Friday, February 10, 2012
Things my clients taught me this week...
There is so much learned in working with people. I recognize what an honor it is to be invited into their inner lives and in doing so gain new insights that I hadn't had before. I hope to use my blog as a place to share new perspectives gained through the therapeutic process. This week, what my clients taught me is how little I know, actually. I rely on my training to guide me throughout sessions and in doing so perhaps place myself in the role of expert unknowingly. It is in the moments of assuming I know more that I make mistakes (I think). I may have access to information or ways of thinking about mental health, but only the individual has full access to themselves. Humility and curiosity are likely a more palatable approach, but then, here I go assuming I know something again :).....
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trauma- is something that although i have gone to counseling since i was 9- i hated barbie- and well trauma from childhood can show up in adulthood if you didnt even know you were hiding your pain-it took almost two years to get to 'here' and sometimes here doesnt feel like anywhere-i set out to become a counselor and found myself in the chair- being counseled by many- internally- the experience strength and hope i recieved from others became a life raft= and i do not know that without my spirituality and training that i would have made it thus far-certainly there were many that wrote me off as the anti-depressant domestic violence poster child- but i got off all that- vitamin D and omega three oils- and i am no longer 'crazy'--- however- i was very alone when i made the decisons i made= including moving to kauai---so although i believe in therapy and mental health- my practice includes many other pieces to look at- from personal experience- to here was a long road- aloha
ReplyDeleteDear deep_mystery,
DeleteThank you for sharing. I think you are right in that therapy is only a piece of the healing puzzle. As therapists we can sometimes feel like we are the center of someone's life but people actually can and do heal on their own and in their own ways outside of therapy. Additionally, there is so much that can be learned within the therapeutic dyad (and I mean the therapist is the one learning). There is a loneliness in it sometimes as you said; in that search for something other than what is and it certainly takes courage to go down that path. Trauma recovery seems to be isolating in a particular way; even without the recovery process the experiences of powerful life events seem to extract us from humanity in a certain and we have to integrate internally before we can integrate what is outside of us following complex experiences. Those are my thoughts...Again, thank you for sharing! ~Athena
Dear deep_mystery,
DeleteThank you for sharing. I think you are right in that therapy is only a piece of the healing puzzle. As therapists we can sometimes feel like we are the center of someone's life but people actually can and do heal on their own and in their own ways outside of therapy. Additionally, there is so much that can be learned within the therapeutic dyad (and I mean the therapist is the one learning). There is a loneliness in it sometimes as you said; in that search for something other than what is and it certainly takes courage to go down that path. Trauma recovery seems to be isolating in a particular way; even without the recovery process the experiences of powerful life events seem to extract us from humanity in a certain and we have to integrate internally before we can integrate what is outside of us following complex experiences. Those are my thoughts...Again, thank you for sharing! ~Athena