There are moments when we feel that what we are living is simply reality.
“I’m not good enough.” “Other people always reject me in the end.” “I have to be strong.” “If I don’t succeed, it means I’m not worthy.” “That’s just how I am.”
These thoughts can look like objective truths. As though they described something that exists out there and we were simply recognising it. But an important part of psychotherapy begins precisely by questioning that certainty:
What, in what we call “reality”, is something we discover, and what is something we construct?
Social constructionism is a theoretical current in the social sciences which holds that the way we understand reality is shaped not only by what happens objectively, but also through language, relationships and the sociocultural context we live in. The concepts we use to describe ourselves, others and the world are not self-evident or absolutely fixed; they acquire meaning within our interaction with others and can therefore change.
Social constructionism does not claim that reality does not exist, or that “it’s all in our heads”. It does invite us to see that the way we understand ourselves, others and the world is shaped within relationships, within language, within history and within the context we live in.
And this matters a great deal for psychotherapy, because reality does not exist without our interpretation of it. Each of us lives in a world made up not only of facts, but of meanings and relationships.
A child who hears again and again “don’t cry”, “you’re being too much”, “you’re lazy”, “you can’t do it”, may gradually learn to doubt what they feel, their thoughts, and the interpretation they give to them.
A girl who grows up hearing that her worth is tied to her appearance may learn to look at herself through other people’s eyes.
Someone who has repeatedly experienced rejection may begin to organise their future relationships around the fear that it will happen again.
So at some point, “this happened to me” can turn into “this is what I am”. And then the interpretation becomes identity.
Social constructionism is interested in precisely this process: in the way the meanings we give to our experience are not created in a social vacuum. They are created and reproduced within relationships and through the language and the words we use.
This does not mean that we can freely choose any reality we like. It means that between an event and the way that event acquires meaning, there is a process. And that process can become the object of therapy.
“That’s how I am” or “that’s how I learned to be”?
One of the most important shifts that can happen in psychotherapy is the move from story to process.
From “I am insecure” to “I have learned to doubt myself.”
From “I don’t trust anyone” to “I have learned to protect myself because I have been hurt.”
From “I’m too sensitive” to “I have learned to perceive very intensely what happens in my relationships.”
The first formulation describes a fixed identity. The second leaves room for history, for circumstances and for change.
It says: “Let’s look at how this image of yourself was created, and at what else might exist beyond it.”
One of the most interesting aspects of social constructionism is the importance it gives to language — because language does not only describe our experience; it shapes the way we think about it.
The words we use to speak about ourselves are not neutral.
It is one thing to say “I have failed”, and another to say “what I tried did not go the way I expected”.
One thing to say “I am a problematic person”, and another: “there is a part of my behaviour that I struggle to understand”.
One thing to say “he rejected me because I’m not worth it”, and another: “this relationship did not develop the way I wanted and I experienced it as rejection”.
Changing the language does not make the pain disappear. But it can change the space in which we live it, and the way we live it. Because when an experience becomes an identity, it seems fixed and given. When it becomes part of our adaptation to our environment, it can be understood and explored. And once that happens, it can acquire new meaning.
What does this have to do with how we feel?
We often assume that first there is the feeling and then its interpretation. In reality, the two are closely connected. We do not simply experience an event. We experience the event as we understand it.
A message that goes unanswered can become “he’s ignoring me”, and provoke anger. It can become “I must have done something wrong”, and provoke anxiety or shame. It can become “he probably needs some time”, and provoke almost no disturbance at all.
The event may be the same. The experience of it, and its interpretation, change.
This does not mean that our feelings are “wrong”, or that we should simply think positively. It means that feeling is in a continuous relationship with the meaning we give to what is happening.
This is why psychotherapy does not only try to make us “feel better”. It tries to understand how the way we feel is created, and to widen any strict, rigid scripts we may have adopted about ourselves and our relationships.
Psychotherapy as a space where reality can be reinterpreted
Seen this way, psychotherapy is not a space where the expert knows the “objective truth” about the client and reveals it. It is more a space of encounter.
Clients bring the way they understand themselves, their life and their relationships. The therapist brings her own presence, her questions, her perspective, and co-creates the therapeutic relationship. And between the two, something new can be created.
A different perspective. A new connection. An experience that had not existed until then. A different narrative about something that happened.
This does not mean that the therapist “gives” the person a new reality. Therapy is not the replacement of one truth with another. It is the creation of a space where what until now seemed self-evident can become a question again.
“Is it really like this?” “When did I start believing this about myself?” “Who taught me that I had to be this way?” “Are there moments that do not fit what I tell myself?” “What else could what happened mean?”
Gestalt psychotherapy has a particularly interesting way of approaching this process. It is interested not only in what is happening to a person, but in how it is happening.
How are you speaking about yourself right now? How do you feel as you say it? How do you feel it in your body? How do you react when you are afraid the other person will reject you? How does your voice change when you talk about your anger? When do you hold your breath? How do you move away from others? How do you try to please people?
Psychotherapy shifts attention from an abstract description of the self to immediate experience in the here and now. And through this experience within the therapeutic relationship, the way a person creates their experience — together with their environment — can become something lived. We do not exist in isolation from the world. We are continually in contact with it.
Our experiences matter. The relationships we had matter. The words we heard matter. Social expectations matter. But none of this has to be the final version of ourselves.
We may have learned that we must always be strong, and at some point discover that we can ask for help. We may have learned that love has to be earned, and discover that we can exist in a relationship without constantly proving our worth. We may have learned to fear conflict, and discover that we can be angry without losing the relationship.
Therapeutic change, then, is not about adopting a better way of thinking.
Social constructionism reminds us of something we easily forget: our self is not created only inside us. It is created in relationships. In the way people look at us. In the way people speak to us. In the expectations we meet. In the meanings we share with others. And, ultimately, in the way those meanings become part of our own inner world.
This is why psychotherapy can become such an important space. Not because it offers us a ready answer about who we are, but because it allows us, perhaps for the first time, to stand in front of what we took for granted and look at it with curiosity.
To notice the stories we tell about ourselves. To hear the language we use to describe ourselves. To recognise what really belongs to us and what we have learned to carry.
And within the relationship with a safe figure, to try out, safely, a different way of being. So psychotherapy is not so much about discovering our “real self” as about creating the space within which we can become something more than what we have believed ourselves to be until now.
