On Being A Therapist

I’ve been more quiet on social media lately and it’s been intentional. I’ve been wanting to focus more on my work, not that social media isn’t my work but my primary work has always been to be a therapist, to show up live with another human being and focus on them, pattern recognize within the context of their life and hope to be over service to them.

I spend 22 hours per week meeting individually with people. It is a rollercoaster of ups and downs, different levels of interaction, complexity, and novelty. It takes a lot of energy for me to do it and like a flashlight, the more I focus, the more concentrated the intensity of what I offer becomes.

There are many themes that come up in therapy. Many of them I am sure you can predict such as things people are ashamed to tell anyone. I am holder of so many secrets of people you will never know I have interacted with, holding information you will never know about with me until death.

I work with a population that has inherently experienced trauma and betrayal and interpersonal challenges which makes it extra hard for people to show up to therapy and unmask, no matter how approachable I may be. The reality is, we all hide aspects of ourselves in shame. Me too. Whatever shameful thing you have to share about yourself, me too, I have shameful things too. I am also human and messy and imperfect. What you are afraid to show up and share about in therapy is probably similar to something else I feel the same way about. How do I know this? Because we are just human. I am not here to judge you, my job is to connect with you, understand how you make sense, and hold everything you say in compassion.