Ending and Changing

C provided the safe space, the empathy and the boundaries that enabled me to deal with some difficult issues.

It was a positive experience, but when I return to counselling, it will probably be with a different practitioner. The next time I go into therapy, my situation and needs will have changed. In life, every relationship is different and unique: and so it is with counsellors and clients. Who they are, how they see each other and the way they meet each other in the room is in fact the main influence on the work done: the theory and the methods used by a counsellor pale into insignificance.

I’ve worked with three therapists now (I’ll call them A, B and C), and my experience with each of them has been unique. The first, A, was a kind and wise older woman. She led me through some complex material, but ultimately (and through no doing of her own) became a mother figure, which was not what I needed.

I next wanted to explore the possibilities of working with another man, and found B, a counsellor who was also younger than me. Our conversation was easy (perhaps too easy) but it was to be another unequal relationship. I certainly felt heard by B, but not necessarily understood, which led me to dig deeper into exploring my history and explaining my world: a very necessary exercise and certainly useful at the time.

Both A and B were Person-Centred therapists, careful to leave everything to me and confident that I would be driven by an innate impulse to grow and develop. I was in therapy to explore the obstacles placed to this “actualising tendency” and ultimately to unblock them.

C worked in a slightly different way. She was more directional, taking a more active part in the dialogue and using Gestalt methods to help me develop my awareness of self. These included phenomenology – observing our feelings in the moment, what was happening in the conversation and the process itself. This increased what we call “relational depth” – the degree of genuine connection and engagement.

In contrast to the uneven power dynamics of my previous therapists, C and I were able to meet more as equals. Having identified and untangled various knots (ranging from mild discomfort to deep dilemmas) I felt we had reached the limit of what we could explore, and so we came to an amicable end.

Looking back on my therapist experience, each of them walked alongside me for a particular stretch on the road, lending a non-judgmental ear, and helping me to deal with the challenges and questions raised by the events in my life. All of them made me feel seen with compassion and without judgment.

My own personal therapy has been essential to help me deal with my own psychological issues – some of which has arisen as a consequence of my work with clients. Together with supervision (discussing my caseload with another experienced psychotherapist) it is one of the pillars that supports my work.

Each therapist has given me a different model of how to conduct the healing, because they bring themselves into the room – they are the anvil against which I can hammer out my issues. In the same way, I meet each of my clients as a unique human being and relate to each of them in a different way. The unique interaction between us forms the basis of what we hope will be a reparative and remedial discussion.

If you would like to find out more, why not send me a message or book a short meeting? I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about starting in therapy and how the process works.