Beyond Techniques and Strategies

It’s easy to fall into the promise of techniques. Strategies. Tools. “Five ways to manage your anxiety.” “Top tips for emotional regulation.” There’s comfort in the idea that if we just do the right thing, the pain will ease. The feelings will pass. We’ll feel better.

Sometimes, those tools help. Breathing exercises can steady the nervous system. Reframing thoughts might loosen the grip of self-criticism. Writing things down can bring clarity. There’s nothing wrong with techniques — they can be useful.

But there’s a difference between managing feelings… and meeting them.

Sometimes the relentless search for strategies becomes another way of avoiding ourselves. Another way of trying to control what’s rising within, instead of turning toward it. The parts of you that feel anxious, angry, lost, or afraid —they're not problems to solve - they're feelings to listen to.

Pain doesn’t always respond to logic. Our wounds aren't always cognitive. And the deepest changes — the ones that shift how you relate to yourself and others — rarely happen because of a technique.

Healing happens in relationship. In the presence of someone who doesn’t try to fix you. Someone who’s curious about what hurts, and why. Someone who sees the whole of you, not just the behaviour you're trying to change.

The real work of therapy isn’t about strategies. It’s about contact.

So yes — use the tools if they help. But if they don’t, or if you’re tired of managing and ready to explore — therapy can offer something else. Something slower, deeper, and more human.