What Makes Therapy Powerful and Magical
- 7 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 7 hours ago
Ryan Campinho Valadas is a specialist psychotherapist, educator, and public speaker working in the areas of relational health, sexuality, identity, and organisational culture. He is based in the UK and works with a diverse range of individuals, community groups, and organisations.
It was a February evening, and a client and I were having our final session after a year of working together. At the end of the session, they said, “I feel more human now,” as a summary of their therapy journey. I felt really moved, and the meaning and power of the sentiment resonated deeply with me. I mean, what a statement, right?
In an age of technology and AI, here was this person telling me that they felt more human than before. I found it poetic, as well as a moment that spoke to the wider experience of those who decide to come to therapy.
Finding meaning in small moments
This experience reminded me of the small moments that amount to big moments in therapy and in life, and how easy it is nowadays to just keep going without stopping long enough to notice what is going on around us and inside us. One of my tutors during my second degree once shared that they had written a case study solely about the first few minutes of a therapy session, focusing on what happens when a client enters the room, says hello, and has the initial awkward chit-chat before delving into deeper topics. I always thought it was wonderful to focus on such a minute relational moment in the therapeutic journey in order to investigate wider human dynamics.
To me, there is something equally insightful about a final session with someone. A final therapy session is a chance to reflect on progress and look hopefully towards the future by thinking about what has been and what might be possible moving forward. There is always a mix of feelings as we celebrate the work that has been done, think about maintaining motivation and sustainable action, and say goodbye to a meaningful connection. This mix can sometimes offer surprising moments, such as statements that are both simple and profound. “I feel more human now.” What can that mean in terms of therapeutic progress?
Identifying progress in therapeutic journeys
Whilst my training and career are somewhat unorthodox in their scope and variety, I trained in Dramatherapy and Psychosexual and Relationship Psychotherapy. I have worked in primary schools, sexual health clinics, community addiction centres, corporate settings, and private practice, using both long-term and brief therapy techniques and frameworks. However, there is something quintessentially psychodynamic about my approach.
I like to explore the unconscious and identify the shadowy aspects of a person’s psyche as a way of making sense of their present actions. I’m fascinated by what is unsaid and unacknowledged, and I strive to help my clients make powerful connections between their reflexes and their needs.
I don’t tend to measure my clients’ progress through numbers or quantitative data, but through reductions in their dysfunctional and destructive patterns, suffering, and shame, and increases in their contentment, openness, and vulnerability within their relationships. There are no overnight changes, lightbulb moments do not happen in every session, and life crises do not automatically disappear. However, there can still be progress if we look carefully and intentionally for it.
I once believed that my purpose in this job was to save the world, but my first role in clinical practice quickly changed that. It showed me that humanity was both incredibly simple and complex, and there was no “saving” it. We tend to strive for and need similar things from life, but we all pursue them in widely different and individual ways.
Importantly, people can be helped when they are ready, willing, and open to it, not when someone else decides they should be. So, I’ve always looked for the small ways in which I could make a difference rather than pursuing the lofty goal of saving the world. That is why I focus on the reductions and increases in certain human experiences when considering client progress.
Sharing human moments in therapy
When a client says they feel “more human,” what might they actually be saying? What might have shifted for them during the process? I find that the more human I am with clients, the more human they can be as well.
This may show up when I admit that I’m not sure about something, that I don’t have an answer, or that I genuinely hadn’t thought of something before. It is there when I admit confusion, tension, or uncertainty; when I laugh at something funny they have shared; or when I feel deeply moved and close to tears and admit it. I feel that our shared humanity becomes more present whenever I tell clients that I understand how they feel or why they did something, and I genuinely mean it.
When I normalise a response they had to something or someone, a spiralling thought, an emotional outburst, or a feeling of embarrassment, I fully believe that I’m helping clients reconnect with their humanity. Let’s face it and accept it, being human is not the same as being perfect. This is really important.
Clients are often surprised when they are met with understanding and acceptance. “You get it?” Yes, yes, I do. I’m no better than my clients in that sense. I have my moments of messy humanity, and that is why I love Irvin Yalom’s approach of considering therapists and clients as “fellow travellers” (Yalom, 2002).
I am interested in the relationship that develops between therapist and client, so I spend a lot of time exploring it in clinical supervision and with clients. I see this relationship as a mirror of the relationships clients have outside the therapy space and as a way of exploring how those relationships might be improved, using therapy as a rehearsal space for life.
I’m also interested in the influence of social and cultural dynamics, beliefs, and values that clients have internalised, and how these, in turn, influence behavioural, cognitive, and emotional patterns. I’m passionate about deconstructing them and creating space to imagine and live out new perspectives.
Finally, I’m also really interested in the existential dynamics of life and therapy, including the internal tensions and conflicts around purpose, meaning, love, life, death, freedom, and happiness. There is magic for me in holding all of this for a person and then supporting them as they explore the layers of conscious and unconscious awareness in which all of those components reside.
Being human is something we can facilitate by modelling it ourselves and sharing our own process when relevant and useful. It is also something we can bear witness to by holding spaces filled with compassion, acceptance, and care. This supports someone in developing autonomy and agency, self-compassion, self-confidence, self-acceptance, tolerance for vulnerability, and emotional buoyancy.
Feeling more human for everyone
Additionally, because a lot of my work is with and within the LGBTQIA+ community, I also spend time thinking about who gets to feel human without consequence in our societies.
There is a process of dehumanisation that is both psychological and structural, as people are told by those who are supposed to love them, as well as by society, culture, religion, and politics, that there is something wrong with them and that their lives carry less worth than other lives.
To me, the process of LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapy is “simply” to affirm people’s humanity beyond any kind of identity politics. I write “simply” because this process is actually quite complex. Reducing shame, suffering, anxiety, dysfunction, and destructiveness requires hard, consistent, dedicated, and compassionate effort and perseverance.
To be human is not only to connect with all the things that help us feel nurtured, nourished, or alive, but also to reduce the impact of all the things that get in the way. Relational dynamics, internal patterns, and existential feelings are always present within the individual, but they are also present within the structures surrounding the individual. Many of the challenges in contemporary therapy practice are structural and are not caused by an individual’s lack of resilience, skill, or capacity.
Ultimately, that is what really surprised me about the statement of feeling more human. I had grown slightly cynical about what my work and skills could accomplish, given the onslaught of structural difficulties in today’s world, which can feel overwhelming and pervasive in people’s daily lives. These include cost-of-living crises, wars, extreme climate patterns, compulsive and impulsive use of technology and social media, and widespread human disconnection.
Here lies the power and magic of therapy. Even with all of that going on, the experience of reconnecting with or deepening the feeling of one’s own humanity is still very much possible.
What would it be like to consider this idea of feeling more human as a serious and essential outcome in therapeutic practice? What would it mean to hold “feeling more human” as a legitimate therapeutic goal in and of itself? What would this mean in our daily lives?
P.S. This shared experience is included in the article with my client’s full permission and agreement.
Read more from Ryan Campinho Valadas
Ryan Campinho Valadas, Therapist, Educator & Trainer
Ryan Campinho Valadas is a specialist psychotherapist, educator, and organisational trainer based in the UK. With 10 years of experience in psychotherapy and almost 20 years in public speaking, community organizing, and advocacy, he is interested in the influence of social, cultural, and global dynamics in our daily lives. Ryan specialises in psychosexual and relationship therapy, LGBTQ+ wellbeing, male mental health, and relational health in organisations. Main intention is to facilitate people in building better connections to their identities, desires, relationships, and life journeys.
