What I can't Say in Session - Ep. 1 Fear

You are scared.

Part of why I wanted to become a therapist is because I recognized that I had been given some gifts. I wanted to share that gift with others. One of gifts I’ve been given is a gift of vision. When people open themselves up, I see them. For one reason or another, many people struggle to find others that are able to see them in such a real way. The gratitude I feel for this gift has also come with a responsibility that I have learned to respect deeply. 

Many of the things I see in my client, and want to show to them, they are simply not ready for. Part of my own work to do during a session is to identify my excitement when new parts of a client’s personhood reveal themselves to me. My natural reaction is to immediately share the parts of a person I see with them. But this does not come without hazards…

While training to become a therapist, you’re taught to build a “therapeutic relationship” with clients before you start digging into the deeper parts of their lives. This relationship building is very important. In part it creates a sense of trust so that a client knows that I will stay on their journey with them no matter what. I will go to the depths of their soul, their joy, their pain… the full spectrum of their human experience, without judgement. 

My partner recently introduced to the term ‘vulnerability hangover’. Imagine for a minute you go out and mingle with people you know don’t know or don’t know well. Under the influence of a few cocktails, you share something with someone that you wouldn’t normally. The next morning there is a visceral sense of discomfort. You’ve allowed yourself to be seen and there’s an anxiousness that comes along with that discomfort. Perhaps you feel judged or rejected. The person you were with may have even responded negatively, ended the conversation, walked away, or insulted you. The discomfort that followed is likely something you cant place, but you know for sure that it was a mistake. You “overshared”. 

The internal wiring that causes a vulnerability hangover happens in therapy too. One of the things I learned during my therapy internship, and losing clients, was that people generally want to answer the questions I ask. There’s a power imbalance in a therapeutic relationship and most people want to be “good clients”. However, many people are scared. Their nervous systems have been programmed for fear. 

It is my personal and professional opinion that most people experiencing distress are suffering from some type of relational trauma. This could be from a stranger, a partner, a relative, a friend, or any number of other relations. Most often, the first experiences of relational trauma are connected to our caregivers growing up. Culturally, parenting “best practices” have followed certain trends throughout the course of human history. The devolving of a communal familial network of caregiving into a dyadic model of care has resulted in children being controlled by their parents. This control tells a child that there are limits to their safety. That their acceptance is contingent on their behaviour. In the moment, a child will react quite positively to this type of caregiving. But within their psyche, the child learns that there are parts of themselves that are not safe. The nervous system responds, learning what it needs to do to be safe. When this controlling caregiving is consistent over time, this fear of one’s self is quite literally programmed into the child’s circuitry, in the brain and the body. Guilt and shame are natural consequences that quickly follow. 

Most experts in psychological development throughout the lifespan will tell you that what a child needs is acceptance, safety, belonging, and an ability to explore and learn about their world. By en large, Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials were not given these things during childhood. Many clients are scared of themselves. Their nervous system reacts when they are presented with parts of themselves that were not accepted early in their life. It’s not their fault. These patterns have been practiced by their nervous system for decades and decades, and they are hard to break. I believe that the people that reach out for therapy intuitively know that something is off, but they struggle to identify exactly what it is. They don’t remember violent abuse and therefore believe that there should be nothing wrong with them. 

It doesn’t serve me, or a client, for me to tell them that they are scared. That, all on its own, can be too vulnerable for many people. But it’s something that I want them to know. These days people have so much to be scared of; parts of themselves, parts of their history, ways they act in the world, trauma they’ve survived, their own mortality… Fear is used as a great motivator in our culture. Just as caregivers use it on their children, fear is the preferred choice by people in power to control others. Politicians, governments, advertisers, employers, the police…

Consequently, most people are “fear-adverse”. The discomfort of fear arrives and people have mechanisms to avoid, distract, or numb themselves from it. For me personally, and for many of my clients, being able to access what scares them offers an incredible opportunity for healing. Easier said than done. I wish I could tell clients that I will sit with them and learn everything I can about them, until they get to a point where they feel safe. Once they trust me to walk alongside them when to go look at what scares them, I can start to offer them my gifts. The broken, the beaten, the beauty, the pain, the light, the love, the strength, the life.

Thanks for taking the time <3

River