🎙️ Special Episode – “Between Understanding Others and Standing Up for Yourself”

In this episode, we once again step inside a one-on-one therapy session — a place where personal growth is revealed not only through self-discovery, but also through the way our relationships begin to change.

What happens when you start to change, but the people around you still respond to the person you used to be?

How do you remain understanding toward others without losing yourself in the process?

Today, we listen to a conversation that explores how confidence slowly begins to grow, while old relationship patterns continue to challenge that progress.

And perhaps more importantly:

How do you stay true to yourself without losing your connection with the people you care about?

🧠 What is central in this episode

Not only confidence in what you can do.

But confidence in who you are.

The client begins to trust his own judgment, make decisions based on his own values, and rely less on the expectations of others.

When change creates resistance

It also changes the people around you.

This session explores how old relationship patterns can clash with new ways of responding.

Not because anyone is doing something wrong.

But because change takes time—for everyone involved.

Understanding others without losing yourself

At the same time, he discovers that understanding someone else does not mean abandoning his own needs.

It is here that a healthier balance between empathy and self-care begins to emerge.

Recognition as the foundation of connection

Not because the other person has to agree.

But because genuine connection begins with acknowledging each other’s experience.

When that acknowledgment is missing, distance grows.

When it is present, real dialogue becomes possible.

The search for equality in relationships

How do you remain side by side, even when you think and feel differently?

The client begins to realize that equality does not require agreement.

It simply requires that both perspectives are allowed to exist.

🌟 The common thread

More and more, the client chooses to remain true to who he is.

Not out of distance.

Not out of selfishness.

But from the understanding that genuine connection can only exist when his own feelings, needs, and boundaries also have a place.

Mentalizing supports that process.

By staying curious about the other person—

without forgetting yourself.

💬 Closing

It is also reflected in the way our relationships begin to change.

Sometimes that brings greater peace.

Sometimes it creates new tension.

But every step toward being true to yourself also brings you closer to relationships where both people have the space to be seen.

And perhaps genuine connection begins with one simple thought:

“I can understand you… without losing sight of myself.”

🎙️ Group Session – “Between Feeling and Avoiding”

In this episode, we step inside an MBT group therapy session where a familiar dilemma takes center stage: what happens when you know there are feelings beneath the surface, yet everything inside you wants to avoid them?

For many people, avoidance feels like protection.

As if keeping emotions at a distance will prevent them from becoming overwhelming.

But what happens when avoiding those feelings becomes the very reason they never begin to fade?

Today, we listen to a group exploring how fear, anger, sadness, and injustice each shape the choices people make.

And perhaps more importantly:

When does avoidance protect you… and when does it begin to keep you trapped?

🧠 What is central in this episode

We are afraid of what might happen inside us.

In this session, group members explore how difficult it can be to allow themselves to fully experience sadness, anger, grief, or disappointment.

And what happens when those feelings are pushed away time and time again.

When injustice continues to hurt

What happens when someone says something about you that simply isn’t true?

When you feel unseen.

Or when you repeatedly find yourself defending who you are.

The group explores why some experiences of injustice cut far deeper than others.

Protecting yourself or avoiding yourself?

But when does protection become avoidance?

And how can you tell the difference?

Throughout the session, group members begin to recognize how old survival strategies continue to influence their lives today.

Who decides who you are?

Do you have to defend yourself?

Do you need to prove who you are?

Or can you slowly begin to trust your own view of yourself?

These questions lead to some of the session’s most meaningful conversations.

Making room for your emotions

Sometimes they remain present precisely because they have never been given space.

And perhaps healing begins not by solving a feeling—

but by allowing yourself to experience it.

🌟 The common thread

Mentalizing helps us stay curious.

Not only about what is happening around us.

But also about what is happening within us.

And perhaps it is there that we begin to discover the courage to try something different.

💬 Closing

It begins when we slowly discover that we may no longer need to push them away.

Not because feeling them is easy.

But because we are beginning to trust that we can carry them.

And sometimes change begins with one simple question:

“Am I protecting myself… or am I avoiding myself?”

🎙️ Group Session – “Between Making Space and Taking Space”

Welcome to this episode of the MBT podcast.

In this episode, we step inside an MBT group therapy session where we explore how difficult it can be to make space for yourself while continuing to care for the people around you.

What begins as a series of personal reflections gradually develops into a deeper conversation about loss, responsibility, recognition, and the beliefs that quietly shape the way we live our lives.

How do you know when it is okay to choose yourself?

And how do you stop placing your own needs behind everyone else’s?

Today, we listen to a group where curiosity, vulnerability, and different perspectives continually come together.

And perhaps more importantly:

What happens when you realize that the space you so willingly give to others is the very space you have never allowed yourself?

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🧠 What is central in this episode

Making space for yourself

A central theme throughout this session is making space.

Space to grieve.

Space to ask questions.

Space to acknowledge your own needs.

For many group members, that turns out to be far more difficult than it first appears.

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When loss continues to travel with you

Loss does not always fade with time.

Sometimes it changes shape.

Sometimes it quietly stays in the background for years.

And sometimes it unexpectedly finds its way back into the present.

The group explores how grief is deeply personal and unfolds differently for everyone.

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Staying curious about yourself

Throughout the session, one invitation keeps returning.

Not only to stay curious about others.

But also about yourself.

Why do I feel this way?

Where does this reaction come from?

And what might it be trying to tell me?

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Letting go of old beliefs

Many of our beliefs once helped us survive.

Don’t be a burden.

Don’t take up too much space.

Take care of everyone else first.

But do those beliefs still serve us today?

Or are they keeping us from living more freely?

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Connection through different perspectives

One of the strengths of this group session is the way members help one another without trying to solve each other’s problems.

By asking questions.

By remaining curious.

And by allowing different perspectives to exist side by side.

It is within that space that new understanding begins to emerge.

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🌟 The common thread

The common thread in this episode is that personal growth often begins when you give yourself the same space that you so naturally give to others.

Mentalizing is not only about understanding another person’s inner world.

It is also about becoming curious about your own.

And discovering that both deserve equal attention.

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💬 Closing

This episode reminds us that change does not always begin with finding the right answers.

Sometimes it begins by asking a different question.

A question that is not only about someone else.

But also about yourself.

And perhaps meaningful change begins with one simple thought:

“Can I give myself the same space that I so naturally give to others?”