khushi Sanghani 
A couple of months ago, one of my friends sent a reel to me of an instagram creator talking about how therapy didn’t work for them because they were already quite self aware.
When I began my career, I have to admit that I was also of the same opinion. Some people are introspective in nature so they might not need therapy. With the internet being so accessible, you can also become aware quite easily. As I began practising, I realised that therapy is a lot more nuanced than this.
I still don’t think everyone needs to go to therapy. There are many different ways of healing – in community, storytelling, spirituality, medication, self work books, coaching etc. Therapy is just one way. We need to honour all ways of healing. However, if you choose not to go to therapy only because you are self aware and think therapy would have nothing new to offer, then I’d encourage you to reflect on the following first before making the call.
1. Self aware or Self shaming?
Are you someone who can list your weakness in seconds and but needs a long time to even come up with your two-three strengths you bring to the table? I know I was that person (still am, somedays) and I thought that was humility.
A lot of times, we believe that being aware of all our flaws is being insightful. However, maybe we hold a cognitive distortion which is a habitual way of thinking that is biased, inaccurate, or unhelpfully negative, and it affects how a person feels and behaves. In this case, the cognitive distortion would be of minimising your strengths and maximizing your weakness. Underneath this distortion might be shame.
In a research study, Brown (2006) interviewed 215 women to understand experiences of shame and developed Shame Resilience Theory, which explains that shame involves the belief “I am bad,” while guilt relates to specific behaviors rather than the self. The study also found that real self-awareness and empathy help people cope with shame in a healthier way instead of turning to self-hate or isolation.
| Situation | Self-aware response (includes strengths) | Self-shaming response |
|---|---|---|
| Feeling emotionally reactive in a relationship | “I notice I get defensive when I feel criticized. The fact that I can reflect on it means I care about the relationship and want to understand myself better.” | “I’m impossible to love. Everything is wrong with me.” |
| Struggling with productivity | “I’ve been exhausted and avoiding tasks lately. I’m generally committed and capable, so maybe my mind and body need support right now.” | “I’m just lazy and useless. Other people can handle life better.” |
2. Emotions? Eww
You might be pretty good at knowing yourself objectively (both strengths and areas of improvement) . You are good at analysing your situation and past. You also know what to do to solve it and how to get there but somehow you aren’t able to. This is intellectualising. Intellectualising a defence mechanism where we use logic and reason to detach from emotions that feel overwhelming. It helps to survive and feel relief in the moment, it is protective in nature.
However, it also doesn’t make the problem go away at its core. You might also feel disconnected to yourself – ‘I don’t feel like myself’, ‘I feel numb’, ‘All’s well’ (when you aren't feeling well). Maybe your relationship is strained and you hear your loved ones call you ‘a robot’ or ‘too practical’
Uncomfortable emotion → Immediately analysing → Try to convince yourself with logic → Distract yourself → Suppress the emotion → Temporary relief → Emotion returns later→ Cycle repeats
| When we don’t feel our emotions | When we feel our emotions |
|---|---|
| Suppression creates emotional buildup | Reduces overthinking, numbness, irritability |
| The nervous system fears avoided feelings | Teaches the body that feelings are tolerable |
| Intellectual understanding is limited | Helps understand needs, pain, boundaries |
| Unfelt emotions can control reactions | Helps respond instead of react automatically |
| Emotions can stay stored in the body | Helps release stress and tension |
| Constant avoidance creates disconnection | Builds self-trust and connection with self |
So what you perhaps need is not to analyze more but to sit with your feelings. As Brene Brown, my favourite researcher said in her Ted Talk, “You cannot selectively numb emotions… When we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.”
3. “Sit with your feelings”
I know when I tell my clients to sit with their feelings, they give me a puzzled, annoyed look and honestly, I get it. We might know it's important to pay attention to our feelings but might not know how to do it. It’s not something that’s taught at home or school.
This is often what therapy helps with. Emotional regulation is the ability to experience emotions without becoming completely overwhelmed by them. A therapist, as an expert, can guide you through this difficult process. If you’d like to get started, here’s a video by a therapist on how to sit with your feelings.
Emotional regulation also works beautifully in therapy because of co-regulation. Co-regulation is when another calm and emotionally present person’s nervous system helps your nervous system feel safer. When someone sits with your emotions without judging, fixing, or rushing you, your body slowly learns: “I can feel this and still be okay.” Over time, emotions that once felt unbearable become easier to process and move through.
4. ‘The vibe with your therapist’ might be healing?
A lot of healing in therapy happens through the therapeutic relationship itself. You might already know what healthy communication, boundaries, or emotional safety look like. But therapy gives you a space to experience it in real time with your therapist.
The therapeutic relationship can become:
- a consistent support system
- a space for emotional safety
- a place where healthy relationships are modeled, not just explained.
Experience changes us differently than insight does. When your body repeatedly experiences being heard, understood, respected, or emotionally safe, your nervous system slowly begins to absorb that information naturally. Not just as something you know, but as something your system starts to believe and expect. That allows you to draw boundaries in unhealthy relationships and seek more healthy relationships.
The patterns that show up relationships outside the therapy room — people-pleasing, withdrawal, fear of conflict, difficulty trusting — can also show up in therapy with your therapist. But here, they are noticed, understood, and worked through together in real time.
Healing is not only about understanding yourself better. It’s about change. Awareness is just the first step. So choosing the right type of therapy and a right fit becomes important. If you are considering therapy and hesitant to try it only because you are self aware, I’d gently invite you to give it a shot and we hope you find something that helps you heal. We hope to see you in our session 🙂
References
Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 87(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.3483
Brown, B. (2010). The power of vulnerability [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability
Friedman, H. H. (2023). Overcoming cognitive distortions: How to recognize and challenge the thinking traps that make you miserable. Koppelman School of Business, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/107172681/AAOvercomingCognitiveDistortions_MentalHealth-libre.pdf
Lincoln, T. M., Schulze, L., & Renneberg, B. (2022). The role of emotion regulation in the characterization, development and treatment of psychopathology. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(5), 272–286. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00040-4