One of the first blogs I wrote for Psychology Today back in 2011 was in response to the question of what type of therapy facilitates post-traumatic growth. At the time, post-traumatic growth was still a relatively new idea for most practitioners, and many, in my experience, struggled to understand it, so immersed had they been in the ideas of post-traumatic stress disorder. I wanted to share what I thought was a helpful metaphor for understanding this exciting new idea.

I wrote about how it was useful to think of the metaphor of therapists as either car mechanics or gardeners. I chose these two professions deliberately because they represent two very different mindsets of the therapy world. A car breaks down. You look under the hood but you have no idea yourself what the problem is. You need to take it to the appropriate expert mechanic who will then diagnose the problem. The mechanic knows about cars. He knows how they work. He knows what sounds to listen for that mean something is wrong. He knows what the right levels of fluids should be. After a time, the mechanic looks up. He tells you what is wrong and what needs to be done to get the car back into working order. A lot of therapists are like car mechanics in the sense that........

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