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Pshrinkly rambling
Aug. 27th, 2001 11:45 pmWhen I first read Freud in college, I sneered at his idea that clients tended to fall in love with their therapists. Projection, I thought. Oh, the vanity of those middle-aged male psychoanalysts.
But you know, the more I develop a professional identity as a therapist, the more it makes sense to me. When I'm doing therapy, I'm so intently focused on the client that everything else fades away. Our entire interaction centers on the client's needs, the client's feelings, the client's happiness. I find ways to be accepting and caring in the face of even the most difficult interactions. My needs get met elsewhere - the client never has to worry about them. If I'm doing things right, it shouldn't even occur to the client that I might have needs. I'm (apparently) never tired, never distracted, never preoccupied with my own problems, never looking for solace and support just when the client could use those things from me. Especially if a person's never gotten that kind of focused attention and unqualified support and acceptance elsewhere... I can see where it could have an intoxicating appeal.
It's not my real personality, of course. Not to say that I'm not being genuine when I'm with clients, because I am - but it's not my ordinary self, it's a professional role. I work at it. It's exhausting. In real life, as I'm sure my partners would testify, I get tired and cranky and sarcastic and catty and impatient. I don't suffer fools gladly, yet I'm sometimes supremely foolish myself. I get whiny and needy and emotionally demanding, from time to time. The unidirectional-energy-flow relationship (I give energy to the client and don't take any energy back) is as much a myth as the perpetual motion machine; my family and friends are the equivalent of the generator hidden behind a curtain. I give to them, sure - they get my focused attention and acceptance and support and assistance, when I can give it. But it's not the fantasy version. They've got to give as good as they get.
Or, well, that's how it's got to be if it's going to work.
The hard part is that, as I get better at the professional role, it becomes harder not to try to carry those good-therapist assumptions over into my private life. Lord knows it's not my partners' fault - they all genuinely want the support and care to be mutual. But as I get better at the whole unidirectional-energy-flow thing, I find myself slipping into it automatically. Squashing my own needs and feelings down, doing the auto-erase thing to remove any sign of them from my face and posture - because one of my partners is depressed or under a lot of stress. For weeks, maybe. Maybe months.
It's not sustainable, because I just don't have perpetual energy to give. The fact that I do it myself, automatically, doesn't prevent me from eventually resenting them for it. It necessarily puts a false front between us that interferes with genuine emotional intimacy. I recognize that it's a bad idea for all these reasons.
But at the same time, I need to keep developing and practicing the skills that let me do it well, and as I practice those skills become more and more a part of me. And, you know, people like it. It makes them feel good. It protects them from burdens.
Let's hope this is an early-career thing, and that as I master therapy I'll be able to set up firmer walls between my professional roles and my private roles. Because otherwise I could see myself ending up a certified hermit, just for the sake of self-protection.
(Okay, that was probably all slightly overdramatic. But they're ideas that have been percolating through my head for some time, and this is the first time I've tried to get them onto the page.)
But you know, the more I develop a professional identity as a therapist, the more it makes sense to me. When I'm doing therapy, I'm so intently focused on the client that everything else fades away. Our entire interaction centers on the client's needs, the client's feelings, the client's happiness. I find ways to be accepting and caring in the face of even the most difficult interactions. My needs get met elsewhere - the client never has to worry about them. If I'm doing things right, it shouldn't even occur to the client that I might have needs. I'm (apparently) never tired, never distracted, never preoccupied with my own problems, never looking for solace and support just when the client could use those things from me. Especially if a person's never gotten that kind of focused attention and unqualified support and acceptance elsewhere... I can see where it could have an intoxicating appeal.
It's not my real personality, of course. Not to say that I'm not being genuine when I'm with clients, because I am - but it's not my ordinary self, it's a professional role. I work at it. It's exhausting. In real life, as I'm sure my partners would testify, I get tired and cranky and sarcastic and catty and impatient. I don't suffer fools gladly, yet I'm sometimes supremely foolish myself. I get whiny and needy and emotionally demanding, from time to time. The unidirectional-energy-flow relationship (I give energy to the client and don't take any energy back) is as much a myth as the perpetual motion machine; my family and friends are the equivalent of the generator hidden behind a curtain. I give to them, sure - they get my focused attention and acceptance and support and assistance, when I can give it. But it's not the fantasy version. They've got to give as good as they get.
Or, well, that's how it's got to be if it's going to work.
The hard part is that, as I get better at the professional role, it becomes harder not to try to carry those good-therapist assumptions over into my private life. Lord knows it's not my partners' fault - they all genuinely want the support and care to be mutual. But as I get better at the whole unidirectional-energy-flow thing, I find myself slipping into it automatically. Squashing my own needs and feelings down, doing the auto-erase thing to remove any sign of them from my face and posture - because one of my partners is depressed or under a lot of stress. For weeks, maybe. Maybe months.
It's not sustainable, because I just don't have perpetual energy to give. The fact that I do it myself, automatically, doesn't prevent me from eventually resenting them for it. It necessarily puts a false front between us that interferes with genuine emotional intimacy. I recognize that it's a bad idea for all these reasons.
But at the same time, I need to keep developing and practicing the skills that let me do it well, and as I practice those skills become more and more a part of me. And, you know, people like it. It makes them feel good. It protects them from burdens.
Let's hope this is an early-career thing, and that as I master therapy I'll be able to set up firmer walls between my professional roles and my private roles. Because otherwise I could see myself ending up a certified hermit, just for the sake of self-protection.
(Okay, that was probably all slightly overdramatic. But they're ideas that have been percolating through my head for some time, and this is the first time I've tried to get them onto the page.)
