For many people, therapy is framed as something you do when you’re struggling:

when anxiety is overwhelming, when depression is heavy, when relationships are falling apart, or when symptoms become unmanageable. Therapy becomes associated with fixing — stabilizing, coping, getting back to baseline.

And while therapy absolutely supports healing, regulation, and symptom relief, that is not where its value ends.

Therapy is also a space for growth, self‑expansion, and becoming more fully yourself. In fact, from a depth‑therapy perspective, healing and growth are inseparable. You do not heal and then stop. You heal as you continue to grow.

 

“Well Enough” Is Not the Same as Whole

Many people enter therapy with a quiet, reasonable goal: I just want to feel okay.

Less anxious. Less reactive. Less stuck. Able to function again.

This stage of therapy matters deeply. Stabilization, insight, and relief are essential — especially if you’ve been living in survival mode for a long time.

But there is often a moment, sometimes subtle, sometimes disruptive, when clients reach a new edge. Symptoms have eased. Life is more manageable. And yet… something still feels unfinished.

Not broken — unfinished.

This is where growth begins.

From a depth psychology lens, “well enough” is not the same as integrated. You can be functioning, successful, and relatively calm while still living from a narrowed version of yourself — shaped by old adaptations, unresolved inner conflicts, or unexamined parts of the psyche.

 

New Level, New Devil: Why Growth Re‑Activates Healing

There’s a popular expression: “New level, new devil.”

While often used casually, it reflects a profound psychological truth.

Each stage of growth brings new challenges, new tensions, and new inner material to the surface. When you expand your capacity — emotionally, relationally, existentially — you inevitably encounter parts of yourself that were previously dormant, hidden, or protected by old defenses.

This is not regression.

It is the psyche saying: Now that you are more healed, safer, and more resourced, we can look at this.

In therapy, this often looks like:

• Old wounds re‑appearing in subtler forms

• Relationship patterns surfacing at a deeper level

• Anxiety shifting themes rather than disappearing

• A sense of disorientation or restlessness after long‑term stability

Rather than meaning something has gone wrong, this often signals continued healing through expansion.

 

Carl Jung and the Goal of Individuation

From Carl Jung’s perspective, the ultimate aim of psychological work was not symptom elimination — it was individuation.

Individuation refers to the lifelong process of becoming who you truly are: integrating conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche, reconciling inner opposites, and living from a more authentic, whole self.

In this view, symptoms are not merely problems to eradicate. They are messages, symbols, and invitations pointing toward areas of disconnection or unrealized potential.

Therapy, from this lens, is not about returning to a previous version of yourself — it is about your psyche and Self blooming more fully.

 

A Healing Approach That Looks Beyond Symptoms

Symptom‑focused therapy has its place. Anxiety, OCD, depression, and trauma can be deeply distressing and deserve direct support.

And depth therapy asks an additional question:

Who are you becoming as you heal?

Rather than only asking:

• How do we stop this thought?

• How do we reduce this feeling?

It also explores:

• What is this experience trying to show you?

• What part of you is asking to be acknowledged?

• What old pattern no longer fits the life you’re growing into?

This is where therapy becomes not just reparative, but creative.

 

Growth Often Comes With Grief

An overlooked part of growth‑oriented therapy is grief.

As people heal and also expand, they often mourn:

• The version of themselves who survived at great cost

• The relationships that only worked when they stayed smaller

• The identities built around being the helper, the achiever, the good one, the strong one

Growth does not always feel empowering at first. It can feel destabilizing, lonely, or disorienting.

Therapy offers a container where this grief can be honored — not rushed, minimized, or pathologized.

 

Therapy as an Ongoing Relationship With Yourself

Seen this way, therapy is not something you "graduate" from or have to “finish” once symptoms are manageable.

It can also be:

• A space for continued self‑reflection

• A relationship with your inner world

• A place to metabolize transitions and thresholds

• A way of staying in dialogue with your psyche

Some people return to therapy at different life stages not because they are unwell, but because they are changing.

New relationships. New roles. New identities. New levels of responsibility or freedom.

Each asks something new of the self.

 

Healing and Expansion Are Not Opposites

Healing is not about fixing what is broken.

Growth is not about endlessly self‑improving.

From a depth perspective, both are about integration — bringing more of yourself into conscious relationship.

Therapy supports this process by helping you:

• Understand your inner patterns

• Befriend disowned parts of yourself

• Loosen outdated defenses

• Live with greater agency and authenticity

Not just to feel better — but to become more fully you.

 

Therapy as a Commitment to Wholeness

If you find yourself wondering whether therapy is still “necessary” because you’re functioning well, that question itself may be meaningful.

It may signal that you are standing at a new edge — one where the work is less about survival and more about self‑realization.

In Jungian terms, the work continues not because you are broken, but because you are alive.

Therapy, at its deepest, is a commitment not only to healing your wounds — but to honoring your unfolding self.

 

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Meet Rebecca Steele, Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist (MA, MSW, RSW, CCC)

Rebecca is a Waterloo-based trauma therapist offering virtual counselling across Ontario. With over a decade of experience, she helps adults navigate trauma, anxiety, OCD, and self-esteem. Her insight-driven depth therapy approach supports self-understanding, emotional healing, and lasting change. Book an appointment or learn more about her online therapy services. Located outside Ontario? You can explore Rebecca’s coaching and consulting offerings here.