It takes a lot of courage to share our life-story with someone. A story needs someone to hear it; it makes more sense to us when we hear ourselves telling it, when they hear it, and when they reflect it back to us. We turn to therapy with our stories because we didn’t find anyone among our friends and family who could truly hear us. Or, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t help us make sense of it. Worse yet—and this is unfortunately more common—our stories were devalued, demonized, or pathologized.
So, we bring our stories to the clinic. We meet with an educated, professional-looking person, whom we had to pay to get access to, who is seemingly open to listening. But what if they don’t really listen either? What if they cut us short because they don’t have enough time? What if they’re not listening to what we’re actually saying, but instead are only looking for signs and symptoms to fit us into one diagnostic category or another? Stripped of our uniqueness and boxed in with a disease label, where do we go now? We just shut up and take the pill—or pills, usually multiple pills.
We get devalued and pathologized all over again. Our stories still don’t make sense to us, and that makes us sad. And anxious. For some of us, that confusion keeps us from paying attention, or makes us hyperactive or impulsive. The stories still don’t make sense. Now we feel more of all of that. But there are pills for all of that too. Now, the pills are part of the story. They stifle some of the symptoms and give rise to others.
On the whole, we don’t care much about our stories anymore. We buy into the story the doctor gave us: this is clinical depression, generalized anxiety, ADHD.
It’s our life story, but they get to put the title on the cover?
Of course, there are those of us who appreciate that title on the cover. It makes sense. We find validation in the diagnosis: it’s not just us; it’s not our fault. These are common conditions, and others have them too. We feel a sense of belonging to this community of diagnosed people. We believe in what the professional told us. There’s always been a healing potential in faith, even if that faith is in the mental health profession and the pills that sustain it. And when the meds take effect and some, or even all, of the symptoms dissipate, our faith is further strengthened.
But eventually, we start seeing the limitations. The label doesn’t explain everything in our story. The relief from validation and the sense of belonging is usually short-lived. Not everything we’ve experienced can be explained by the generalizations and the generics (or brands) we were offered. It doesn’t make complete sense. And then, it doesn’t make sense at all.
However, we might end up with a clinician who understands the significance of human stories—one of that rare breed who actually listens and, more importantly, understands. That’s something we had given up hope on, so even in opening up, we are tentative. Afraid. The fear of being devalued again holds us back. We even borrow terminology from their profession to describe ourselves, thinking that’s how we’re supposed to understand who we are. But eventually, we’re encouraged to share more—even the deeper, darker parts of the story. The parts we’re embarrassed about. The parts we feel guilty about. We realize we don’t have to limit ourselves to diagnostic categories to narrate our lives, and that in itself can be quite liberating.
In the course of structuring our narratives (as clumsy as that structuring may seem to us) and in finding a listening ear, a relationship develops—a therapeutic relationship, to be precise. Yes, unlike other relationships, this one has a more explicit paywall. Nevertheless, the authenticity of the encounter allows us to understand the necessity of that limitation. Isn’t understanding limitations key to all relationships, even that with one’s self?
The therapist in this is not a passive listener, mind you. This is not the blank pages of a “dear diary” where you just scribble your thoughts. It’s a real person with their own story. They hear, and they reflect back. Their reflections are informed by their own experiences, but what makes their story significant is how many stories they’ve opened themselves up to—from their homes, classrooms, books (spanning the domains of poetry, literature, religion, philosophy, psychology, biology), and clinics. Their reflections, backed by all these stories, bring that experience and that aura of expertise. As invaluable as this expertise is, they are wary of how dangerous it can be if their reflections are not balanced along the paradox of confidence and humility. It’s not that these reflections aren’t judgments. We’d be kidding ourselves if we said they aren’t. And it’s also untrue that these judgments don’t include moral evaluations—they inevitably do. What’s important, however, is that these judgments aren’t definitive. They are fallible, open, and processual. The clinician understands us as fallible, open, and processual as well.
We are not passive recipients of their labels and pills; rather, we are collaborators. Their reflections invite us to reflect back, and as we do so, we develop a more nuanced view of our own story. We can identify in our narrative most of what was serving as an obstacle to the growth we wanted and needed. Many times, our narratives are riddled with these obstacles: absolutism, black-and-white perspectives, nihilism, helplessness, and hopelessness. Critically, we had subjected so much of our narrative to both conscious and largely unconscious censorship, that the resulting construction lacked truthfulness. It had to. Our younger selves needed that to survive.
The relationship ends up being therapeutic if our reconstructed narrative becomes more truthful, meaningful, and hopeful. This is when we’ve healed somewhat, become more whole, and develop habits that allow us to continue healing ourselves and others. What this essentially means is that we’ve gained greater agency to write the remaining chapters of our lives with truth, goodness, and beauty.
Oh, and one important qualifier: this healing relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be with a therapist.
Last modified: August 27, 2024
