By Charry Morris MA, LPCC —Psychotherapist
As a professional athlete, I was steeped in a belief system that improvement came from pushing harder. Grinding more, sweating more, and sacrificing more. I believed that more is more better — and better is what we strive for. It’s a simple formula: a “Just Do It” mentality which actually means, “Just Be Better than you are right now.”
Then one season, my club hired a new sports trainer. He insisted that we could actually train less and still become more fit. Train smarter, not harder. Most of us could not imagine such a possibility. Yet, what an epiphany when executed!
Our head coach, on the other hand, fired back with his belief: “Train harder to train harder.” Seemingly from his perspective, it wasn’t solely about our physical capacity — it was about the strength of our mentality which required strengthening by the age-old adage that “more is more”.
Looking back, I’m grateful to have experienced both philosophies. Now that my life is oriented toward psychology rather than professional sport, I can “play” with these approaches. I can ask: When is less actually more? And when does more genuinely serve more?
What does this have to do with mental health?
And how does it relate to depth psychology as a type of training for mental health difficulties?
In a word—everything.
Because athletics, work, relationships, and psychological healing all come down to approach. How we approach ourselves. How we approach our fears, our wounds, our longings, and the wounded world around us.
Depth psychology excels precisely here. It teaches us that symptoms—intrusive thoughts, rumination, compulsions, phobias, anxiety, depression—are not simply problems to eliminate through “more effort...”
They are communications from the psyche. They are expressions of unconscious conflicts, unmet needs, or unintegrated aspects of the self. They are not failures of willpower; they are invitations to understand.
Where a push-harder mindset might say “override what I am feeling,” Depth psychology asks:
“What is this symptom trying to say?”
“Whose voice are you actually responding to?”
“What part of your psyche is being ignored, exiled, or misunderstood?”
Depth psychology is a lens from which therapists recognize and integrate the symbolic, relational, and unconscious layers of distress into the therapy sessions. By way of listening rather than force, a depth therapist will accompany a client in noticing rather than suppressing, to make meaning of the symptom rather than simply manage. It is the psychological equivalent of “train smarter, not harder”—except the training happens within the soul.
And when our personal approach inevitably breaks down—when we “run amok,” as Freud put it—this is often the very moment that leads us to seek help. In those moments, a depth-oriented lens offers not just coping strategies, but a way of relating to oneself that generates lasting change.
Evidence-Based Therapy from the Depths
So, what even is therapy? What can you expect in a therapy session, and, mostly, will you “get better” doing therapy? Does doing more therapy merely mean doing more for the sake of more, or does it mean doing more to “be better”?
Let’s start where therapy might begin for you: With a wounded feeling, a broken inner quality, a lack of resiliency… That feeling that you just can’t bounce back, get up, or feel better. You might have had a devastating relationship breakup or some sort of mental breakdown.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Through the lens of Depth Psychology, healing happens by moving with and through the wound—rather than avoiding, denying, repressing, or defending against it in all sorts of unique and debilitating ways. Out of the pinnacle and profound work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung came core depth-psychological ideas such as projection, shadow, and the collective conscious and unconscious. Over the years, these concepts have helped clinicians of every lens understand how engaging with the deeper layers of the psyche can support and maintain meaningful change.
Depth-oriented therapy, as a particular lens, uses dreams, imagery, and reflective material to access the inner world, opening the door to insight, integration, and lasting healing. What we’ve learned again and again is that people truly can feel better—less overwhelmed, less anxious, and less depressed—when they work through experiences like trauma, heartbreak, accidents, or workplace stress by way of a therapeutic relationship.
What Does “Better” Mean in Mental Health?
What exactly are we healing in therapy? We may know (or not) what we want to heal from. But what does “feeling better” actually mean?
In sports, it’s fairly obvious that “getting better” means winning the game, making the team, scoring the goal, getting paid to play instead of paying to play. Within these constructs, improvement is often visible. But what if “being better” in sports actually just meant “having more fun”?
Similarly in mental health, what if “getting better” meant improving our quality of life in visible and invisible ways:
It could mean being able to get out of bed on time in the morning to get to work or a class.
It could mean choosing to leave your house or room and be in the world at large.
It could mean not crying all day.
Feeling in control of your emotions even during distressing times.
Being able to focus and concentrate enough to finish a project or turn in an assignment.
Healing from heartbreak without feeling completely broken and lonely.
Not screaming at your kids or road raging on the car that just cut you off.
Symptoms as Signals: Learning to Listen Deeply with Depth Psychology
Depth psychology excels in many areas: athletics, work and even relationships because psychological healing all comes down to approach—how we meet ourselves, our fears, our desires, and our wounds. It invites us to understand symptoms not as failures of willpower, but as communications from the psyche, signals pointing toward something deeper that needs attention.
After all, we are complex beings and various parts of our being can break down separately or all together and all at once. Our bodies are like ecosystems, not machines. Psychological distress affects everything in visible and invisible ways: the liver, the gut, the lungs, the reproductive system. Nausea, vertigo, headaches, panic attacks and trembling are all ripple effects from inner dis-ease. These physiological responses to stress, worry, and anxiety are real byproducts of not doing well mentally.
And this is where things get deep—deep into what depth psychologists call the psyche, or the energetic field through which we connect to ourselves and others.
Healing isn’t just about treating the body with the mind or treating the mind through the body. It’s about navigating this energetic field and entire internal universe of images, sensations, patterns, emotions, and energies that shape how we live and how we suffer.
Depth work helps us notice what’s moving inside of us—the phenomenology of our inner life: the felt sense, the internal imagery, the subtle shifts in emotion and energy.
When we learn to witness these internal movements rather than override them, we start to create the conditions for genuine self-healing. Not through pushing harder or “being better,” but through entering into a more honest, compassionate relationship with ourselves. We become adaptable to outer and inner stress. Our system regulates itself. Our psyche is recruited and becomes our greatest healing ally.
Finding a Therapist
When we feel mentally unwell, everything feels harder. Functioning collapses. Life feels unmanageable. And for many people, that’s exactly what brings them to therapy at Evolve In Nature— searching for support, for a path toward feeling like themselves again.
In therapy, we don’t focus on doing more or being better. We don’t work harder to “fix ourselves,” but recognize through therapy that we are already whole. To do this, we focus on the depth, quality and authenticity within the therapeutic relationship, which ultimately does heal old wounds and traumas slowly over time.
So how do you begin feeling better?
By helping you understand what makes you you — biologically, behaviorally, socially, culturally, and familiarly. A relational, here-and-now therapeutic approach can help you heal wounds so they no longer hijack your life.
Importantly: healing isn’t about perfection. It’s not about being or doing more. It’s not about discovering the right technique or becoming the “ideal” version of yourself. It’s about loving all of your self to create an inner environment that is loving, grounded, and generative. Becoming adaptable, flexible and compassionate toward self and other.
This is entirely possible — through any therapeutic lens — when you’re working with a skilled, attuned, and compassionate therapist.
Finally, if you’re reading this blog and haven’t yet connected with a therapist at EIN, I hope you consider reaching out. We are here to support you!
Resources for Going Deeper With depth-psychology
Podcasts
🎧 This Jungian Life – Three Jungian analysts explore dreams, myth, and everyday psychology.
🎧 Jung and the World – Conversations about Jung’s ideas in today’s world.
Courses
🧭 JungPlatform.com – Online learning hub for depth psychology, creativity, and the soul.
Places to Study
🏫 Naropa University – Integrative, contemplative graduate programs.
🏫 Pacifica Graduate Institute – Leading center for depth psychology and mythological studies.
🏫 California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) – Holistic programs in psychology, philosophy, and consciousness.