Explain to anyone what the psychotherapy, and especially what I understand as psychotherapy, It is always a challenge. And when this is added we want to explain it to children, or adolescents, It finds it harder. And yet, psychotherapy is perfectly natural: to recover the lost balance (and thus regain control of their lives).

As human beings we are basically ready to grow healthily. It would be natural that all people might be moving through the various stages of childhood, adolescence and adulthood step. It would be natural, well, on the one hand to incorporate the nutrient elements psychologically (body, emotional, cognitive, procedural, attitudinal…) and on the other hand trying to overcome the painful and even harmful elements with new learning (of the kind “This attitude of mine and does not serve me” The “I do not ever want to deal with a person who does not respect me”). However, Sometimes things go wrong (a little or a lot), and you need to do something to move forward with health. Psychotherapy is a good way to integrate and heal the experiences, regaining enthusiasm for our life.

The video “Garra rufa (Doctor Fish)”, It was developed by a group of students of animation Sheridan College under the name of Frozen Mammoth Productions, among others Timothy Chan and Eunice Hwang, and we can serve as the starting point to begin reflection.

This video seems a good example to explain several key points that I like to make clear to children and adolescents, and also adults who pose make a psychotherapy:

1) The work of those who act as therapists is recover the healthy and alive who's inside we see. We all have something valuable by the mere fact of its existence, although sometimes very harmful situations have occurred, the external internal.

2) To recover what we have healthy and alive variety of means, Suitable whom we have before (and at his age, their likes, his style, what has lived…). always we hear, often we ask, and sometimes we propose activities (how to draw, or perform specific activities, or trying different techniques). Our goal is to give back to the person that he is healthy and alive, but cleaner and stronger so you can move your life.

3) We know that the process takes time. If we take weeks, months, years, living with painful, we will also need time to heal dedication. It is true that there may be discoveries that we radically change our experience at a time, as it appears in the video, but that only happens when we have been investigating our inner enough. And it takes time for that experience is put in place globally in our lives.

4) And we know that The process involves an effort. It's like cleaning a wound that has become infected, It may involve momentary pain, but the improvement is evident in the long run. The effort affects people who are around who comes for consultation. For children, and adolescents, the effort affects the family, and from my vision of psychotherapy I intervene only if there is a clear and strong commitment from family (especially primary caregivers).

5) As in the video, as therapists know well the experience because We have lived our own psychotherapy with our own challenges. Of course we have specific training, broad and deep, but we do not consider exceptional people. We are simply people who have watched our pain and we have learned to look at the pain of others constructively and from new perspectives.

I hope the video will serve you to have some clearer ideas about psychotherapy, especially when you please explain the your children, and adolescents.

Xavier