Talk therapy — psychotherapy — is profoundly helpful.
It gives us space to reflect, to name, to make sense of things.
It helps us build a story — not just about ourselves,
but about our world and our relationship to it.
These stories shape how we see, how we organize, how we survive.
But at the end of the day, psychotherapy is still a story.
That’s what talk therapy is: a re-narration of meaning.
And often, it’s a new story laid on top of an old one.
A story we hope will feel better.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes the shift in narrative brings clarity, relief, even joy.
But that doesn’t mean we’re safe.
It doesn’t mean we’re well.
Because while our conscious mind might believe the new story,
there are parts of us that don’t work in story at all.
There are parts of us that don’t need to make sense of experience —
because they’re still living in it.
These parts of us respond not to insight, but to pattern.
Not to logic, but to memory stored in sensation, reflex, posture, breath.
They aren’t convinced by a new idea — they’re waiting to feel something different.
And this is the great blind spot of talk therapy:
It works on the level of language and cognition.
But much of our suffering happens beneath those levels —
In the places we don’t yet have words for.
Or never did.
So when talk therapy becomes the dominant model of healing,
we risk mistaking insight for integration.
We risk settling for a better story,
when what we need is a different experience.
We live in a culture that privileges language.
We assume that if something can be said, it can be known.
And if it can be known, it can be solved.
This is the myth that keeps talk therapy at the center of the healing world:
If I can talk about it, I can change it.
If I can name it, I can tame it.
And sometimes — yes — that’s true.
Language can be a doorway.
Story can be powerful medicine.
But it’s not the whole terrain.
Because there’s a difference between saying “I’m okay now,”
and actually being okay.
A difference between telling yourself you’re safe,
and your body no longer bracing every time the wind shifts.
Talk therapy can reorganize meaning.
But it doesn’t always reorganize being.
Not because it’s failing — but because it’s not designed for that.
It’s a cortical practice.
A mind-based tool.
And that’s important — but not complete.
When we only operate on the level of story,
we end up circling the same terrain — just with different language.
We build a new frame. A better perspective.
But the underlying patterns keep running in the background.
Quiet. Subtle.
Powerful.
So many people walk away from therapy feeling understood —
but still carrying the same tight chest.
The same clenched jaw.
The same fog that lives behind the eyes.
Understanding is not the same as unwinding.
And clarity is not the same as freedom.
We need to make space for more than the story.
For what happens before words.
For what trembles in the breath.
For the slow unwinding of a body that’s held itself too long.
For the reflexes that don’t speak English,
but speak clearly in their own language.
There are ways to meet that.
Not from mental maps or conceptual models —
but from presence.
From orientation.
From something more honest than understanding.
Sometimes that’s through somatic work.
Through relational presence.
Through movement.
Touch.
Stillness.
Silence.
And yet — even here — we must be careful.
Because sometimes stillness too becomes a technique.
Sometimes even silence is used to perform a model.
We can meditate from the mind.
We can move from the mind.
We can touch from a theory.
So it’s not just what we do —
but where we’re doing it from.
Because healing isn’t about saying the right thing.
Or doing the right thing.
It’s about becoming available to what’s real.
And what’s real often begins
beneath the story.