What is Uncovery?
By KRISTIN SLYE, LMFT
Often when I hand people my business card, they ask, “What does uncovery mean?” Great question. It’s a term that I made up, building on the concept of recovery and taking it to its next evolution.
The term recovery is often used in mental health; both recovering from trauma and also recovering from the ways we coped with the trauma, anything from self-harm to substances. Yet, in a traditional medical model, like when recovering from the flu, recovery means to going back to the starting place, to how you were before the illness.
Yet, what if recovery was just the beginning of the journey and getting back to baseline is simply the first step? Therapy can also be a beautiful opportunity to dig deep within the self to uncover new truths and self-insights, hence “uncovery.” Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Psychotherapist, Taiwo Afuape, stated, “The term ‘recovery’ reinforces an illness model of psycho-social difficulty.” I find it inspiring to move beyond this illness model and think of healing from trauma as a sometimes brutal, but simultaneously beautiful gift to uncover what is within.
My logo is an iceberg representing the conscious mind above the surface and below, the sub-conscious. The conscious mind of the iceberg is shades of black, white, and grey. The subconscious mind, the iceberg underneath the surface, is alive with color. Uncovery goes beyond addressing the conscious mind and takes it further with an invitation to dive below the surface and uncover the vibrant complexity that was there all along, yet hidden from view.
Uncovery is an exploration of the self. It is not simply going back in time to find the self that once was, rather a journey forward to find the strength, beauty, and resilience within. Both the raveling and unraveling out of thoughts and behaviors is a form of enlightenment in and of itself. And once enlightened, you can’t be unenlightened. You can’t go back and recover a self that no longer remains. You can only uncover the self you are now.