I love doing therapy. I'm two weeks back from vacation and I've seen the whole caseload, from a brand new person to clients returning to treatment after years away, to people in the midst of the muck, and one person who is over her debilitating anxiety and done with the process.
What do I love?
- Relationship! I get paid to intimately connect with people in truth. According to all meta-research the better the relationship, the better the outcome, even with whiz-bang techniques like EMDR. As I tell my consultees, "You need to fall in love with every single client. If you aren't doing therapy in that space, you need to see that as a therapeutic issue." (And no, I don't mean romance.) So I sit in love and relationship all day long. And they pay me.
- Healing! It is so fun to watch people move forward. Whether it's the dramatic stuff, like using EMDR/Brainspotting/EgoState work to clear PTSD or watching a "part" integrate; or watching someone be able to tolerate their anger/grief/heart-opening for the very first time; or seeing them really get that "it" wasn't about them, it's my privelege to be the witness and facilitator.
- Presence! My practice in my practice is about being 100% present to the person across from me. I can feel their cut off feelings arise in me. (Lots of us do it, few talk about, except the Object Relation folks.) I'm watching, listening, processing the whole time. And after 30 years in the field, my brain has built itself huge neural networks for presence and processing and being there interacting. And I keep learning more ways to be present and to interact and to add to the neural nets. It feels good to fire up the brain to do the work.
- Learning! There is something new to see in every person that walks into the office. I'm a mastery junkie, and I'm given new things to master every day that I work.
I'm 1/2 way through the editing process on the new book. Many chapters are a month late. Some are going through painful and even contentious rewrites. And while writing uses the therapy brain, and editing other people's chapters gives me a chance to learn new techniques and material, the actual line-by-line edits aren't as fun. And it's only vaguely relational to rewrite someone's sentence, and somewhat emotionally risky. (Not everyone likes their sentences rewritten.) After 4 to 6 hours of editing for 2 to 4 days in a row, I "escape" to work, where I get to fall in love once an hour, and collaborate with my attachment objects to create healing. And I think of what Hillel's words: "If you save one person, you save the world." I don't think of what I do as "saving", but doing this work helps me deal with the great injustice the world over. Hillel thinks I'm doing my part.
Dr. Shapiro, Thanks for this post. It's freshing to see a therapist who's been in the business for a long time still passionate about their work (rather than very cynical, which I see a lot!). I think we operate in a truly privileged realm - exploring the intimate parts of another's psyche.
Posted by: Katie | July 10, 2008 at 11:06 PM
Katie, I agree. On many days I feel huge gratitude for being able to do this work.
Posted by: Robin Shapiro | July 12, 2008 at 03:44 PM
Robin,
Thank you so much for this post. I've been working with a very gifted therapist awhile on attachment issues and part of that struggle is sometimes feeling like the relationship isn't real. To hear a therapist talk about it from the other side and know that it's as powerful and intimate for you is a really wonderful thing to hear. Don't get me wrong, my therapist tells me its real, but you know how patients think, I figure he has to say it. : )
Thank you. I really enjoy your website, thanks for the time and effort. AND you have my undying gratitude for leading me to Myshrink.com!
Posted by: Attachment Girl | July 14, 2008 at 07:51 AM
Thank you for your reply. For me, and every therapist I know, it's real. And it's great to get a response to a post, very few people write me, though the stats say that people are reading.
Posted by: Robin Shapiro | July 14, 2008 at 09:32 AM
Robin: The freedom with which you talk about "falling in love with your clients" speaks to how grounded you are in being genuinely yourself in the very loaded, but sacred space within which you and the client dwell; that certainly requires accounting for/managing your (our) own narcissistic needs; but how much richer, authentic, and transformative the Journey FOR BOTH PEOPLE... That is indeed why I love therapy too. So many times when i have walked into the room anticipating a very difficult session, having fortified myself with the dissociative hope that someday i will not carry a level of responsibility for suicidal people...then an hour later realize The Magic happened again: the beauty of someone seeing something of hope or of their true self they didn't believe existed. There is something so sacred about those times, for which i am so hugely grateful; and I don't believe it has ever happened hiding behind my clipboard: there has always been prior to this some kind of wading in together, in which they know we are really much more alike than different; a shared recognition that there is genuine caring--really it is love but i don't use the word with them, and they don't need me to. It is great to be encouraged (by your blog entry) to affirm along with you that, still, after all these years doing therapy, that only in the most vulnerable spaces of life does the truly mystical happen: people amaze me, and as you said: we get to be there in the room at times when they are at their most amazing. I do appreciate your heart, your spirit, and your tenacity. Keep writing, Robin!
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