This is a continuation of the previous post about war and guilt.
Long post alert ⚠️📝 ~4 min read
Over the past year, I've been contemplating what I, as a psychologist and as a therapist, can write about. The easiest route would be to discuss my Ph. D. research on the mind-space connection, which is closely tied to my previous career in architecture and may resonate with many readers here. However, I perceive this type of writing as more of a job, lacking the vibrant spark that I feel when I reflect on my work as a therapist. I simply couldn’t get myself to do it beyond the requirements imposed by my university.
But then, as a therapist, I face numerous limitations regarding what I can share about my work with people. I meet with several clients (or patients? It’s a debate) each week, accompanying them through their struggles, marveling at the complexities of their human individualities, and finding immense inspiration from them for my thoughts, writing, and personal growth. I gain valuable insights every week, yet I am unable to discuss them in detail due to confidentiality reasons. While I could attempt to protect the identities of those involved by omitting any personal information in my texts, clients might still recognize their own stories, which could potentially disrupt the therapeutic alliance we have. Therefore, I will not do it unless it is an academic case presentation among colleagues, long after the therapy has concluded.
However, there are a few cases from my past training practice that I can touch upon to some extent. These are known as "demonstration sessions" where you meet a client only once, knowing pretty much nothing about them (and vice versa). The entire session is observed by a group of fellow therapists and a supervisor, either in the client's presence or behind a one-way mirror. Consequently, these sessions are often offered to clients for free. Here, I would still sign a confidentiality agreement and naturally avoid using any personal information. But it becomes slightly easier to discuss a specific issue brought up by the client within a more general context without affecting the therapy's outcome, given the absence of a long-term therapeutic relationship.
Last year, I took the opportunity to participate in a demonstration session in Moscow while visiting my family there. Since the majority of my therapy is conducted online in Kyoto, meeting a client in person and receiving face-to-face feedback from colleagues was a rare luxury for me. The client was selected randomly, one person among many others who had applied to a counseling center, willing to undergo a demonstration session in front of a group of professionals to then receive several free regular sessions with a different therapist from the center.
I vividly recall waiting nervously in an uncomfortable armchair, anxiously glancing at the clock, when I heard someone entering the room. Initially, I assumed it was another colleague who came in late since the person appeared to be in a rush, heading directly towards the audience seats without taking their time to look around the room. However, the supervisor caught her there and guided to the couch in front of me. Even then, I could not really believe it was my client – there was nothing in this person’s behavior indicating that they were here for the session.
The girl looked strikingly unusual. She was very thin and wore unisex black clothes with a massive black hood covering her head, hair and top half of the face with her gaze deadly fixed on the floor. It was hard to tell if she was a man or a woman because of this. As she sat, she did not bother finding a comfortable position, remaining on the edge of the couch for the entire session. Her posture was hunched, as if she was trying to occupy as little space in the room as possible, almost as if she wanted to disappear. She never looked up to check who was in front of her, even as she settled in and began speaking.
