It’s Just two People Chasing a Trauma Fix!

This is the hardest professional mirror to look into.

We call it the Therapeutic Alliance, we frame it as a noble, altruistic connection aimed at healing the client.

But when both parties enter the room still seeking a way to feel whole, the relationship stops being a connection and starts being a transaction.

It becomes a perfect, high-functioning co-dependence, disguised as therapy.

The Practitioner’s Fix

If you are still wearing your Expert Mask (your professional identity built to offset your own trauma), the client’s struggle is your substance of choice.

What is the professional secretly chasing in the alliance you might ask?

Validation: The client’s need proves your worth and competence, their belief in your expertise finally silences your inner voice of hidden unworthiness.

Purpose: Their suffering gives your life meaning and focus, it keeps your system in a state of high-alert purpose, avoiding the terrifying simplicity of stillness.

Control: The protocol, the label, the structure – it all allows you to maintain control over a chaotic, relational space, which is the exact opposite of the helplessness you felt in your own trauma.

The client’s successful outcome is not just a professional goal, it is the fix your ego needs to sustain the lie of your own completeness.

The Client’s Fix

The client is not innocent in this transaction, they are there to get their own fix.
They are seeking an external authority who will provide the certainty, direction, and sense of safety that their trauma stole.

When they enter therapy, they are often unconsciously looking for –

A Container: An expert who is strong enough to hold their chaos so they don’t have to feel it.

A Protocol: A set of rules that replaces the control they lack in their life.

Dependency: A safe, temporary relationship that keeps their core wound of loneliness at bay without the risk of true, terrifying aloneness.

The alliance maintains the co-dependence – The client stays dependent for safety, and the therapist stays dependent for purpose, neither party is truly free (this is 2 intelligent coping mechanisms playing together)

The Only Solution is Surrender
You cannot lead someone to a place of agency if your own sense of self is contingent upon their need for you.

A truly authentic alliance requires the therapist to have already surrendered their own need for the client’s success. It requires you to set down the mask and enter the room as just a human – no control, no motive, just pure presence.

The true work happens when the relationship is no longer a transaction of needs, but a simple, terrifying encounter between two whole beings.

What would happen to your sense of self if every single one of your clients suddenly decided they no longer needed you?

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