There is so much that goes into being a therapist: years of training, practicum, internships and years again of supervision. In fact, one could say that the education needed to become a helpful, attuned therapist is never ending. I am constantly questioning, reading, thinking, collaborating and learning. I am always striving to deepen my knowledge and remember, with reverence, respect and questioning, the theories I stand on. I focus on finding ways to bring the words of a diagnosis to life, so that I can truly understand the distress and help folks find a way to decrease it. I am also in a constant process of inner connection and clarity in order to fine tune my own personal style, how the theories speak and resonate inside me, and how my brain processes and conceives information.
Sometimes I find it important to bring myself back from all of that, sometimes it is my clients that help me do so. Sometimes I am reminded of the importance of witnessing someone's story.
After a weekend of learning, in one way or another, I often begin a Monday morning with the optimistic vigor that what I have learned will impact my work as a therapist that day. Sometimes it does in a linear, obvious way, but sometimes I come in with a ready energy and what I find is a person with a story to tell. It often catches me off guard, I can feel my body shift. My energy deepens, to mirror the client, as if to say I can receive your story; I can witness your story. Clients may tell a story that I have been told before or a story that is brand new to me. A story from their past that they have never told or a story from their weekend. A story that made them laugh, or that they thought I may want to hear. A story that brought them to tears or scared them. A story that was so hard to hold that they could hardly wait until their session to release it. Their stories, that I have the privilege to hear, to hold, and to witness.
Lately, grief has been one of the most prominent states explored in the therapeutic space. It seems that we are all collectively grieving, not exactly like it felt during COVID, when most of us were grieving similar things, or at least adjacent topics. Now it just seems that loss surrounds us. The loss of someone close, the loss of safety, the loss of a job, the loss of foundation, the loss of perception, the loss of someone you do not know, but it feels like you do, the loss of naivety, the loss of hope, the loss of truth.
But I am reminded of the power of story. Sarah Bareilles says in her song Home from her new album Grief:
“I had not yet learned life's holiest lesson, that what is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name.”
Story is how we know what feels broken and give our experiences a name.
To really witness someone’s story moves away from the science of therapy to the art of therapy, which should be synonymous to the art of the human experience.
It is in the process of having your story heard that helps people find their way through grief. It allows for the person you lost, or the hope that seems so distant, or the safety that feels inaccessible to be “loved by name.” And in that love…found again.