Therapy is where a person goes to be heard.  It is a place to express joy and humor as well as pain. The therapist must first, and most importantly, listen, with the heart as well as with the ears.  Clients need to be met wherever they are in their journey, not where the therapist wants them to be. Therapists are not there to impose their beliefs and morals onto clients but to help clients clarify or discover their own.

Therapy is a place to learn to identify, express and sit with feelings, if a person is yet unable to do so.  Although some people are uncomfortable with silence, periods of silence need to be provided to allow the opportunity to recognize or process feelings or to figure out what the next step is. And more often than not, those feelings will be mixed or will conflict with or contradict our thoughts. We can learn to recognize and honor the difference between emotion and intellect or "head vs heart" and then base our actions on what is in our best interest.  At the very least, we will then know that any decision we make is informed and thought out. 

Therapy can also help us learn to improve the way we communicate. The therapist must be skilled enough in healthy, effective methods of communication in order to teach these skills.  It is not the responsibility of the therapist to give advice or to solve problems but to support the client in that process. Therapy is also a place to learn about boundaries and setting limits, in life and in the therapy itself.  These boundaries need to be clarified and honored throughout the course of therapy. There must be an atmosphere of openness and honesty, so that a client feels safe enough to ask any question, yet boundaries need to be respected when a response is provided.