as a three-step process:
Having the courage to look in the mirror.
Having the patience to see the reflection clearly (honestly, for what it is).
Learning how you relate to what you see, because that is where seeing can become acceptance, and acceptance can become the foundation for enduring change.
The River
So, what is my therapy metaphor now?
Therapy is learning to sit beside a river and simply be.
You return to a spot on the river and become present long enough to pay attention to what it brings. How is this spot different from yesterday? From ten minutes ago?
If you are lucky, you catch your reflection in the water. Maybe the water is clear enough to see yourself easily. Maybe the light is changing and hitting the water differently than before. Maybe your vision oscillates between the smooth rocks on the riverbed, your face, and the clouds above you - all existing in tandem. Maybe the current is turbulent, and you cannot see your reflection at all.
And yet, the river has not failed. Nor have you.
The conditions of the river influence what you are able to see, but they do not tell the whole story of who you are. The reflection changes because the conditions change. You are still there. But you can't rely only on sight to see that.
With time and practice, you begin to learn that you are in relationship with the river of life and that you are part of something bigger than yourself. You cannot control the water, the weather, the light, or the seasons, and it's futile to spiral over that lack of control. But you can decide whether you are willing to sit beside the river, pay attention, and be with whatever arises.
Perhaps that is what therapy ultimately offers: the opportunity to sit beside the river long enough to see yourself, to notice how you relate to what you see, and to discover what becomes possible from there.
Some days the water will be still. Some days it will be muddy. Some days you may not see your reflection at all.
The invitation is simply to return and learn to be with whatever floats downstream. As the old saying goes, no river is ever the same as it was before. Neither are we.