Pshrinkly rambling
Aug. 27th, 2001 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaWhen 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.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 03:17 am (UTC)As for the difficulties keeping personal and professional separate, you have my sincere sympathies. I ran into some similar things when I was providing ad hoc counseling for a lot of friends, and it's a good part of why I make sure that anyone who needs counseling enough to ask me for it gets it from a professional. It's the sort of thing that can burn a hole in friendships if you aren't careful. Best of luck keeping a handle on it; I'm glad you have such wonderful, supportive partners who I know will understand and help you figure things out.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 07:12 am (UTC)I think people who wind up being the ad hoc counselor for their circle of friends just about always wind up in serious trouble. The reason that unidirectional energy flow works in therapy is that it's a carefully-bounded environment with a highly defined structure. It's hard - and maybe impossible - to try to recreate those safety structures in a social relationship. Professional therapists are also taught techniques for managing energy drain. It's not a trivial problem.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 10:58 am (UTC)The hard part that's left over has more to do with automatic processes than with actual therapist-type actions or interventions. The hard part involves not presenting myself as having this smooth, competent, demand-free surface. If the other person is basically doing okay, I don't have a problem - but if they're stressed or unhappy, it becomes very difficult to let my own needs come to the forefront and jostle shoulders with their needs.
Now that I think about it, it doesn't surprise me that I haven't perfected that. Why on earth would my graduate school advisors want me to behave as though my personal needs are as important as outside demands? *half-grin*
no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 08:56 pm (UTC)Gee, I think I know that...
Date: 2001-09-01 01:51 am (UTC)Well... Rivka, for one as brilliant and as remarkably insightful as you are, to say nothing of having beauty that puts shame to the stars in the sky, shining under the light of the full moon, for they can only inspire breathless wonder at possibilities, while you represent the purest actuality....
Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't read your entry that you have to avoid anything that might cause your skin to become flushed, so I'm throwing in a little flattery before I have to worry about it. :-)
But, anyway, you're insightful, so you should know it's all your fa... no, wait. That doesn't work. I mean, when it's happening to ME, it's all *MY* fault, but if it's happening to you... damn. If it doesn't generalize, it's not as likely to be true.
I'm thinking the solution might be one you're already familiar with on a physical plane.
If you had to walk for your clients, I think you'd already know that it means you have to be extra-super-careful about how much walking you do otherwise. You have a limited amount of walking-energy to spend, and you've got to let other people help you stay off your feet, probably *EVEN WHEN YOU FEEL FINE*.
(John ponders what he'll say or do if he finds out that Rivka is now running marathons... besides expressing extreme happiness.)
In fact, it might even be doubly important to develop the habits when you feel fine because otherwise you won't have them in place when things go badly.
The problem is, it's easy to say "Since you look like you're getting up, could you get me something while you're up?" when you know you can't spend too much time on your feet. It's a lot harder to find the equivalent intellectually/emotionally.
One of the key things I'm pondering is how do you say "Yes, I don't *NEED* this; I won't *DIE* without it. But it's another papercut, and, yes, you *CAN* die from enough papercuts, and I work in a computer-textbook-paper-plant!"
(Can you guess who's had a lot of those "YICK I CAN FEEL THAT THING PARTING MY SKIN BUT BY THE TIME I'VE FORMULATED THIS THOUGHT IT'S TOO LATE TO DO MORE THAN GO YICK I CAN...(you get the picture...)!" papercuts from computer textbooks recently?)
Somehow, you have to get to a constant understanding of "No, I don't need this today, and I won't need it tomorrow, but by the time I *DO* need it, I'll be in a crisis, and won't be able to get it, so please, if you can, and the cost isn't too high, give me help now!"
(John now decides he's tired and rambling and not going to come up with any great wisdom to tie this all together, and decides to hit the post button anyway....)
Rambly brambly
Date: 2001-09-01 10:30 pm (UTC)Let me try that again.
"Rivka MacRivka has the mission of providing quality fully tested products to our field testers through the use of client/server technology using parallelized methods and multiply implemented processes."
Oh, just go shootin'.
Glad to find you herein. I keep thinking I might start writing to my own (ahem) free journal. I'll letcha know.
(LoRe)