Do I Really Care for my Clients?
My struggle with being a psychotherapist.
Do I care about my psychotherapy clients? Honestly. Honestly? Well. I care about them being and becoming caring beings. Kind of like how I was worried that the values, like caring, that my grandmother tried to instill into me and my siblings were not getting through to us or informing our actions enough.
I’m going to veer toward another thoughts that’s relation to the last paragraph will become apparent later as this post is an exercise in honest self exploration and self reflection. This new thought is that I feel scared. I feel scared after reading a chapter from a book about Mentalizing Based Therapy. The part that alarms me says that my representation of an event is just that, a representation, and not the reality of the even itself. This also includes how I perceive even though closest people to me. It’s clearly not a new though, and yet, I don’t think I have properly digested it. I think it can open up a lot of new territory in ability to remain flexible and to adapt.
I think, though, unless I misread something, that there is yogic literature claiming that some humans can a reach a degree of enlightenment where they can see reality itself, and not just a representation. (When I read this in my teens I thought straining my focus would get me there, stat.) I really don’t know what to think of that claim anymore. It awakes a longing in me to be very honest, to let the honesty flow through and out of me…toward a receptive other. Wen I was straining myself to the point of headaches in order to be a good enlightened girl in the yoga community where I was living, I think I was just really looking for something teleological (physical proof… learning new words from the mentalizing book) like validation from someone I could trust so that I could rest my inner critic in the temporary comfort of a better self image.
To see reality as it is? Like even a tree is filtered through my eyes. Eyes that ese in their own slightly unique way.
I spend a lot of time digging into why I am the way I am. But even that is infused with a variety of perspectives from varying sources, all on a spectrum.
I think I getting of course. Listen, I’m reaching for a way to change myself into a psychotherapist who is not so conflicted about being one. Yet my mental representation rom reflecting upon the sessions I’ve had with clients is that it is hard for me to sustain care for them even when they are in deep suffering. I’ve experienced myself as someone who just trudges along. (I’m being as honest as I can to, again, hopefully change myself into someone who can give so well. I’m a good friend, a good partner, a good family member… but for some reason… not so good as a therapist). I am also aware that I have tended to scramble, within myself, to try to care on cue, and that was exhausting.
The word “care.” I want to say that I do care, but I hate fakery. I just don’t like to be forced to care. I don’t like care on cue. I like brunches with friends where I can attend to them psychologically while eating a good meal and sharing some of me struggles. My friends actually think I’m a great therapist. I like giving my partner deep meaningful looks and I like that he comes to me for comfort.
Reflecting on this writing so far, I feel like asking: Where is the hope? Where is the hope for me to have a satisfying vocation. And why do i fucking not care enough about suffering clients? And is it fine for me not to? And if my and my psychoanalyst just got more focused on my psychological needs, then maybe the obstacles will be removed and my care will flow forth? Argh
Or maybe my representation of how I am as a therapist is wrong, maybe I do care for my clients. ( I do tend to see the negative in myself, and I think that’s limiting.)
This passage from the Mentalizing book got me though:
“Are we really clear why we are here? Are we motivated to resist systemic discrimination and stigma, and to work in our client’s best interests? Can we state these values and intentions with confidence to ourselves, to our supervisors, to our clients?”
I can’t say I’m sure. But I’m working hard to find out. And I respect myself for the honesty and vulnerability. I respect myself for the efforts I’ve already made to love well. I respect myself for trying to replace bullshit with calm attention. I respect myself for taking seriously the following quote:
