| The research also leaves unanswered a big question for the future: just how is psychotherapy enacting these personality trait changes? A large part of "personality" is about social interaction. If you have always been treated terribly, you won't know how to interact in a not terrible fashion, even if you run into people who aren't going to treat you terribly. Therapy can help you see that you have patterns of behavior shaped by negative social experiences and those patterns of behavior basically presume that everyone will behave in a particular way towards you and that way is not a nice way to behave. It can help you see that how you behave helps keep the negative social climate alive in your life and you have the power to behave differently going forward. It can help you sort out "Some people will do bad things to me and some won't. It's okay to make judgement calls about how to interact with different social situations for my own benefit." instead of going with some default learned behavior that is no longer serving you well. Metaphorically, it's a little like growing up in a very bad neighborhood where everyone carries a gun. Carrying a gun and being quick to show it to let people know you aren't going to be an easy victim is a matter of course. It's the only way to survive. Then you move to a nicer neighborhood where no one owns a gun. You continue flashing your gun anytime you feel threatened by anything to let people know you aren't an easy mark. They react negatively to you signaling that you are prepared to defend yourself with deadly force if necessary. In their world, only crazy people routinely talk about being prepared to use deadly force. That's simply not how things get settled in their world. You go to a therapist and he tells you "So, have you noticed that you left the neighborhood you grew up in and no one around you even carries a gun? Have you thought about trying to find some means to enforce your personal boundaries without pointing a gun at everyone you meet? Why don't you try that and see if people react different to you." So you go to a party and don't pull out your gun. And people are weirdly nice to you, nicer than they have ever been. And it's food for thought and you discuss the incident with your therapist the next time you see them. Your entire social life improves and you start to trust that maybe your therapist actually has good ideas and they aren't just trying to convince you to lay down your arms just to make it easier to take advantage of you, even though that's the standard you grew up with. |