I had a really useful piece of feedback from a friend about the other week’s Thursday Thought on the Blog (shout out Karen Marie Johnston https://www.karenmariejohnston.com/). She said she liked it but was left wanting more, to hear the story behind what I had written about Church Hurt. I alluded to experience, but no further. It turned into a discussion about why counsellors don’t share much of themselves with clients and I have been thinking about it for 2 weeks!
There are some schools of thought in psychotherapy that the more a therapist can be a blank screen for a client’s projections the better. This allows the client’s unconscious to come more into view because naturally our minds fill in the blanks of things we don’t know. Our brain constantly makes assumptions about people based on their appearance, speech, accent, skin colour, and any other tiny tidbit we can glean. In this kind of therapeutic encounter, the work is a lot to do with the client/therapist relationship and the various feelings that emerge when there is a scarcity of real information to go on. For example, as you talk to a therapist who gives nothing away, you might think they are angry, or sad, or fed up with what you are saying. As they have given nothing, your brain is perhaps projecting that as an image of your own feelings and then this can be brought into consciousness and worked with.
I am not that kind of therapist. I actually don’t think my personality or mobile facial muscles would allow me to be a blank screen! And I also think, while there are definitely benefits to that and it can be highly effective, I prefer a warmer, more relational approach to the therapeutic relationship. Does that mean I share a lot about myself? No! And here’s why.
Imagine a scenario where you want to talk about your kids in counselling; they’re driving you crazy and you’ve lost it really spectacularly with them a few times this week. Your therapist admits that this has also happened for them with their kids and they understand how it feels. In the moment, you feel the warmth, you are understood and connected. However, perhaps this makes it harder to explore the shame and disgust you feel around your actions because you don’t want the therapist to think you are judging them as harshly as you are yourself, or implying that they should also feel shame and disgust at their behaviour. Or imagine another scenario where you have been given a diagnosis that is treatable and the projections are positive for recovery. You share that with your therapist who discloses that they also had a relative with that diagnosis. In the moment you feel the connection because it's clear they really understand how you feel. But after the session, you put together that they had some time off a few months ago due to a family bereavement, and 2+2=5 in your head, until you find yourself on google and facebook trying to figure out if their relative with this diagnosis had passed away. Now you can’t bring it back into therapy because you’re worried about dredging up their grief, or worrying them, or making them uncomfortable, or you're angry because it has increased your worry about your own diagnosis ten fold. Perhaps it would have been better if they just hadn’t said anything - just empathised with you and how you felt about your diagnosis.
It might feel over-cautious, but there are a million little things that might limit someone’s ability to explore their own difficult experiences, feelings, prejudices or actions because they know how we feel about those things in advance.
It isn’t wrong to share things about ourselves, but, for me, I think being careful about what I share, in service of the client, is a big deal. I don’t want the client to have to take care of me, worry about me, monitor what they say in case it offends me, or limit what they talk about because of me in any way. I want the client to know and experience that I am warm, welcoming, and non-judgmental of their every choice and way of being. I need them to know that they can speak about anything, no matter how dark or shameful. I need to not be in the equation as much as possible.
Does this cause a power imbalance? Yes, in a way, I think it does and perhaps it is helpful to acknowledge that. It is more vulnerable to be the one who gives away the information, than the one who doesn’t. However, for me, the benefits of allowing a client to be as free and themselves as possible, without worrying about me or considering my opinions or choices, far outweigh the negative impact and perhaps being open and transparent about the imbalance works in a way to even it out.
I’d be interested if anyone has thoughts they would like to share about this. I know people in both/all camps who are excellent practitioners and I by no means think I have the ‘right’ way of doing things, but perhaps just the way that works best for me.
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