Hey Everybody! Happy Thursday.
Now today's video is actually something
that I've been excited to talk about.
It is a question that I received a couple of weeks ago.
I keep your questions in this huge document so
don't think they are going unanswered or lost
they're in this document that I hold.
In this question says,
"Hey Kati could you do a video on therapy from the therapist perspective
kind of like an inside view of the process,
like what do you think or feel when having as session?
Do therapist ever have moments when they don't know what to say?
Or if someone brings up something that they didn't expect?
How do you handle that.
What if if a session takes an unexpected turn?
Huh! Do you ever have problems identifying with the client or identify too much?
Lots of random questions but I thought the idea of the "inside" look of therapy
would be really interesting and informative thanks for everything you do
and just for being you. Awe. I thought this was really cool and
something that I hadn't actually thought about sharing. But I'm sure everyone
just like you have your own experience in a therapy session as a client
therapist are going to be different. So I am just answering this from my perspective
what I know and my experience. And am gonna kinda try to go through
her questions one by one. So the first part she said
Do therapist ever have moments when they don't know what to say?
Or if someone brings up something that they where not expecting?
And definitely there are definite times where I will have there is a problem thats
been presented. And even though I may know cause a lot of times as a therapist
we know what that the like "quote-on-quote" answer is
or they just need to do this to "fix the problem" cause I am trying to get
you there and maybe telling you that doesn't help you.
You have to figure it out and so there are times when I've kind of come to like
a road block where they're not like getting what I want them to get and
I don't know how else to say it and I'll be at a loss for words and I'll just be
honest. I'm kind of one of those types of therapist where I'll just say,
"honestly I don't really know what to say right now. We've tried you know."
And I just kind of talk about the process and usually by doing that we come unstuck.
Either the client's like, oh, they see something or the recognize something
or I am like here's another way we could go about it. And so there's never one way
to get there it's not like you know google maps or something it is like this
is how to get from A to B it's more like waze, for those of you who know the waze
app we could go all these different directions to get to the same end point.
The second part of the question says, umm
"What if a session takes an unexpected turn, do you ever have?" Oh, and that's an
another one. If it takes an unexpected turn that.. honestly I never go into
sessions having a pre-planned idea of what we're going to talk about. I have a
nugget of where I'd like to go because I can't go into a session unprepared,
that would be bad. But I also don't go in thinking this is what we have to
accomplish because I would be upset all the time, and so always sessions
are taking unexpected turns. I'll have clients in the last ten minutes
of a session umm we call them they use to call them, what was it uhh
door confessions or something like that like as their about to leave they confess
like a big deal. And I have that happen all the time where someone is like,
"oh by the way umm I have like sexually abused for like 10 years" or;
"oh by the way you know I purge all the food I eat and bye"
and so I get like these kinds of drop offs at the end
and then it just give me something to work with umm for the next session.
And so I often often just say that I'll say, "thank you so much for sharing,
I am glad you feel safe doing that. Lets you know table that for next week."
And we just move on 'cause there's not enough time and if we open that up it's
gonna take a long time make 'em safe enough to leave.
Umm, "Do you ever have problem identifying with a client
or identifying too much?" Definitely we're human too right it's all
about the relationship and that's why I talk so much on my channel about
finding the right fit. I know not all of us have all sorts of opportunities
and referrals and stuff like that and hopefully that will get better.
And that is one of my global goals to change how mental health
operates world wide. But in the meantime trying to find someone you can
at least connect with because as therpists I've referred clients out
when I don't feel like we're really connecting or they'll just won't want to
make appointments and I just won't you know I'll be like yah wonderful to see you
and meet you umm here is some other people you might like.
That's kinda like of part of the process that's completely normal.
Umm and identifying too much, defiantly that can also be bad too and it's a
struggle for therapist a lot of time to countertransference. Like if they've gone
through lets say I was in recovery from alcoholism, I'm not but lets say I was
and somebody comes to my office and I don't deal with that 'cause it too close
to home and then I find out that they're doing that I might have to refer them
out because it can be too hard for me to keep my own shit out of the room;
which is kind of important when your helping someone else.
And umm I think that was it yah so I hope that was kind of interesting
and informative. I know that there is a lot of you know, behind the smoke and
mirrors of therapist but we're people too and a lot of the things that you wonder
about or worry about like we're human so yah we're not gonna not know what to say,
we're gonna fumble our words sometimes we are gonna like people and not like
others and we just have the human condition just like you.
So I hope you like this leave all your questions in the comments, make sure you
give this a thumbs up, and don't forget to subscribe if your not already
subscribed. I put out videos twice a week and you don't wanna miss em,
and I'll see you next time.
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