On being a shrink

It's an odd thing, realizing that you are someone's therapist.

It's hard to reconcile that it is the very same me who drunkenly makes meals out of vending machine goods is also providing people with counseling services. I've been seeing clients for almost a year and a half now, and I still have a sense that I am two very different people, and I think I am quite good at being both of them.

People have a certain myth of mental health about their psychotherapists. It's funny, because previously, I would have endorsed that about many professionals. Now that my friends and myself fall within many of these areas, these myths are shattered. But I still wonder if those people I see professionally believe me to be this image I portray. It's funny to realize that I can provide help on such matters while being far from flawless in myself.

Providing therapy has also challenged me in a lot of ways.

It can be intensely difficult to balance being caring and empathic with becoming cold and jaded. The first time I did an intake interview with a profoundly suicidal woman, I went home and cried. My ex-boyfriend used to tell me I was going to have to harden myself up if I hoped to survive in the business. And it was true. I couldn't take every issue home with me-- it needed to remain somewhat separate from my personal life to prevent me from getting utterly overwhelmed. I have gotten better at separating myself from their troubles. But one doesn't want to fall too far on the other side of things, as I have seen a few more experienced therapists do. They are so cut off from the people they treat it is almost mechanistic. One individual didn't remember any personal details about members of the therapy group-- it was as if they were all the same. I don't know how you can treat people with any real conviction without genuine empathy for what they are going through, even if it does hurt a little and stay with you on your ride home.

The other difficulty also falls into the realm of letting work intrude into my personal life, but in an opposite fashion. It has become the cliche joke for everyone who meets me to say that they want to get in on my therapy waiting list. But some friends do genuinely ask me to bring my professional life into our personal relationship. They try to enlist diagnoses from me. I have become the go to person for any psychological issues that may emerge in family members. I've even had acquaintances ask me if I can give them "free counselling". While I like to provide help and even some advice where I can, and my interpersonal interactions are probably coloured by my training, I try my damndest not to let my psychology skills enter into my personal relationships. I don't want to be constantly scanning my friends for symptoms or thinking about what interventions would benefit them, whether they requested it or even in my own head. That's not fair to me or them.

All the same, it is so hard to watch loved ones go through hard times, and know that it is not my place to bring these skills into play. I am to be there as a friend, and to slip into a therapist role would be patronizing. Still, it can be a struggle to know that I am formally helping someone via one hour a week of my time, while I can't offer the same thing to others.