While a draft of my dissertation proposal is being revised, I have had extra time to return to reading. It's been a pleasure to spend more time with books for fun (rather than the textbooks of the past...forever). I realized, while carrying a stack of planned reading, that books still bring me comfort just to see and hold. They take me back to when I was a kid and always had a book on me, always had my mind and face in one. While re-reading a couple books from a few years ago in recent weeks, I also recalled the feeling of seeing my truths reflected in someone else's writing, and the curiosity the comes from discovering new angles of others' truths that I might incorporate for myself, too. Now that I've gotten back in touch with this joy, I plan to continue reading more, whether I'm writing more dissertation drafts or not.
"A Shining Affliction" Annie Rogers' "A Shining Affliction" is one of these books I've picked back up. I'm currently re-reading some of my past favorites, and I'm glad a friend reminded me of this option. By the first time I read it a few years ago, I'd gotten into the habit of marking my books where they most marked me, so on this go-around I had the chance to notice where my perspective had shifted. Old notes in blue, new notes in red. I'm a different reader each time, in some ways--and not at all in others. Realness in Relationships The first time I read this book, I was in my first year of clinical experience. This time around, a few years in, I could see how much more I understand Annie's writing about the personal aspects of the relationships of therapy, as a therapist and client, and in supervision. I marked these passages much more, and this time I was reflecting on real client relationships I've had that have bloomed into something more intimate like her relationship with her client, Ben, and with her therapist, Blumenfeld. I can feel the reality she describes of the difficulty of holding two worlds together, both mine and my client's, and seeking to be real in relationships through all the risks that entails. It's sometimes been a challenge for me to consider how much to share my own perspective, while I am so invested in validating the client's own experience and feelings. I am still learning (in the slow, internal, relational way we learn these things) that me sharing and being myself does not inherently impinge on others doing the same. Blumenfeld challenged me in that respect, because of how he at times directly contradicted Annie's perspective, or overtly shared his own thoughts with her in their sessions. Yet it was clear that the trust and intimacy of their relationship added value to those actions. He was continually developing that trust by first being open to really understanding Annie's experience before interjecting--otherwise, he would have been more like the hurtful therapist Melanie, who thought she knew Annie's needs better than Annie herself (even my first, blue notes there say, "NOPE!"). For me, Annie's impressions of Blumenfeld's reactions make me curious about what opportunities there may be for me to share more of my inner responses with my clients in therapy. I do this some, but am certain there is more to mine from this relational resource. That risk of being real, for me, as with all of us, is part of my life outside the therapy room, too. I'm grateful for my friends and supervisors who give me the space to keep discovering myself and taking those risks, which are the same and new each day. I'm grateful for friends who let me try out new ways of being more spontaneous and sharing new parts of myself, and who show me those parts of themselves, too. Goodbyes As a final thought that feels present, Annie's writing about goodbyes also especially touched me, because I've been having more goodbyes in my work recently, just from the natural flow of client needs and the ways their lives change. Some people I've worked with for quite a while, or have shared some intimate conversations with, have moved on to new stages. And in some cases, the goodbyes have been unexpected and impossible to do in person. In these cases, I feel doubt about whether I'm doing enough to make those transitions meaningful and caring for my clients. I am resting on the hope that my care can come through in our final phone calls, or that when even phone calls can't happen, that the love and regard I've shown them throughout our time together will continue to be felt when we no longer see each other. They will stay with me, and I hope good things from our time will stay with them. When Annie talks about counselors and clients remembering each other, I thought that it goes beyond a cognitive remembering: it's a memory that becomes part of how we see ourselves and relate to others, becoming a piece in the construction below our awareness of how we see the world. When truly genuine and impactful, the memory of a therapeutic relationship can be subtle and internal; that's how I think it's able to heal similarly sneaky relational injuries like trauma. Annie says that clients lose something of these benefits if therapists don't let them know that they affect us. I want to offer my clients that kind of real relationship that can offer that kind of real healing--and the way for me to do it is by offering more genuineness within that relationship, hour by hour and moment by moment. Thank goodness for supervision to help bring my attention back to this core when it wanders or when my own old injuries sneak in and try to guide me again. It is also helpful to remember that my hurts help me connect to my clients' hurts, and I can even offer them that. In some way, maybe everything can feed that relationship.
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AuthorI believe in our exciting potential for growth. Here I'll reflect on lessons I'm learning as we share that path. Archives
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