On Healing
“Mirror” 2022 digital painting by Kate Creech
“Oh, I don’t take credit for anyone’s healing, I just give that right back when they try to compliment me,” my doctor said breezily when I tried to thank her for the work she had done with me. “It’s their hard work that has brought about healing.” Her words stuck with me for months and made me think even more deeply about the therapeutic dynamic between therapists and their clients. Since the beginning of psychotherapy (with its origins in psychoanalysis developed in part by Sigmund Freud), the system has been designed to put therapists on a pedestal of sorts. Therapists are the ones who are supposed to have the wisdom and the knowledge to heal their patients. The myth is, that given enough information from their patients they can diagnose and start to bring about the cure. The inherent and sometimes toxic power dynamic of therapy (especially given it’s extremely patriarchal and white beginnings) isn’t something that has nearly been explored or talked about enough. While much good has come from this profession, it’s also one that needs to continue to evolve.
Dr. Hillary McBride is a Vancouver based therapist and researcher who recently posted about the relationship between therapist and client on social media. She said, “there is a way of doing therapy, in which a person seeks care with another, but remains alone, resting in their cognition, isolated by the hierarchy that too often exists in the caring dynamic: the one who is sick, and the one who is perfect and will heal. This way of caring has the illusion of connection, but perpetuates the systems of disconnection that will only hurt us all more.” Therapists can hide behind theory, diagnosis, and what our school of therapy would tell us to say, but sometimes it’s not connective. It can actually be dehumanizing and dismissive.
I’ve been called a mental health professional (I sometimes feel like I need to look behind me to see who they are actually referring to, hello imposter syndrome) and while that’s true, if I hide behind that role too much it can dismiss the power that the client has over their own healing. As someone’s therapist I can have my thoughts, gut sense, and a graduate degree, but if that overrides where the client is wanting to go or continually steps on their own internal knowing, my words will ultimately not be therapeutic (*see footnote). For many people with a history of childhood abuse or domestic violence, this can actually be retraumatizing.
As therapists, we need to keep giving the role and power in people’s healing back to them. Of course, it’s not to dismiss the gratitude the client might have, the role we’ve played, or the sweat and tears we’ve poured into the work we do, but it’s putting away the grandiose stance of the All Knowing Healer or a Superman/savior complex (perpetuated by some of the european fathers of psychoanalysis, I’m looking at you Freud).
Dr. McBride goes on to say, “what makes a difference is a therapist who resists the idea of being the perfect instrument, who enters into the relationship with competence, but is ok with not knowing, does not need to fix or save another to prove they are good, while allowing themselves to be impacted by whomever they are with. This is the kind of therapy that I believe is transformational, nor just for the therapist, but also for the client: where the person receiving care can know and feel that what they are going through- their wounding, their strength, their resilience, their vulnerability- actually taught the ‘expert’ something.”
I consistently want to ask myself where do my clients move me emotionally? How are they showing up right now? How can I bring that back into the space so we might become more curious about their own story. As humans we want to know that we impact people, that our stories matter and have weight. By being a learner (as well as continuing to explore my own privilege and power) in the therapy room and asking clients questions about how they have come to be who they are, it continues to place the responsibility of healing back into their hands. To many hearts who have experienced neglect (the experience of often receiving nothing— no response or attunement from an attachment figure), knowing that you can move someone to tears, empathetic anger, or laughter is sometimes the only work that needs to be done.
As a therapist it’s also my job to put myself back in my proper place. Back into being just one of the people in my client’s healing community. Not their savior. Not their only source of wisdom or attunment. The individualistic ideology of healing and breaking our bodies into separate parts instead of looking at our spirit, emotions, and body in a holistic way is dangerous and isolating. The best way to heal is in community (** see footnote). With my clients one of the go-to questions I’ll ask is, “what does your friend group and community look like? Who can you call, because 55 minutes once a week is not enough time to hold space for the enormity of what you’re carrying. It never could be.” This is the same question I need to ask of myself and of my colleagues.
The therapist sitting across from us, even with all their training and knowledge, is also a human who has probably experienced trauma and pain themselves. There is no one I’d rather explore the no man’s land of my story with than someone who is aware of their own brokenness and is walking that healing path with other wise ones. We are the experts on our own pain, sometimes we just need a witness to come alongside us as we make sense of it all. Therapy is a place where we can be reminded that while we can’t change how we have been harmed, we have a lot of power to bring healing to the wounded parts of ourselves, and we don’t have to do it alone.
(*while also holding to the ethical and legal guidelines of my profession as a safety net for the work)
(** as therapists we also need to acknowledge the racist and patriarchal systems that make it difficult for our clients to actually thrive or access care in their communities and that some community offerings may actually be harmful to certain populations)