Thursday, October 4, 2018

Secrets of a Small Town Psychotherapist


           
 Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a marriage and family therapist? How do they regard their clients and come up with reasonable suggestions for changes? I certainly can't speak for all therapists but I can describe my internal process when I was in my private practice as a psychotherapist.

Simply put, let's say you came to my office for counseling. I am like the host in a restaurant and I want you to be comfortable and feel safe. Additionally, for me to really understand you as my client, I found I must learn your own particular dance of life. I would pay close, very close, attention and respect the steps, the hesitations and the stances you'd take. I'd realize that I'd never seen you or this dance before. This was the dance of your life, how you moved from one experience to another and it was your dance alone.  I'd sit still for the recitation of all that is not quite right in your quadrille, your waltz or tango and what is displeasing, tragic or discordant. After all, this is what brought you to me. I'd make a pact with you to help change what you wanted to see different.


Life has given you either a puzzle or an unexpected outcome and it was my job as therapist to assist you on your way to find the most satisfactory answers to your dilemmas possible. Hence a new dilemma for me: yes, by definition to be helpful...but to also allow you, the client to think of your own solutions as well as the ones I'd throw out as suggestions. I always considered counseling to be a collaborative effort. You as a client may just be looking  for a quick answer and this is honored with my comments and suggestions, but sometimes the quick answers aren't enough.  


Slow down, you move too fast. You've got to make the moment last..                                                                          Paul Simon
Once, more than 30 years ago, in a workshop I gave with my co therapist , Laurie Armstrong,  one of our group attendees said "give us a chance to comprehend all of this." I was rushing, trying to stuff their heads with gobs of insights. There is such a thing as pacing and I was busily up pacing the clients. You as a client can get overwhelmed and so...I learned to take deep breaths and move more thoughtfully. Perhaps not as slow as a waltz but certainly not a jitterbug. Hoagie Carmichael said, "slow motion gets you there faster," so true with clients and in life. That said, you as the client are paying me good money for my long years of experience. To not short change you, I'd stop you if you were looping [meaning being repetitive] or if you were being frankly boring [meaning probably avoiding something painful] or spouting something incomprehensible.  I'd always add my two cents if I'd hear something that's off. God knows I'd like someone to tell me if I was being repetitive or boring... 


Speaking of being repetitive I have a confession to make. When I'd have a client who was constantly revisiting old stories sometimes I'd drift mentally.  Though paying attention, my busy mind would start doing "make overs". Ever since I was a young girl I've loved the magazine moment that takes a dull or drab room and turns it into something pleasing, before and after. Or another example, the a magazine would have an entire issue focused on Make-Overs. They would invite a person who'd neglected their appearance and a team of beauticians and assistants would miraculously transform that person. The magazine would show the "before and after".  The assistants would have done a keen trick with a sharp haircut and a dab of makeup and voila! a spiffy change for the better. Sadly, if you or another client was doing what we'd  call "looping" [and I've heard the story several times]...make-overs would invariably pop up. "How about if they cut their hair, wore different clothes, smiled more often..." I'd think.  I'd  know this was a failing so I snap to in seconds and interrupt their reverie and alert them that they'd already told me that. "From what you told me when we started counseling, you'd like to see some things changed in your life. That time is now, now is the time to change, to find a lesson, and forge ahead with new thoughts. How would you rather be, feel, think, act?"  I'd ask. Invariably the in depth work would begin: resolving problems and finding solutions.


You gain strength , courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do.               Eleanor Roosevelt

I noticed in my more than thirty years as a psychotherapist that the people who made a difference in their lives and in other's lives were the ones who have a degree of fierceness and determination. This can be coaxed and encouraged in a person. If you came to counseling with me I would clue into a wonderful world that awaits you--- if you'd be brave enough to tackle issues you care about. When and if that happy combination of fierceness and determination comes along coupled with a passion to do good in the world, watch out, things are going to happen. 

I loved my clients and I loved my work. The passion to do good in this world never stops and neither should you stop.

susansmagicfeather  2018 copyright Susan R. Grout all rights reserved










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