Mental health challenges can take us right to the edge of our sense of control over our own lives. Sometimes, the biggest hurdle in improving mental health is the overwhelming sense of helplessness we can feel when symptoms get loud.

Identity work involves engaging intentionally in the process of deciding who we are and who we want to be. Then we figure out how that version of us would respond to challenging situations, and we practice those skills.

This isn’t about getting rid of the person we already are, though; it’s moreso about taking back our sense of agency over our decisions. The most common decision we return to in agency or identity work is deepening our compassion for ourselves and trust in the story that things can get better, even if they’re not better right now.

We also get to decide how we make meaning out of the things that have happened to us, are happening to us, and will happen to us. These are decisions we have to make over and over again to build the neural circuitry to maintain the pattern because much of our meaning-making actually belongs to other people. When we take this power back, our quality of life improves.

What does this look like in therapy?

We spend time looking at the questions, who do I want to be? What qualities and traits do I want to embody? How would that version of me respond to a bad day, or even a good day? How would she hold me when my symptoms overwhelm me?

We decide what beliefs you want to carry and we get to work challenging beliefs that take you away from that version of you. Sometimes this kind of clarity can be hard to achieve, or even feel scary, but it’s a deep source of power inside each of us.