Have you ever left a therapy session wondering what your therapist is really thinking? You’re not alone. In this post, we’re pulling back the curtain to share what truly goes on in a therapist’s mind—from how deeply we care about you, to the pride we feel in your growth, to why we secretly love hearing all the tea.
Curious yet? Keep reading to find out—and don’t forget to check out our Client Testimonials page to see what clients say about working with us!
1. We do truly care about you.
It’s impossible for us to NOT care about your life or what happens to you. When you allow us the privilege of seeing your inner world, your life history, your pain, your triumphs, and your experiences, you give us the gift of seeing you wholly and completely, and we genuinely connect with you as human beings. It’s such an honor for us to be invited in, and you take up a special place in our hearts. If you ever wonder if your therapist truly cares about every little detail of your life, we do!
2. We can only be as helpful to you as you are honest with us.
Whatever you tell us is often the only information we get about a given situation (especially in individual therapy). So, if you willingly leave out pieces of a situation, we can’t always help you navigate it as well as we could with all the information. Being honest can be scary, but that is why we, as therapists, are here to help you create a safe space to be fully seen and fully present.
3. We wish we could stop your pain.
On a human level, it is hard to watch another human suffer and it is a common experience for a therapist to wish we could make your situation better. Since we are powerless to take your pain away, we strive to make sure you know you are not alone in your pain. We are there with you and we are willing to wade through it to get to walk alongside you.
4. We also love watching you face your pain – and we think you’re incredibly brave for doing so.
When you come to a session and share how you confronted a difficult situation, practiced assertiveness and boundary setting, risked being vulnerable and honest with a loved one or friend, or simply got out of bed in the middle of a depressive episode, we feel so proud of you and are often in awe of your strength. We know taking those steps is scary and often very risky. Your bravery is amazing to us.
5. We often find ourselves processing a life lesson with a client that we’re experiencing ourselves.
I can’t tell you how many times I have thought to myself, “I need to step up my game here! This client is pursuing the growth I could be pursuing, too!” Sometimes it’s comforting for clients to think of their therapist as “older and wiser,” but the reality is, we are constantly growing as individuals too. When we encourage you to do something hard, please believe that we know how hard it can be to follow through, because we’ve also lived it. Your therapist is here to help you along your journey, whatever that may look like.
6. Believe me, we want the tea… and it is almost always therapeutically relevant.
One of my favorite things about being your therapist is hearing all the juicy details of your life. It means I’m able to enter into your world a little better and it allows you to feel more relaxed and safer with me as our relationship develops. Frequently, the tea is tied to the themes we are working on in therapy anyways. I’m telling you…it’s a gift I have (and most therapists possess) to see how the juicy tea connects to the therapeutic theme. 😊 With that in mind, please know that we may redirect the conversation away from tea and into therapy if need-be. If we find that our conversations are not moving in a therapeutic direction, we are responsible for making sure we change course. It’s not that we don’t care, in fact, it’s the opposite: we care that you walk away from session or your therapeutic experience having grown and achieved your goals, and some conversations may need to be pushed aside in order for that growth to happen.
7. If you could see into our brains during a session, you would see something similar to The Matrix…
Or a cork board where the detective is using red string to connect a bunch of separate clues. It’s silly…but it’s true. There is a weird phenomenon that happens in therapists’ minds where we will be engaged in a conversation with you while also remembering details of your history, past conversations in therapy, or our therapeutic approach, and things just start connecting for us. We use all this information and these mental connections to help navigate you through therapy. With that in mind, please understand if we forget a seemingly important detail at times. There is a lot going on in our brains and sometimes they just drop something. Give us the correct information and we will be right back on track.
8. A win for you is a win for us!
One of the best feelings in the world is hearing stories from you about the challenges you have overcome, especially when it’s something you have been working on in therapy. Even if it feels like a small win, it’s a huge one in our books. Your therapist knows how hard healthy change and growth can be and we want to celebrate with you along the journey!
Now that you know how we think about our clients, want the inside scoop of how our clients think about us? Visit our Client Testimonials page for the tea on our Keystone Therapists!
