Today was my first day speaking to a new therapist. Her voice was low, warm and smooth. It was a comforting. I was almost startled when she started our session by saying, “well, I’ll let you take the floor!” Keep in mind this was my first session with her so there was almost introduction for herself and no framing for our session. I scrambled for words even though I had written an entire essay in the digital intake form on my mental health history and the struggles and symptoms I was experiencing. Bad start. Our session kind of continued in this start-and-stop fashion where I would fumble my way through explaining myself and she would reaffirm me with comforting words like “that must have been hard”.
Then silence.
There’s an art to assessing a therapist. It’s a tricky process because I never know if I’m making snap judgements too early because they didn’t fulfill my specific expectations or if their therapy style is truly not very helpful for my mental health.
I quickly realized I don’t respond well to “that must have been hard” style of therapy — y’know the kind of therapy where I’m just being comforted. I have my friends for a shoulder to cry on. In my mind I wanted to retort, “damn straight it was hard that’s why I’m in therapy…I NEED SOLUTIONS NOT COMFORT!” I walked out of that session feeling like I could have paid my friends the same and gotten equal if not more value out of the session. I had admitted at the end of our session that I felt confused and unsure of how our session went because I felt a bit lost without framing or structure. To which she responded, “You wanted to be efficient about the process. You want to know we’re making progress. And it also sounds like there’s a right and a wrong way to do things.”
A big grin spread across my face as I nodded vigorously. Nail on the head. I was impressed, pleased and perplexed all at the same time because the discussion ended there. We went on to discuss rates but I still had this nagging feeling and right before we were about to sign off I exclaimed, “Wait! Uh… can we talk about next session’s approach?” It was gnawing at me. I was desperate for clarity. She laughed and reassured me that we could talk about it at length in our next appointment and that we could co-create the experience.
Clearly this woman knew what was going on in my head and yet she refrained from creating the framing that would have assuaged my anxieties about the lack of structure. I was annoyed, but intrigued at the same time. Was this some kind of psychological game for her? Is this her way of getting to know me? Why wouldn’t she have been more upfront it? Would it have defeated the purpose if she did?
