Why Psychotherapy Works: Dr. Saulitis on the Method's Logic

When people ask why psychotherapy helps at all, I have a simple image. Imagine someone wants to drive a car. What do we do first? Repair the car so it will even start. Only then do we teach driving. The mind is the same: first the brain has to work, and only then does explaining anything make sense.

First, the brain must function

There's no point explaining anything to the brain if it isn't functioning. That's first: the brain must start working. This usually takes two to three months — there are medications, there is knowledge, everything needed to set things right. Once the brain is working, everything else works too. Before that, no psychotherapy will give results, because explaining things to a non-working organ is pointless.

Psychotherapy is education

Once the car is running, the driving lessons begin. You can call it psychotherapy, you can call it a driving course — it sounds funny, but that's how it is. We have set aside everything extra and say plainly: this is simply education. And education always has a theoretical part and a practical part. We move away from subjectivity and improvisation — we show the person the informative principles: how the brain works, what problems it has, how misunderstandings arise.

When the brain isn't at full capacity

When the brain isn't running at full efficiency — not at 80–90 percent — it shows up in specific states. Take fear of speaking before a crowd: you notice you fear other people's judgment, "what will they think of me." From this come insecurity and everything else. The crowd affects you, your creative flow gets knocked out, and you have to think in parallel: what are they thinking, how should I say it. When a person recognizes these states in himself, he begins to see their roots and to support a more workable state.

Why "easy formulas" don't work

Everyone wants to hear something easy: option one, two, three — and you're done. But it doesn't happen that way. If all those formulas worked, the world would have become better. It hasn't — which means those formulas don't work; where are their fruits? So I don't offer ready recipes, I show the path and the principles by which a person can move forward himself.

Which methods actually work

In my experience, what works is rational and behavioral (cognitive-behavioral) therapy and the suggestive approach — the gentle Ericksonian hypnosis I love very much. On its basis you can build self-hypnosis and autogenic training, so a person can use it himself without harming himself. Psychoanalysis, by contrast, with genuine depression often only makes things worse — it "psycho-romanticizes" the psyche. Gestalt therapy is a little better; I once found its perspective of growth interesting, but today almost no one takes it seriously.

Image-programs and reality

It's important to understand: we think in images, in forms. Which part of the brain is working determines which "program" you switch on. And until that program changes, the person will have no other reality. Recall the two women in the forest: one had the program of looking for mushrooms — she found mushrooms; the other had a fear-of-snakes program switch on — and she looked for snakes. That's why affirmations and beliefs must be conscious and your own, tailored to you, like custom-made clothing.

Practice

1. First make sure the "car starts" — that the brain is functioning; without this, learning is useless.
2. Recognize your state: what exactly throws you off (for example, fear of others' judgment).
3. Treat the work as education: master the theory (how the brain works) and the practice.
4. Choose working tools — the rational/behavioral approach, gentle self-hypnosis — and apply them consciously.
5. Build affirmations for yourself, for your specific problem, not from someone else's template.