Agnes Aflalo writes that “For psychoanalysis, the symptom is not a “disorder”, it is a silenced truth that needs to be heard.” It is through allowing your truth to be articulated and be heard that you begin your journey. It should not however be mistaken for being an easy thing to do, for it is not. Nonetheless, it just might be one of the most insightful explorations one may ever make.

We tend to think of a symptom in terms of ‘fixing it’ or, in other words, choosing to be deaf to what it screams. How so? Perhaps, if we were to hear, and I mean really hear what it is about we might ‘freak out’, so that by avoiding, postponing or procrastinating we actually allow the courage to build up before taking a glimpse in to a ‘scary’ truth. So, when one may think of long-term psychotherapy as a long winded time consuming waste of time, the latter point should be referenced. What if this is the very the time that we need to become ready, or as ready as one can be to begin addressing something that really matters?

It cannot be generalised, there is no univocal panacea for what may seem, at a first glance, as the same issue. It is never the same despite at times identical presentation of symptoms arising, because the experience itself is uniquely personal and individual. The experience of a symptom matters and by allowing it to be brought to consciousness via naming it – is a step closer to easing the ‘pain’.

Symptoms, or also known as unexpressed feelings, will not cease to exist only because there is a popular label to stick on it. They need to be noticed, understood, acknowledged, heard…