In the most basic words, psychotherapy is a self-discovery journey.
All of us have inner conversations and questioning such as “Why did I say that?”, “Why did I think that?”, “I could not believe what I did!”, “I am not the one who would say that”, “I know those thoughts are irrational but I could not help myself” etc. The reason of those inner conversations and questioning is not the fact that you do not know yourself but you could not get in touch with the deeper parts of yourself. Psychotherapy helps you to get in touch with your deeper parts with the guidance of the psychotherapist.
You would meet with your judgmental, critical and hostile parts of yourself besides the compassionate parts and emotional needs. If you have already met with them, psychotherapy would help you to have the balance through accepting yourself without any judgment.
Accepting yourself does not mean that “Okay, that is all. It is me. I am judgmental, critical, anxious …”. Accepting yourself means being aware of different parts of yourself without any judgment. Acceptance would be helpful to understand why you have those parts. Once you understand those, changing them through the psychotherapy would be easier.
Awareness, acceptance and change are processes. None of them happen suddenly. In the psychotherapy sessions the developmental roots of the things that you are aware of, accepting and wanting to change are understood in depth. The functional and dysfunctional aspects of those roots are discussed as well. The dysfunctional ones are tried to be replaced with the functional ones so that you would be balanced, satisfied and psychologically healthy.