The Waves Crash on the Shore and the Boat Alike
/The therapeutic relationship is unique: a one-sided-yet-authentic relationship which places the good of the client at the center of the work. By keeping ourselves out of the relationship while inviting all of our client into it, we therapists create a non-judgmental space where our clients can show the parts of themselves that they hide to the rest of the world. It is an intense experience, as we explore the most emotionally difficult parts of our clients’ lives while holding our own emotional ground. It’s a bit like the relationship between a lighthouse and a ship - we’re both in the same storm, but only one of us is lost at sea.
In today’s climate, however, this relationship faces an unprecedented challenge. All of us - therapists and clients alike - are responding to the same global catastrophe. Maintaining a relationship that focuses on the client’s struggles is difficult under the best of circumstances, and much more so when their struggles and fears are the same as your own. All therapists now face the question of what to disclose, and even more so, whether or not they can even control their self disclosure.
When thinking about this, I am reminded of the work I’ve seen by Sorin Thomas and RP Whitmore-Bard from Queer Asterisk (www.queerasterisk.com), as well as many of their associates, around radical self disclosure. While I am certainly no expert on the topic, my understanding of their basic point is this: therapists self disclose constantly without realizing they’re doing it, and in certain circumstances that self disclosure can be literally life saving, therefore instead of treating self disclosure as a therapeutic sin we should integrate it instead as a tool we can use carefully for the good of our clients.
In Soren and RP’s case, they have found that self disclosure can be a powerful tool when working within the LGBTQ* community. With young LGBTQ*-identified clients, often they have never met another person, especially an older person, who is going through what they’re going through. The feeling of isolation is staggering, and the lack of role models and mentors leaves people groping in the dark to find ways of growing up. By broaching their identities and struggles with their clients, therapists manage to take care of these clients in a way that the traditionally-distant therapeutic relationship never could. After all, if someone came to you dying of thirst and you said to them, “What does thirst mean to you?” while holding a glass of water behind your back, who have you really helped?
Now, that’s a specialized case that works very well in a particular community, but it can be generalized. What works well in their model is that it addresses a particular need: the client is dangerously isolated, so the therapist uses their own experience to join them. It’s the kind of intervention a group therapist would make, but without the group. In the broader case, all clients and therapists are in this situation right now - under various degrees of stay at home order, unable to connect with other people who have experienced anything like this, and in need of reassurance that someone at least can understand what they’re going through and help contextualize it.
My experience with most clients is that they ask how I’m doing at the beginning of session. Usually I say some quick variation of “I’m good” and move on, but maybe something more vulnerable would be helpful now. My clients are scared, and so am I. My clients are bored, and so am I. My clients need someone to talk to, and so do I. To spend all session pretending otherwise and holding myself back isn’t an authentic relationship, it’s a mask I’m putting on to pretend I’m a therapist-as-usual. By joining with my clients and showing my own vulnerability, I can model for them that we can still be human, can still be in contact, even when sheltering alone.
We therapists can still be lighthouses for the storm-tossed, even now that the oceans are rising and we’re all lost at sea. I see my clients lost out there on the open ocean, tossed by waves and trying to keep themselves together enough to bail out the water that’s leaking into the boat. And I know the feeling, as I wipe down my windows and keep my lamp lit. I see them struggling against the sea and I hope to reach them, to guide them back to contact. We may not be able to help our clients get back to solid ground, but we can help them find another person to weather the storm with.