HOW MUCH OF YOUR THERAPY IS ACTUALLY ABOUT YOU?

It’s an uncomfortable question for anyone who has dedicated their life to helping others

You sit with someone who is suffering. You listen, you care, you want to understand, and naturally, you want to help

But what happens inside you when you can’t?

When the client doesn’t improve

When they reject your understanding. When they continue making choices you believe are harmful. When months of work seem to lead nowhere

Do you become curious?

Or does something in you begin to feel threatened?

Perhaps you question your competence. Perhaps you work harder, search for another intervention, or begin to see the client as resistant

These are understandable human responses

But there’s something much deeper worth examining

At some point in your life, you developed an idea of who you are

Perhaps you’re the caring one. The person who understands. The person who helps others find their way

And over time, that idea became part of your identity

Now, without necessarily realising it, your client’s progress can become evidence that you are who you believe yourself to be

Their struggle can become a threat to that same identity

This is where I think genuine self-inquiry becomes so important

Because the self we’re trying to protect is often little more than a collection of thoughts, memories and beliefs about who we are

And we can spend an extraordinary amount of energy defending that identity without ever noticing we’re doing it

Even in the therapy room

We might call it professionalism, responsibility, commitment or care

And sometimes it is

But can we recognise when our own need to be helpful has quietly entered the relationship?

Can we notice the discomfort of not knowing, of being ineffective, of having nothing to offer, without immediately trying to escape it?

Perhaps the deepest work a therapist can do is to become aware of the person they believe themselves to be, and how that identity shapes every encounter

Because when we no longer need another person’s progress to tell us something about ourselves, something changes

There may be more room to meet them

Without an agenda to fulfil

Without an identity to protect

Without needing the encounter to make us somebody

Just two human beings, meeting in the unknown