• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

IIGP

Institute for Individual and Group Psychotherapy

Institute for Individual and Group Psychotherapy
29600 Northwestern Hwy, Ste 100A
Southfield, MI 48034
(248) 353-5333

  • Home
  • Continuing Education
    • Workshop Schedule
    • Registration and Directions
  • Training
    • Introductory Program
    • Traineeship Program
    • Fellowship Program
    • Student Experience 1
    • Student Experience 2
  • Faculty
    • David Baker, M.S.W
    • Leora Bar-Levav, M.D.
    • Natan HarPaz, Ph.D, M.S.W, CGP, FAGPA
    • Ronald Hook, M.S.W.
    • Paul Shultz, M.S.W.
    • Marcia Stein, M.S.W.
    • Pamela Torraco, M.S.W.
    • Adjunct Faculty
  • Videos
  • Articles
  • About
    • Theoretical Approach
    • Creating Lasting Change
    • Library
    • Board of Directors
  • Blog
  • Contact

Thinking and Feeling

May 16, 2016

As small children we live mostly based on our feelings — not our thinking. When something scares us, we avoid it or fight it, since we are unable to judge whether it might be dangerous or something totally harmless.

If we like something, we tend to go toward it, regardless of whether it’s good or bad for us, because we can’t evaluate reality very well yet. We reflexively learn how to fit into our environment primarily based on our feelings. This is how our basic patterns of personality get laid down, patterns that tend to repeat themselves again and again throughout life, often without us even knowing it. This can present a problem because those automatic feeling-based patterns often don’t work well in adulthood.

We may find ourselves, as adults, scared of things we know shouldn’t scare us. We may find ourselves hurt by things we know shouldn’t hurt us. We also may make repeated bad decisions and wonder why we don’t learn from the experience and do things differently. If the problem is bad enough, we might decide to seek psychotherapy.

Does psychotherapy help?

It depends on what you mean by “psychotherapy,” because there is no general definition of what psychotherapy is. Many people think of psychotherapy as a way of figuring out “why we do what we do” or “why I am the way I am.” However, even if one figures out “why I do what I do,” it doesn’t do a lot to help break the pattern. Negative or destructive behaviors often continue to repeat themselves.

For psychotherapy to work it has to affect much more than how we understand ourselves. It also has to affect us on an emotional level. In order to change these patterns we developed as children, we have to experience the childhood feelings again, but this time in a safe and therapeutic setting. In other words, we need corrective emotional experiences.

At IIGP, we teach a form of therapy using corrective emotional experiences, experiences that affect feeling and not just thinking. When it works, harmless things that used to scare us no longer affect us the same way. Our decision-making improves, our quality of life is considerably better, and our relationships are enriched.

Filed Under: Blog

Primary Sidebar

Workshops

Culture and Race in Psychotherapy

Formative Psychology

An Overview of Emotion-Focused Therapy: An Evidence Based Approach to Treatment

Adoption: Implications for Psychotherapy

Yoga and Psychotherapy

Recent Blog Posts

CHOOSING A PSYCHOTHERAPIST BY HOW MUCH IT COSTS?

Group Therapy vs. Individual Therapy

‘DAMAGE’ That a Psychotherapist Treats

The Central Place of the “Body” in Psychotherapy

Thinking and Feeling

Newsletter Archive

  • Winter 2012
  • Spring 2012
  • Winter 2009, Vol. 2 Issue 2
  • Winter 2008, Vol. 1, Issue 2
  • Spring 2008, Vol. 1, Issue 3
  • Spring 2009, Vol. 2, Issue 3
  • Spring 2011 Vol. 4, Issue 2
  • Summer 2014
  • Fall 2009, Vol. 3 Issue 1
  • Fall 2007, Vol. 1, Issue 1

Footer

Copyright © 2025 Institute for Individual and Group Psychotherapy