Top Three Things Every New Therapist Should Know
“Do you think you could tell me the 2 or 3 most important things to remember when I start working with my clients next week?”
This is a text from my amazing writer friend, Kim Knutsen, who is a graduate student in counseling and just starting her first practicum at an outpatient facility.
“Sure,” I texted back. “But I’m going into session. I’ll get back to you.”
Ever since I started teaching graduate students, I have loved questions like this one. Most students experience their graduate training as a firehose of academic information and complex (and interesting!) research articles, often worded in abstract ways with a generous amount of jargon. They begin to talk like wizards intoning spells in an ancient language. But when you open the door for a client’s session, you have to figure out how to ground yourself in the moment. Where is your mooring when you go out to this particular sea? As I moved into my next client meetings that afternoon, I tracked the concrete things I did to prepare for each session.
Two hours later I answered Kim’s text. Here’s what came to me:
- Go to the bathroom first.
- Be human.
- Read your notes.
Go to the bathroom first. This one might seem silly. When I went through graduate school, no one told me how important it is. (They also never told me how important it is to hydrate throughout the day.) But the only things worse than needing to pee during a session is your stomach growling, hiccups, or farting. I was many years into the profession before I realized that in many ways doing therapy is physical work. Not only are we listening closely to the client’s story–both the actual words and the unspoken meanings–but we need our bodies to feel alongside them, to tune into our gut responses, intuitions, and empathic resonances. Like a drum head feeling vibrations in the air. It’s easier to tap this visceral resource if there are no other distractions in our bodies. And it’s essential to have this resource.
Be human. In both graduate-level and continuing education classes, I often share this lovely passage from the mid-century psychologist Carl Rogers (language adapted by me to be more inclusive):
Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this person has that I cannot share with them, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep their wounds, they do not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever their story, they no longer need to be alone with it. This is what will allow their healing to begin.
It’s not that knowledge and expertise and diagnosis and best-practices-informed interventions aren’t important for success. But they are the backstage props to be brought to the front of the stage judiciously, when the timing is right, when the client is ready. No therapist should lead with expertise (i.e. ego). Presenting a smart persona doesn’t matter to clients who are suffering. Looking at someone with an expert’s microscope gets in the way of appreciating the client’s story of who they are and why they struggle. And it often just makes them feel badly. What matters is that they feel safe.
Read your notes. What happened the last time you met with this client? What were your curiosities about them and the challenges they are tackling? What were the questions you didn’t get to ask? Most importantly, what are the themes at the heart of their struggle? I am reminded of an poem by William Stafford called “The Way It Is.”
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
One of my jobs with my clients is to find the thread, see it, articulate it, and to hold onto it, as if we’re both travelers in the same mythical labyrinth. Often our clients come to us with a fragmented, disjointed, jumbled narrative and we help them to find the coherent story under the confusion, by listening closely, following our curiosities, asking about missing pieces, sharing our gut responses, and trying to resolve our own confusion about what’s going on.
What are your top three things? Please share in the comments.
Good luck, Kim (and everyone going into their first meetings with clients). Here’s the last thing I’ll share with you: You are going to be terrific at this work!
