I’m Gijs.
This is Real Therapy.
I speak about what actually happens outside the therapy room.
The moments where life doesn’t slow down, and you still have to live inside yourself.
No tips.
No methods.
No fixing.
Just real situations, spoken out loud, as they are.
Myths and truths about institutional abuse
When “Stress” Isn’t the Right Name
A professional environment can look respectable and still dismantle someone from the inside.
In this episode, I examine how institutional abuse often gets misread as stress or burnout. Not because the symptoms are wrong, but because the structure behind them is missed.
We look at:
– How harm can occur through procedures, language, and repeated small overrides
– Why confusion is often built into the experience
– The myths that keep people doubting their own perception
– The difference between adaptation and safety
This is not about turning every difficult system into abuse.
It is about recognising when reality has been repeatedly overridden — and what that leaves behind.
13 Mar 2026
When “I’m Still Functioning” Misleads
Still functioning is not the same as Living your full life
When someone tells me they’re still functioning, that does not reassure me very much.
It tells me they are still moving. Still managing. Still sounding coherent enough that nobody gets worried.
But functioning is not the same as health.
In this episode, I look at the quieter form of depletion that often gets missed:
When life is still running from the outside, but something underneath has started withdrawing.
When pleasure no longer lands. When rest no longer restores. When competence is no longer being used to live, but to keep the structure upright for one more day.
This is not a generic burnout episode.
It is not advice about boundaries, better routines, or taking a weekend off, a self-help list...
It is a structural look at what functioning may be protecting — and what it can cost when reliability becomes a hiding place.
4 Mar 2026
Why Asking “Do You Do EMDR?” Is the Wrong First Question
“Do you do EMDR?”
It’s one of the most common first questions in therapy.
It makes sense. When you’re struggling, you want something that works. You want certainty. You want to reduce the risk of wasting time.
But a method is a tool. And tools come after we understand what we’re dealing with.
In this episode, I examine why starting with the method can quietly distract from structural assessment. One overwhelming event is not the same as years of adaptive survival patterns — even if both are labelled “trauma.”
We look at:
– Why symptom similarity does not mean structural similarity
– The difference between single-incident trauma and developmental adaptation
– Why choosing a method first can create false clarity
– Why assessment must precede intervention
This is not a critique of EMDR.
It is a clarification of sequence :
Understanding first.
Tool second.
24 Feb 2026
When the Stages of Grief Mislead You
“Shouldn’t I be further along by now?”
The stages of grief are one of the most widely repeated psychological models in modern culture. They promise order. They imply progression. They suggest that mourning follows a recognisable path.
But structurally, grief is not linear.
In this episode, I examine what happens when a descriptive model becomes a performance standard. When oscillation is mistaken for regression. When time passing is confused with integration.
I look at:
– Why grief moves between activation and apparent normality
– How the stage model can quietly distort self-evaluation
– The difference between grief, depression, and trauma at a structural level
– Why fluctuation is not failure
Grief is not something you graduate from.
It reorganises identity at its own pace.
And it does not apologise for returning.
10 Feb 2026
What do the phantom of the opera and real therapy have in common
People come to therapy wanting something gone.
The anxiety.
The anger.
The numbness.
The noise.
As if it’s a bad tenant you can evict without touching the building.
But most of the time, what they want removed is the very thing that’s been holding everything together from below.
That’s why I sometimes think Real Therapy has more in common with The Phantom of the Opera than with self-help.
The Phantom isn’t chaos.
He’s structure.
He knows the building better than anyone.
He operates in the dark because the stage above demanded perfection.
Symptoms work like that too.
They don’t want attention.
They want control.
This podcast isn’t about getting rid of parts of you.
It’s about what happens when you stop pretending the building doesn’t have a basement.
6 Feb 2026
When nothing impressive happens - AND I STILL GET GOOSEBUMPS FROM JOY
The moments that matter most in therapy rarely look like progress. They feel like something old finally stopping.
6 Feb 2026
You’re negotiating with something ancient
Insight isn’t slow. Your nervous system is. And it doesn’t care about your calendar or your motivation.
It's Jurassic Age old - and it will not budge just because you want it too....
4 Feb 2026
Still functioning. Already Tightening
You can still get things done. You hold a tight ship - too tight..
You’re organised, capable, reliable.
Nothing has collapsed, so nothing gets named.
This episode is about the phase before labels arrive.
Before burnout, anxiety, depression, or anything else people reach for.
The phase where you’re still functioning — and that’s exactly what hides the cost.
I talk about compression becoming normal.
About regulating yourself through speed, control, and usefulness.
About why insight, language, and “doing the work” don’t change much when the system keeps tightening.
This isn’t about diagnosis.
And it’s not about techniques.
It’s about recognising the moment where everything still works,
but it’s working too hard.
That’s where my work starts.
https://real-therapy.online
29 Jan 2026
When being functional as a caregiver is not the same as being okay
I’m a therapist and a long-term caregiver.
In this episode I speak about what doesn’t show up as a crisis, but quietly reshapes daily life.
About being “on” even when nothing is happening.
About functioning without an off-switch.
About how carrying becomes normal, and how competence can hide the cost.
This isn’t a teaching episode.
There’s no advice, no method, no solution.
Just a lived reality that many people recognise, long before they would ever name it as a problem.
If this stays with you, you can reach out to me via DM or WhatsApp.
If you prefer to read along quietly, I write once a week here:
https://realtherapy.kit.com/8c147507b7
29 Jan 2026
When everything still works, but the margin is gone
In this episode I talk about a phase that often goes unnoticed.
Everything still works. You respond, decide, carry responsibility. From the outside, nothing looks off.
What disappears isn’t competence or energy, but margin. Tolerance shrinks. Decisions are made to close pressure, not because they fit. Timing becomes something you manage instead of feel.
This isn’t a crisis, yet.
It isn’t burnout.
It isn’t depression.
It’s the phase before anything earns a name — where functioning itself becomes the camouflage.
I don’t explain, fix, or conclude here. I’m naming what tends to be normalised, long before it breaks... when it is sometimes too late...
15 Jan 2026
The Farmer and the Stallion - Why timing matters more than insight
A Stallion runs away from the Chinese farmer.
Everyone knows immediately what it means.
Bad.
The farmer answers with a question.
What is good and what is bad?
The next day the horse comes back. With more horses.
Now it’s good. Obviously.
What is good and what is bad?
His son breaks his leg riding one of them.
Bad again.
What is good and what is bad?
Then war breaks out.
All the young men are taken.
Except one.
What is good and what is bad?
This episode isn’t about the story.
It’s about how fast we decide what something means — and how uncomfortable we’ve become with waiting.
About the moment where nothing has settled yet.
Where acting too soon feels responsible.
And where not acting looks like doing nothing.
This is where therapy quietly goes wrong.
Not because it doesn’t help.
Because it helps too early and only short-term.
Press play if you recognise the urge to decide, label, fix or reframe — before the story has even had a chance to unfold.
If this stays with you, you can reach out to me via DM or WhatsApp.
You can read where I stand and how I work here: https://real-therapy.online (https://real-therapy.online)
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