An older man sits across from me on the couch. I’m leaning back in my swiveling therapist chair, the scent of my carefully selected cinnamon vanilla candle wafting through the room. There is a long pause. We’ve been talking about the ways he felt neglected by his mother growing up—how unseen he felt in her presence, and how that feeling can still arise now with his wife.
He says with a half-smile, “You are so patient and attentive. I bet your kids feel really loved.” My mind spins. I have no qualms answering basic questions from clients, such as whether I have children. But now I see how his impression of me is so deeply shaped by our limited interactions in the therapy room and particularly by my well-honed capacity for complete presence and experientially-enhanced empathy.
The Growth Edge
Simultaneously, my mind jumps to earlier that morning when my fists were clenched at my sides, and I gritted my teeth to stop myself from yelling at my son—for what would have surely been the seven-millionth time—to put on his shoes. Patience in real life is not my virtue—it’s my growth edge.
Snapping back, I felt a sudden surge of protectiveness toward the people in this man’s life, whom he has just unfairly compared to me, and who, in comparison clearly fell quite short of me—his therapist. Afterall, I sit with him for an hour each week, paying full and total, undivided attention to understanding him, his needs, and his emotions. A tall order for anyone in his real life to possibly fulfill.
As I try to collect these thoughts into some sort of therapeutic intervention, I smile back. I settle on thanking him sincerely for the compliment. I briefly wonder back to that morning, I do hope my kids know they are deeply loved. I offer, “It sounds like you really value feeling heard and understood in our space together.” He nods—naturally. Who wouldn’t agree with a statement like that? I add, “I’m not sure our therapeutic relationship is the best point of comparison if you’re thinking about how other people in your life have shown up differently for.”
While I don’t want to burst his bubble of being a heroic, patient, all-caring, and attentive therapist, it seems unwise to let this fantasy of what real care can look like linger too much longer. Bubbles do and occasionally must burst.
We ultimately have a conversation about how my therapist-self and my real-life self are not exactly the same. Of course there is some overlap, but my needs, wants, and emotions are much more prominent in real-life relationships. I don’t focus solely on the other person; I also focus on me—and hope they will focus on me some, too.
From a psychodynamic perspective, it makes sense that he might be experiencing me as an idealized figure—an attentive, regulated other onto whom longings for perfect care can be safely projected. I finish by saying, “This relationship is real, but it’s not realistic for everyday life with all the real people in your world. Maybe they can become better at caring for you, but a real, fully experienced relationship outside this office shouldn’t look like this.”
He pauses thoughtfully before somewhat agreeing. “It would be too emotionally taxing…I know I can’t expect that from everyone.” Yet, he maintains a bit of his fantasy and replies, “But I can’t imagine you aren’t pretty perfect in your relationships!”
What A Fascinating Career
Now, if only I could find a way to convince people in my personal life that I’m not always in “therapist mode,” or interested in giving deep, meaningful feedback to everyone with a problem—that I am only human!
Being trained as a psychotherapist is unique. It entails learning a language and developing an awareness of communication, relationships, inner worlds, self-concepts, and emotions—parts of life we constantly experience both inside and outside of the therapeutic ‘domain.’ But there is really no way shed that professional persona when leaving the rarified space of the therapy office—to leave work fully at work.
As a therapist, I have hopefully been impacted by my training in not only how to ‘be’ in therapy, but how to live fully in daily life. If I’ve not been fundamentally changed by years of training, it would be hard to imagine that my clients have not or cannot be changed by the therapy process.
And yet, there is something about being in the therapy room with clients that is indeed unique, something special and perhaps undefinable—something not replicated in real-world relationships. Each of these worlds influences and shapes the other, yet each remains its own distinct reality.
What a fascinating career—one in which clients never fully meet our real-life selves, and the people who know us best never fully meet our therapist selves.
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