The Responsibility Of A Psychotherapist

I’ve come to the realization that every psychotherapist can’t help but bring their personal mindsets into their treatment theories and clinical practices. I believe that those who claim to be the purest of counselors, fully unbiased and never bringing their own judgments into a session are in denial. As the saying goes, “You take yourself wherever you go.”

In class during my doctoral program, my highly-regarded and esteemed professor shared a story. “I had a patient. He was a shy, quiet, working-class man, modest and earnest. He wanted to develop socially.” He admitted, “I fell asleep while he was talking during one of our sessions. When my client woke me, he informed me that I’d been asleep for ten minutes.”

You could hear the sound of a pin drop in the lecture hall. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, wondering what our revered professor could have said to possibly explain why he fell asleep while his trusting client poured his heart out.

“I told my client that my falling asleep was clearly a reflection on how people perceived him. ‘You see that you are boring and don’t have anything interesting to say. My falling asleep is evidence of this. This is why you have difficulty socially.’”

I could see my classmates shocked faces, as we all tried to absorb our professor’s failure to be present and complete disregard for his client’s feelings. As my classmates and I left the lecture hall, all I could think or feel was, “What an ass!” This did not require an ounce of analytical thought. An ass is an ass.

The professor’s failure to take personal responsibility may have been emotionally and physically damaging to his client. Rather than provide a therapeutic atmosphere, his only success was in manipulation and diversion.

I believe that my professor either burned out at some point in his career and became apathetic or he was never truly vested in the practice of psychotherapy to begin with. I believe that in order to be a good psychotherapist, you must know yourself and be fully aware of what is happening in your own life. You need to know where you gave up on your own hopes or dreams.

There are those psychotherapists that hide behind their theories, offering polite nods instead of their own voices. Many have nothing to add to what their clients’ already know about themselves and do the bare minimum. This is the easy way out and takes the least amount of work as there is no emotional investment in their clients’ well being. Yes, I used the word “emotional.” Without true empathy for your client, you cannot help.

During this time, when our national mental health issues are spilling onto Main Street, mental health providers have a responsibility to step it up. It’s time to take stock of what we are bringing to the table for our clients. It is simply not enough to merely maintain the status quo, but rather time to go above and beyond and make a commitment to offering real service. We need to take responsibility for our participation in how the mental health system delivers care. We can no longer point the finger and blame the insurance companies, managed care, and funding. We need to start with ourselves.

Make it an Excuse Free Life and always remember, “It’s not the size of the problem but the size of the feeling.”