Should therapists have emotional problems?
And the difference between mental & emotional health
Hello again and welcome to another week in emotional health land!
Today’s topic is one that I’ve heard from many people including fellow therapists and it’s one that bugs me a lot:
Should therapists allow clients or other people find out that they are dealing with negative thoughts & emotions?
Should they tell publicly that they are going to therapy or are going through stuff?
The assumption that therapists should NOT talk about their inner struggles is based on this:
Therapists should be these humanly Gods who have resolved all their problems before being give the gift of helping other people with theirs. This theory is crazily widely spread and stands on the assumption that if you have negative emotions or problems in your life that you still carry around, they you are not fit to care for others.
I believe that this is a terribly unfair depiction and one that brings lots of shame & pressure on the poor humans that therapists are.
I’ve seen and worked with a lot of therapists who really are struggling with the humanly emotions and thoughts that their minds throw at them. And they hide their emotions, They feel fear to show that they too are struggling. That they too have self doubt.
When you acknowledge your self doubt then you are curios. If you don’t, then chances are you become rigid.
And this is all based on the erroneous idea that mental & emotional health refers to basically the same thing.
But they don’t.
Mental health refers to the pathology - the clinical diagnosticable disorders. Ranging from depression, anxiety, and phobias to psychotic episodes and schizophrenia.
Emotional health refers to the broader realm of how we handle our emotions, relationships, and sense of meaning.
Why is this important? Well, for many reasons.
First of all, the fact that mental health is associated with clinical disorders and clinical disorders of the mind are associated with being “crazy”, no wonder that nobody wants to get into that.
“What?! Am I crazy? You are crazy! Leave me alone.” Case closed.
The second is that the purposes of those two are completely different.
Mental health interventions are meant to cure, while emotional health is a process that is not meant to cure anything, but to give you the mental & emotional flexibility to your mind that exercise gives to your body.
This topic is of utmost importance, especially regarding what we do every day to keep our emotional health.
Therapists are humans. Their minds work just the same as yours do.
And I believe that when a therapists knows suffering, pain, struggle they are better equiped to deal with yours. They are better equipped to stay in the room with your pain and your struggle. And that makes them a better therapist.
Yes, therapists go to therapy. And not just to resolve all their issues before doing therapy. But because they are human.
Like, this is so funny- what do we mean by resolving all our issues? That we have none? That our relationships go on smoothly? That we don’t feel anger or frustration? That we don’t yell at our kids or have adult tantrums? That we will NEVER EVER go through pain and suffering?
No!
We do have all that.
The difference is that sometimes we have the means to better recognize and deal with those.
And better emotional health means that we can be there with your pain & suffering.
So, if you are a therapist reading this - please be kind to yourself.
If you are a person believing that therapists have no problems - please be kind to them and yourself.
