Therapists Are Human Too!

Someone said to me once that being a Psychotherapist was 'a good wee job' (a highly colloquial phrase, most commonly used in Scotland and Northern Ireland) where I could sit, drink tea, and chat with people all day'!  

There are many misconceptions when it comes to understanding what therapists actually do. The human connection component is pivotal, so in a sense sitting and chatting may not be so wide of the mark, at least during the phase where we are establishing that working relationship - where we explore how best to be meaningfully present in the room. And yes, that may mean having a cup of tea or coffee together!

Each encounter a therapist has with a client is a unique experience. Tailored therapy means just that: no two sessions are the same, and this is especially true in Logotherapy & Existential Analysis, where the questions we ask require a deeply personal response.

The Logotherapist is constantly evaluating responses and the meaning attached to them. One of our core techniques is 'Socratic Dialogue', a guided questioning approach that assists clients in the discovery of personal meaning, challenge self-limiting beliefs/attitudes, and affirms their freedom to choose their own response to specific life challenges.

Some Logotherapists refer to their role as a 'spiritual midwifery', where the therapist facilitates self-discovery and growth through the expression of values and engagement with meaning. In a metaphorical sense it represents the 'birth' of new potentialities, and ultimately, realities.

It is worth mentioning at this point that the spiritual component is very broad and refers to all of those experiences that make us human (including, but not restricted to the ability to love, to appreciate beauty/humour, and to be aware of our mortality).

But I digress! If we think of therapy in a generic sense (that is not restricted to Logotherapy), there are significant elements of commonality.

I particularly appreciate the way Psychologists Roy E. Barsness and Brad Strawn summarise what we therapists really do, or at least a small part of it:

'Containing, waiting, associating, soliciting the patient’s associations, wandering into reverie, wandering back out, dreaming, debating, practicing what one might say, silently interpreting, consciously contemplating, bridging, linking, cataloguing, pacing, being lost, tolerating being lost, sequencing, listening, listening through hovering attention, listening more acutely, listening with an ear of theory, inquiring, momentarily stepping out of the bond, taking a break, remaining silent, debating silence, debating theory, considering when and/or if to bring a feeling or a thought forward, and at what point in the hour, what point in the week.'

Being a therapist is not easy, but it does not require one to be a special type of person. What it does require, and this is often forgotten, is that the therapist is a very human person. And that is where Logotherapy comes into the picture once more.

Viktor Frankl, the Founder of Logotherapy wrote in his book 'The Unconscious God', that 'Petrilowitsch (a German Psychiatrist) now credits Logotherapy for having re-humanised psychotherapy so that, after the unmasking of the neurotic, after the de-ideologising of psychotherapy and the de-mythologizing of neurosis, the re-humanising of psychotherapy has been arrived at, or at least is underway.'

There is of course much to unpack in that statement, but we do not have to go into that here. The key point is that the process of re-humanisation applies to both the therapist and the client, working as they do as co-equals in the therapeutic journey.

That is why we can say that Psychotherapists are just like their clients: they are not spared grief, failure, disappointment, or setbacks. Nor are they immune to mental illness, burnout, relationship breakdowns, or career disappointments. They wrestle with the expectations and reality of parenthood and looking after elderly relatives; they face family dysfunction, make mistakes, and experience the whole gamut of emotions and life circumstances.

Imagine if you will, that Psychotherapists are perfect, or categorically different from the rest of us: that would, quite frankly, be disastrous! Why? Well think of it this way - compassion, empathy, and understanding are formed in the crucible of struggle and adversity. Our personalities, and their development, are very much a product of how we navigate internal and external tensions and turmoil.

Consider, again, Viktor Frankl's observation: ''what man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him'. (note: he uses man/him generically).

It is clear that a therapist who has been spared suffering would be utterly ineffectual and divorced from the universality of human experience. That much is self-evident.

However, it would be a mistake to think that a therapist can only work effectively with specific conditions if they have been through exactly the same experience themselves; thankfully, it does not work like that!

For example, a therapist who works with clients who live with eating disorders need not have an eating disorder themselves. Rather, they draw upon the commonality of suffering and their very human experience of it to inform and guide their practice. Empathy, active listening, and the ability to sit with another person who is in emotional pain, is not condition specific.

When I teach Logotherapists and Supervising Logotherapists, my emphasis is very much on helping them to develop as people first and foremost. Part of that approach can best be described as facilitating an internal and ongoing Socratic dialogue with oneself. It is worth remembering that 'Know thyself' is a foundational philosophical maxim inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek precinct of Delphi.

To know oneself is a very practical exhortation, where the secondary task is to inform how we develop as responsive and effective therapists/supervisors.

That is why therapists are human too!