"Who's Gonna Save My Soul?": Not Your Therapist.
A reflection on what therapy can and cannot do—and why that matters.
Over the past decade working as a therapist, I've had the privilege of working with an incredible variety of people—different ages, backgrounds, presenting issues, and stories. Some of them made tremendous strides. They became more self-aware. They developed a stronger relationship with themselves. They enhanced their connections with others or extracted themselves from toxic ones. They simply became more attuned to their lives as they received them.
But here's the thing: that number represents only part of my work.
There's another number—far from small—of cases where the opposite happened. Not because therapy itself was ineffective, but because people came in with the belief that therapy could fix them. And in some cases, they never quite developed the level of ownership necessary to ask themselves: What things can I actually do to make changes that would better my life or the lives of people around me?
Unfortunately, there are some things that therapy cannot fix.
When People Therapy Hop
When clients encounter that reality—when they realize their therapist can't solve the unsolvable—it can create what I call disparate actions. They might begin therapy hopping, always searching for the right person who can finally provide what they're looking for. They might continue to engage in harmful patterns. Or they might go searching for different fixes entirely: things that distract or numb them from the real problem at hand.
I've been guilty of this myself. During my second stint in therapy after having to leave my first when I graduated with my Masters, I found myself sitting across from a Christian therapist to keep the work going. However, it wasn't a fit, and I became a little frustrated because I wanted something more from them than they could actually give. What I wasn't consciously aware of in that moment was that what I actually needed wasn't a better therapist—it was a framework that could help me accept what I couldn't change.
I needed radical acceptance.
What Radical Acceptance Actually Means
Radical acceptance is a framework that seems simple to understand but can be genuinely difficult to execute.
When you are radically accepting something, you're accepting it all the way—100%. You're accepting that you have strong feelings about it. Not just one feeling, but multiple feelings. And those feelings ebb and flow. You're accepting your role—or lack thereof—when it comes to the issue at hand. You're accepting that there may be deficits in how you're present, how cognizant you are, or how well you can solve the problem on your own.
Here's what radical acceptance doesn't mean: it doesn't mean you have to like what's happening. It doesn't mean you can't feel frustrated or bothered. It doesn't provide a solution to your problem.
What it does is ground you. And to do it, you have to be willing to turn your mind away from the entitlement that expectations can bring.
Practicing Radical Acceptance
You can start by identifying something you have really strong feelings about—something you're manifesting, something you want desperately. Then ask yourself: If I don't get this, how can I still feel contentment? How can I still feel peace?
Let me give you an example, and I'm sure many of you can relate to this. You've had an unrequited crush or love for someone. You've agonized over it, convinced yourself that you could give them everything if they just accepted you and your love. Nobody wants to accept rejection. So you tell yourself the next best thing is to stalk them on social media, or to try and convince your case one more time.
But the actual next best thing? It's turning to your loved ones who do reciprocate. It's finding moments to relish in how they see you. It might mean making new connections with people who are willing to see you. It might involve new dating, new relationships, or simply spending time in environments where you're valued.
And here's the key: in making those choices, you also have to accept what comes after. You don't have to like it. But you do have to learn how to dial back your expectations while you develop the right skills. You find yourself becoming more of an active member in the right environments. And sometimes, after much time has passed, it doesn't heal everything. But if you're willing to throw yourself into ways to accept that you're going through real pain—that you have a problem that's simply unfixable, at least for now—then the more you sit with it, the more you develop the ability to take back autonomy in your life.
What Your Therapist Can and Cannot Do
Many of us therapists know that when we start working with a new client, we need to communicate clearly:
Here are the skill sets I can provide assistance with.
Here are the things I simply can't.
It's not always an easy conversation for either side. Being told "there's nothing I can do" can feel like hope is escaping from between your fingers.
But here's what's true: anything that leaves can eventually come back—maybe in a different shape or a different form. And that applies to both solutions and problems.
Cultivating Your Relationship With Suffering
The real question is: How do you want to cultivate the suffering that will come? Would you like it to overwhelm and consume you? Or can it be like a comforter—something you sleep with that night? You decide how much of it you want to cover you. You decide if you want it to cover you at all. But it still stays in proximity to your body.
Maybe it covers just a small portion of you while the rest of you is free. Free to simply exist. Free to move around. Free to feel free.
That's the work. That's what therapy can facilitate—not a fix, but a framework for living alongside what you cannot change. And that, I've found, is often more valuable than any solution could ever be.
