Each year we open submissions for our Annual Wise Therapy Spotlight, where we ask a question of particular importance to our wider therapist community. We are always moved by the depth and generosity of our community voices.
This year, we asked our community, What Is the Soul of Therapy? Read more about our inspiration for this, our 5th edition, in the letter from the editors and Academy of Therapy Wisdom founders, Brian and Ian.
Continue here to read the submission by Amanda Rudd LCSW. We hope you enjoy it as much as we all did.
“I have never not wanted to die before.”
“I feel safe and relaxed for the first time in my body.”
“When I came in today, I was a mess. Leaving here, I feel strong and clear for the first time in days.”
This is what therapy is all about. Taking the mind and working alongside the client to shift it into a place of power and of safety. It feels like magic when it’s happening, but Dan Siegel would call it “the power of connection” and it’s the basis for his whole field of Interpersonal Neurobiology. The exchange, the synergy, the alchemy that happens when two people are sitting together with a like mind to focus on an issue feels magical. “When you challenge something, you change it.” This belief drives the most change that happens in my office, and the bravery it takes to look at something closely is immense. It is no small task to look at an emotion that has been plaguing you most of your life, or to give a voice to that nagging negative belief in the back of your mind. It doesn’t feel good initially to put words to your most shameful wounds, and yet! This is where the power comes in.
Sitting with people as they explore the things they’ve spent their whole lives ignoring, suppressing, stuffing or stifling, or simply just never even had the vocabulary to discuss is the work of therapy. Having an “empathetic witness” to trauma and pain is what heals it, and when all of my attention is trained on supporting the person in front of me, I see healing happen. When I sit with someone, agree to see the problem as they see it but offer a way out through a change in perspective or language, the person feels safe and seen and the wound is given an antiseptic. A place where shame does not exist and humiliation is not a possibility, the therapist and client pair builds it’s own template for change in a (possibly for the first time ever!) safe and empowered way.
Good therapy is one that takes the therapist’s expertise in theory and clinical experience and the client’s expertise of themselves, to meet the client’s needs.
Sometimes we spend our whole lives running away from the things we deem too big or too scary, like childhood wounds or a negative belief we carry about ourselves. It feels like too much, and so we make a lifetime out of pretending it’s not there. But at some point, we get tired. We get rundown. We can’t outrun it any longer, and our survival instinct kicks in and says, “we have to fight this!”
A good therapist is one that can step into that panic storm and say, “If we turn and look at this big scary thing together, we can see it for what it really is.
We can learn it’s name. We can put it into perspective and cut it down to size. We can learn why it’s here. You can feel it, and then you can release it. I’ll stand beside you and will be your cheerleader, because you can do this.” Outrunning it doesn’t have to be the only (exhausting) option, and nobody has to do it alone.
It feels like magic. But it is the most intentional, most true and most real magic there is when you help someone connect to the person they truly are, that version of themselves that existed before life happened.
The views expressed in this essay are not necessarily the opinions of Academy of Therapy Wisdom, its presenters or its staff. This is part of a series featuring the unedited voices of our community in conversation. All content is used with permission and is copyright 2024 by Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Only the author may reproduce their content.
To read more articles or download a free copy of the final publication visit Wise Therapy Spotlight.
