I Used to Believe This... But My View Has Changed.
I used to believe that everyone should go to therapy.
Since then I’ve met several people who don’t believe in talking therapies. I’ve always wondered if that’s because they haven’t met the right therapist.
It's less about the process and more about the relationship you have with the therapist. That’s my experience anyway. What’s important is that you find what works for you.
Any therapist worth their salt will meet for an initial session or set up a chemistry call. If the fit doesn’t feel right for either of you they will, generally, be able to recommend someone more suitable.
You might dislike your therapist.
Correction.
You will dislike how you feel and blame them. This might be transference or projection, even though transference and projection has been explained several times. Inside you will seethe whilst maintaining you’re absolutely fine.
Whatever goes on during, but more importantly after and in between sessions will be part of your healing process. Initially you’ll toss this phrase about to anyone nearby in the queue at the bus stop, a window cleaner - but later you’ll stop because suddenly everyone is using it and you fear losing your identity or worse someone might mistake that you are actually healed and then what?!
A proper therapist can quote the classics and link Homer or Hamlet into the row you had with your car, world or self. A proper therapist will not talk endlessly about themselves.
Although every now and then my therapist would share a story or anecdote, by way of illustration, and to let me off the hook. I’ve seen many professionals over the years. It took time to find the right ones. There was one healer, however, with whom I learnt an important lesson.
The healer had been recommended to my singing teacher who recommended her to me. I had lost my singing voice and was desperate to get it back even though my constant throwing up had badly damaged my vulnerable throat.
My singing teacher used to say things like, “Darling, some of my clients can party all night and still sing like a dream the following day, but that’s never going to be you!” I was prepared to see anyone who came my way.
My initial sessions with the healer were great, but then she told me that some people are born to the light but get drawn to the dark and other people are born to the dark but get drawn to the light but can’t leave the dark.
She also professed her talents as a singer which I found intimidating and a bit off particularly as she knew about my struggles.
She then designated anyone I mentioned as dark or light. It was a total and utter head**** and I believed every word which affected some of my best friendships.
It took a very grounded friend to join me in a couple of healing classes and see right through her although like me he was initially impressed. His clarity gave me the confidence to step back. One day she invited me to a garden party.
I didn’t want to go but felt beholden. I planned to arrive early to help, mingle some, then leave. When I arrived she was in the kitchen pouring powder from a packet into a bowl. I stood by as she added water to the powder before stirring the contents into a thick grey paste.
Wallpapering? I asked, surprised - she had a full house.
Hummus, she said, brightly. Why go to all that trouble if you can make it from a packet?
She sashayed off into the garden bowl in hand.
I was in my early 30’s and had no idea you could make hummus from a packet. But I knew it was wrong on many levels. Even with my disordered-rubbish-cooking-ways basic humus was chickpeas, tahini, salt and lemon juice.
There was something very non-healing and deeply disturbing about the whole thing. Later I spotted her husband setting up a microphone by the apple tree. I went upstairs to the bathroom to concentrate on making plausible leaving early excuses, when a strange, high pitched keening filled the air. Crikey, I thought, Has the cat died? Or did someone eat the hummus?
Praps the cat ate the hummus, this I must see, I thought, as I popped the bathroom window, gently, open. I had a terrible feeling I’d landed in a hostile land, or cult open day as the healer swayed in front of the microphone, eyes scrunched tight fighting for her top Top C.
It was awful.
At that moment any credibility I’d projected onto her sped away. I needed to get out of there, and get out fast. I crept down the stairs and out the front door but just before I pulled it close behind me I noticed a corner of wall paper peeling aways from the wall. I stopped for a second, and thought:
I know exactly what they can use for that. I knew I’d never see her again.
One tiny step towards taking my life back.
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