Breaking the Rules of Psychology
The psychologist rule: Avoid personal disclosure in public unless processed “enough” — meaning only events intellectualized and emotionally contained. Don’t fill the space by bleeding raw emotions on someone else. It’s impolite. Keep emotional composure and an even keel in therapyland.
Here’s a practical example: Therapist talking about herself in your session. Most of the time, clients aren’t interested in hearing about the therapist’s life. It’s boring. Yes, there are exceptions, but it is not comforting to hear about your therapist’s family issues when struggling with your own. Therapy is an agreement to focus our time together on you. My friend’s therapist talked so much about his problems that he didn’t charge her for the session. That’s wrong; our agreement requires me to set aside my crap.
Therapist self-disclosure is perilous. It risks invalidating or derailing the client, steering the conversation, and generally making things awkward. It breaks the therapeutic neutrality spell: You start to worry about me. Prudent use of disclosure is best, less than 10% of session time. Too much changes the focus and undermines your trust in my ability to help.
So why did I publicly pour my heart out in an online essay? Sometimes, the rules break you.
I share personal details only when it directly benefits the client or reader. That means the story must foster insight and hope, demonstrate my support, and/or normalize. I avoided actively raw crap. For example, my Dad died when I was 27 years old — a full two decades ago. Time and processing created an emotional headspace for sharing without making it about me. However, a countdown timer starts, and the longer I talk about him, the closer I get to that old grief. Processed “enough” doesn’t mean eradicating all sadness; what remains is just less acutely painful. The grief in a box analogy explains how it works. The grief ball gets smaller as life grows. Until processed to this manageable level, my rule is If I’m still working on it, don’t even open the door.
Jump to today. Grief over my wife’s death is not processed to the same level as my Dad. It’s cracked me open, and the timer quickly runs out. In the beginning, I couldn’t even say some words without crying. Take the phrase, “My wife is gone forever.” Even now, that’s still raw. It’s not something I’d say in therapy, and it feels exposing to tell the world. So why did I write an essay on grief before I’d processed enough? Why did I break the rule?
I’m referring to a piece I wrote for the Medium Writer’s Challenge in the category of “Death,” titled Everything that Died. (Tag: MWC Death on Medium.com for other essays). I saw a post for the challenge and thought, “Oh, I’m all over that!” I’m a little over a year and a half out from my wife’s death. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that this is a sort of quiet time for grievers. In the beginning, we are still reaching out for support and retelling the details. Later, processing focuses inward, reflecting and integrating what we know so far. This nuance of the process is hidden and isn’t captured in grief books.
I worked hard on the essay, editing, rewriting, finally sending it to my friends for suggestions and advice. I did a great job (by my standards) of articulating the experience of grief from where I started to where I am so far. I didn’t worry too much about fitting into the mold of commercial Medium essays. Whether that’s my folly or a gift is of no concern to me. Of course, I wouldn’t turn down the grand prize of $50k, but it’s more important to put my words out there. The last step was to post it. I clicked, and that’s when raw emotions flooded my mind. Crap.
Fear. Doubt. Anxiety. Sadness. And finally, terror. What had I done? See! This is why I don’t put myself out there! Writing brings peace to my mind, but posting created a storm. I freaked out. Was this going backward or forward? I was unmoored. It lasted all day. It should be noted that I did not unpublish the post.
I realized something important. I have downplayed the enormity of this experience. A part of me didn’t want the suicide death of my wife to be such a big deal to everyone. You’re thinking, “Well, of course, it is!” and intellectually, I agree. But the awfulness is isolating, and the extremity separates me from you. It’s shocking and if it scares you, I’m on my own to figure it out. Maybe you’d think I was nuts after reading the essay. Like I’d said, “This shitburger I’m eating is indeed quite yummy.” and murmuring to yourself, “Oh my gawd, she’s eating a shitburger!” I had to trust you’d know I don’t really like shitburgers and get that this is the dark side of making the best of things.
One thing I’ve learned about myself overall is that these storms pass. In the middle, there’s no sign of shore, and it seems to go on indefinitely. Luckily, my inner navigator calmly suggested, Just wait. You won’t feel this way forever. And so, I waited. I got up and moved, ran errands. Tidied up a bit and colored. Adult coloring books help me cope. My favorite is Fuck Off, I’m Coloring. So validating. I selected a bright blue gel pen and got to work. The floodwaters receded, the wind quieted, and I gently floated back to earth.
Long before I wrote and posted the Medium essay, I thought it through. I considered the consequences of breaking the rules of disclosure. At that point, the stakes were low as the piece was just an idea. I contemplated potential outcomes and got feedback from my support system. I decided the risk was worth it: It was an experiment in stepping outside my comfort zone. Perhaps, I hypothesized, disclosing my “processing notes” could be advantageous to us both. Day-to-day change is a sequence of small steps, like creating and editing rough drafts. Books are polished summaries. Exposing my unvarnished sentences from this stage in the process provides a map of how I get there. I wanted to capture the wilderness for you before it was smoothed over.
Why am I telling you this? Because you can relate. In therapyland, an obvious secret is that the therapist hasn’t been in your exact shoes but still gets it. We draw from personal life experiences to empathize with you. Example: You’re having panic attacks at work. I’m pretty chill, but I know what anxiety feels like. Empathy is blending what I know about you, panic attacks, and personal knowledge into a delicious therapy smoothie. I’m betting you can do that as well. Even if you haven’t tasted my particular shitburger, you’ve surely felt the freakout of overexposure. TMI is universally human.
Maybe I’ve convinced you, but so what? You’ve got enough on your plate. Isn’t the world sad enough to avoid relating to another sad thing? Agreed, but there’s something for you here, too. Anything can provoke emotional storms: a fight with a partner, an uncooperative kid, work stress, existential dread, impatience, uncertainty. Whatever it is matters a lot to you. We just FEEL, and these feelings say stuff with certainty. Caught up in it, we lose sight of reason and don’t slow down to think it through. You don’t care about my feelings! Do you know what it’s like for me? Ughhhh! Can’t you see how stressed out I am?! You’re/I’m an idiot. I can’t deal with this right now. Here’s another therapyland secret: empathizing with others improves your ability to figure yourself out. As a bonus, my process might help your process.
Inside my head, there are parts. They are little sub-personalities. Ever heard the voice of your mom in your head? Or thought one part of me wants to go out and another part wants to watch tv? It’s like that (more in You and Your Grieving Parts). For instance, weighing the pros and cons of going out or staying in, my balanced self suggests inviting friends over to watch a movie. When a part hijacks center stage, cue the freakout. A drama unfolds: If you don’t go, they’ll stop inviting you! Depending on the situation, center stage is occupied by one of these parts: the worried little girl, the opinionated office manager, or the well-meaning, codependent parent. I’ll introduce you.
After posting the essay, terrified of exposure, the little girl urged me to write a follow-up essay (the one you’re now reading). The bossy office manager advises to get ahead of the scandal and issue a reassuring press statement that everything is fine. Sensing the tension, the codependent parent sprang into action, rescuing me with distraction. She chimed in: We should color now! These parts have the same goal — to restore balance — but employ different methods. We’re all on the same page. Recognizing this empowers me. Amid these urgent messages, I’ve got some choices. I can take a step back and consider each of their propositions and make a deliberate decision. Each of the parts speaks truth but not The Truth. I hear them out and work towards a consensus.
You may be wondering, who said that thing about waiting out the storm? That’s my centered self — the balanced voice of wisdom. She gets the parts to compromise. With “Just wait,” the little girl says, But! But! Okay, fine. The office manager mumbles, We’ll see! and the codependent parent pipes up with, Here when you need me! No one wants to wait, but the little girl is eagerly hopeful and the haughty office manager is patient. The codependent parent stands off-stage, flipping through the coloring books and sighing loudly. While no voice is entirely denied nor gratified, the strategy holds.
Here’s my challenge to you: get to know your parts. Learn to recognize their voices. It doesn’t matter if you start from your balanced self or catch them chattering in the next emotional storm. Ask yourself, “What’s happening right now?” Resist giving in to their limited perspectives and experiment. Instead of black and white, find the middle ground. Deliberately decide your actions whenever you can. This is true empowerment. If I can do it, I know you can too. And with that, now I’m going to go color. Thanks for reading.
