From Coping to Thriving: Seeing the Whole Person in Therapy

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’” – Victor Frankl

Beyond Labels and Diagnoses

So many people come to therapy hoping for relief. They want less anxiety, fewer depressive thoughts, or a way to manage stress. And those goals matter — feeling better is important. But I believe therapy is about more than symptom relief. At its heart, it’s about seeing the whole person and helping them move from just coping to truly thriving.

In our culture, it’s easy to become defined by a label — “I have depression,” “I have anxiety,” “I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD.” While diagnosis can be useful for understanding patterns and guiding treatment, they never capture the whole of who you are. Diagnosis is a definition, a tool, it is a necessary component of treatment; but a diagnosis should not become your whole identity. You are more than a diagnosis. Resist the pull of a culture that is obsessed with labels and seeks to limit your value and humanity. In addition to moving beyond diagnosis, let’s also move beyond coping.

From Coping to Thriving

Coping helps you survive the day. Thriving helps you create the kind of life you want to live.

When people first come to therapy, they’re often in survival mode. They want tools to calm the storm, to get through the hard moments. And therapy can absolutely provide that. But once the immediate pain lessens, something deeper often emerges: the desire to live with more authenticity, more balance, and more meaning.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1968) used the term self-actualization to describe the process of building a meaningful life and becoming the most authentic version of yourself.

This might sound lofty, some would even say hard, but in practice it often includes moments of joy, introspection, and self-discovery. And yes, there are also moments of discomfort — but that too is part of the journey. Self-actualization isn’t about being perfect. It’s about becoming more fully yourself, learning to live in a way that feels true, and allowing growth to unfold in both the light and shadow of life (Rogers, 1961). Even in darkness, we can still reach for meaning — and often, it is in those dark places that the journey of growth truly begins.

The Role of Suffering

We rarely grow in comfort. More often, we grow through difficulty. Pain and suffering, while hard to face, can become turning points — moments that challenge us to discover strength, resilience, and purpose.

Avoiding suffering often multiplies it. When we believe we “shouldn’t” struggle or try to push away pain, it can feel heavier. The paradox is that the only way out is often through.

Just like the natural world, we need both sunshine and rain, both light and shadow. Constant sunshine would burn everything up; we must remember the storms also nourish growth. Therapy helps us face those storms with compassion, courage, and openness to what they might teach us (May, 1983; Yalom, 1980). Here, myth and Scripture offer powerful metaphors. In the book of Exodus, Moses could only keep his arms raised in battle when Aaron and Hur stood beside him, holding them up as his strength waned. The image reminds us that we are not meant to endure alone — sometimes we need others to steady us when the burden is too heavy. In Greek mythology, Hecate appears as Persephone’s torchbearer, guiding her through the darkness of the underworld. This too is a metaphor for therapy: the therapist cannot erase the darkness, but can walk beside you with a steady light.

Together, these images capture what therapy often provides — someone to sustain you when you are weary, and someone to walk with you as you navigate the shadows. While myths and scripture give us images of light in the darkness, more recent stories show how meaning can sustain us in real, lived suffering.

The Possibilities of Meaning and Purpose

Few voices speak to this more powerfully than Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, who discovered that even in the most dehumanizing conditions, life could still hold purpose.

Frankl’s story is more than historical testimony — it highlights why meaning matters in therapy today. Symptom relief alone is not enough. Without a deeper sense of purpose, old patterns often return, and suffering can reemerge in new forms. But when therapy helps us connect with meaning, we are not only easing symptoms — we are healing the deeper wound. Purpose becomes the anchor that sustains remission and fosters resilience, making relapse less likely and growth more possible.

A Journey of Becoming

To review, therapy is not just about relief from pain, but about stepping into a fuller life. It’s about moving beyond the immediate struggle and asking: Who am I? What matters to me? How do I want to live?

When we lean into those questions, helplessness can give way to empowerment, unlovability can be met with connection, and worthlessness can yield to purpose. Out of suffering, a new orientation to life can be born — one that points us toward hope, wholeness, and meaning.

Symptoms and diagnoses are not your identity; they are signposts pointing to the wounds that need healing. This essay is a call to resist a cultural status quo that reduces human value to labels and limitations. Be more than a diagnosis. Seek providers who will steady your hands when you are weary and walk with you into the darkness, carrying the torch that helps you find meaning even in the darkest places.

Start your journey today.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl

”But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun".—Ex. 17:12

“Night-wanderer, torch-bearer, who gives grace to mortals…” – Orphic Hymn to Hecate

—
Joseph Mounts M.Ed., AADC, LPC

References

Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)

Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being (2nd ed.). Van Nostrand Reinhold.

May, R. (1983). The discovery of being: Writings in existential psychology. W. W. Norton.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. (2001). Crossway Bibles. (Exodus 17:12).

Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.

Orpheus. (1792/1824). The Orphic hymns (T. Taylor, Trans.). London: Author. (Original work published ca. 3rd century BCE).