Blocks To Therapy (Part 1)

Can you relate to those who desperately need help but have a hard time opening up to the help they need?

Helen Keller once said, "The saddest thing in life is a person who has sight, but is blind."

I call it "blind resistance," one of the common roadblocks to healing. When you're stuck in this, you refuse to see defects and areas in yourself that need work. It can be easy for you to have 20/20 vision when it comes to pointing other people's faults. But, its so tough for you to examine your own life.

In the context of psychotherapy and counseling, this "blind resistance" is inside the soul. You may hear words from another, but you refuse to listen to what's being shared or processed. You defend, rationalize, project your problem, make excuses, avoid, or blame anything for the way you are. If someone points right, you go to the left. If someone says white, you say black. You've solidified your belief that you're extremely confident and that you see and know everything.

Someone might know and be of help to you on the way out of the deep hole you're in. But, with "blind resistance," you hang on to remain the same no matter how dysfunctional or damaging that life has become.

Healing and recovery then begins when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. You finally realize the "blind resistance" within your self that keeps the old destructive patterns right up through your last breath.

The psalmist's plea is a profound therapeutic principle, "Keep me from lying to myself" (Ps. 119:29). It can be a powerful insight as we look at major spots of our lives affected by "blind resistance."