Reply to comment

 I think that instead of trying to understand their patients, therapists are trying to help their patients understand themselves.  I think it is true that we create our own realities, and what really matters is not the “actual reality” (or whether that even exists) but our perception of reality because this is what is real to us.  The problem with this is that if we end up in a pattern where we are percieving reality in a way that is detrimental to us it is really hard to break that pattern on your own.  Hopefully a therapist could help you take a step back and reframe your perception. 

I guess what I was trying to say in class about an “actual reality” is the idea that when we perceive something we bring to it everything we have experienced before.  When I look at a table, I am not just seeing that table- I am comparing it to previous tables I have seen, I may be reminded of a memory that had a table in it, etc.  Our perception is not objective.  I view “actual reality” as unbiased reality, a concept that cannot actually exist.