How do therapists feel about their clients

The connected therapist feels what the client is feeling. However, there is always a part of the therapist that is calm and detached, observing those emotions, and objectively using that information to guide the session. Feeling what the client is feeling is critical for the therapy. Does the client need to hear the therapist empathize, or offer a different perspective on their sadness? Or would words break the mood, and silence be the best move?

How is their relationship with their parents affecting the rest of their life? What should I say next that would be most helpful to my client?

The connected therapist is like a see-saw: While the ends of that see-saw go up and down with the client, the center of the plank is fixed in place. And so, when people ask me how I can stand to listen to unhappiness day after day, I tell them that as a Connected therapist, the sorrows of others do not weigh me down.

Rather than being burdened by their pain, I feel that my clients have given me a great gift. They have done me honor by choosing to see me, and to let me into their lives, enabling me to understand them and share what they feel. Their willingness to do so infuses my own life with meaning and purpose, and for that I am not only not weighed down — I am eternally grateful.

Oftentimes, individuals initiate therapy seeking advice and information. Clients quickly learn that counselling is a dynamic experience designed to elicit a future path informed by personal experience and wisdom.

As of mid, I have been a clinician for almost 21 years. My career is varied with a wide range of experiences, each enhancing my professional development. Over the years, I have gained a few personal insights about psychotherapy and the counseling process, insights that most clinicians might agree with:. Early in counsellor education, two types of clinicians emerge — Those that are not encumbered, and those who fret the details.

Both are eager to perform and seek approval from their supervisors. However, the later gets caught up in perfectionism. The problem is that perfectionism in psychotherapists leads to anxious psychotherapist. Clients seek and find every nuance in our verbal and non-verbal communication. It is important to reduce perfectionistic tendencies in order to be fully present with the client. Your session is not time to work through agenda items. They are an opportunity to meet the client in their place if pain, and joy.

Over time, every therapist develops a personalized set of core understandings and beliefs driving their work. In the following list, I describe four principles that I have acquired over time, both as part of my clinical practice, and working in administration. All four inform my decision making and the conversations I have with fellow therapists, especially as part of supervision. During my internship in graduate school, I adopted Interpersonal Process Psychotherapy IPP theory as a way to understand the clinical relationship, especially as it relates to early patterns and intra-personal congruence.

In short, IPP promotes the understanding that clients are reacting to you in ways informed by their own childhood and early adult experiences. Your response to their reactions is critical in breaking old patters of interpersonal interactions with others that become particularly maladaptive in adulthood. It is critical to approach clients from the perspective that their behaviour is unlikely to change regardless of my personal opinion.

Only the client can accomplish that. Know the difference between the pre-contemplative client, and those ready for action. Never get caught into the trap of believing that you can only do meaningful work when clients are ready. So why does Sandra have such a terrible time maintaining relationships? Every new person she meets starts out promising, but sooner or later they lose interest in her and move on. My subjective feelings are overwhelmingly upbeat; she radiates positivity and childlike energy.

She reminds me of an old friend from high school. As she starts to talk, however, I discover that my subjective and induced feelings are far less sunny. As she speaks, I start to notice tension building in my body. I sense that there is a conflict between what she feels and what she reveals.

I also have the overwhelming impulse to move away from her, a clear enactment of what other people probably experience in her company. As she chats on and on, I start to feel infected by her anxiety and begin to disassociate.

Since relating to others is so complicated for Sandra, I decide to place her in a group. This will give me a chance to study her in action, observe how she relates to others, and see how others respond to her. Almost immediately, the group members have the same confused reaction to Sandra. They like her at first, but then quickly grow frustrated with her. Something about her seems inauthentic. It was true. Sandra is so busy trying to please that she never lets anyone get close to her; she hides behind a persona.

To open a new pathway in relating and disrupt this pattern, I needed to shake things up a bit; take her in an entirely new direction. Sandra relates a childhood memory. Sandra often defends her mom, but is too afraid to leave her room. She curls up in bed shaking and crying.