Welcome to The Good Therapists.  I am so excited to have you here. This site tries to do the impossible:  talk about something without telling you anything about it.

Let me explain.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas writes about a concept he calls the "saying" and the "said".  Once words are on the page they have been said.  Once words are spoken they are spoken - also part of the said.  For Levinas, the said is tyrannical.  The saying on the other hand is alive.  As I type these words right now, to you, the many dear friends, colleagues, and people I have yet to meet who will read these words they are alive.  When the period is placed they are finished.  Once published they will be a tyranny of sorts.

Psychotherapy of course is about speaking.  About the saying.  It is about finding life, discovering oneself, others, and the world.  To write about what psychotherapy is is a form of tyranny over the project of psychotherapy.  How dare I tell you what psychotherapy is?  How can I speak as if I know what you might need to discover or how you should talk? I don't know what your life or your therapy is like.  How dare I speak of it?

Here's the problem:  There are many people already talking about psychotherapy.  They tell us when to get help, how to find the right therapist, how to overcome anxiety, how to deal with family over the holidays, etc etc etc etc.  Talk about the tyranny of the said.  If those of us who see psychotherapy differently do not speak, we are left with "You won't believe how this person beat depression in 24 hours with no medication and no therapy - click here!!!"  Perhaps I exaggerate.   Perhaps not.  Both are true in the saying.

So the task is impossible.  But yet I must try.  And I think we must and do try, each in our own way.

So welcome to my tyranny.

I am proud to begin this site today.   I am grateful for the 90 people from 4 countries who have shown interest at this early stage.  Please visit the site and show yourself around.  A good place to start is the Start Here page.

Where do we go from here?  How can one know?  But here's the 'plan':

• I will publish an article every week which will be added to the content on the site and sent via email and social media.

• As readers contribute those articles will also be posted and distributed.

• I am planning a podcast series for later in the year.

Here are some of the upcoming articles:

• Later this week: "What Therapists And Clients Wrote When I Asked Them What They Wanted The World To Understand About Psychotherapy"

• What Exactly Is Emotional Health?

• Examples Of Emotional Health On The Internet

• How Are Therapists Trained?

In the weeks leading up to launch I have been overwhelmed and moved by your interest and your words.  So many of you have shared so much of yourselves over the years and in the past few weeks. I am grateful for the people who have indicated an interest in writing.  I welcome that conversation. I would also like to hear from you on topics for articles that you think would be interesting, feedback regarding existing articles, and anything else that is on your mind.

One other thing I want to mention before closing:  I think that the difficulty of speaking about psychotherapy contributes to the lack of knowledge and understanding about therapy in the broader culture.  It is much easier to sell systems, programs, tools  and outcomes than it is to sell a process that is unknown and as yet unformed.  I believe we must challenge our propensity for answers.  I feel that pull to find the perfect coach or teacher or guru who will solve all my problems. And I don't downplay the usefulness of various programs.  But it is the fact that it cannot be sold easily or well that makes good therapy real.  And powerful.  For practically everyone.  I hope you'll engage in this conversation that crosses disciplines and opens up what is possible for us generally as humans and more particularly through psychotherapy.

The Good Therapists is about speaking.  Even in this infant stage, this project has shown that when we speak we change and others are also changed.  This is the practice of psychotherapy.  It is my hope that The Good Therapists will bring each of us to a clearer articulation of our experience in the moments of our lives.

Yours,

Ali

If this post resonates with you, sign-up for my email list here.