You sit with people all day and help them find words. In your own life there is something you have understood for years and not moved. You know what you would say to a client. You have not said it about yourself to anyone. I'm the one people lean on, so I don't say much when it's going badly for me.
Clinicians are people, and people get stuck in their own lives.
If what you are carrying is affecting your work with clients, supervision or consultation may be the place for that. And if it is heavy, licensed mental-health care is the right door for you as for anyone.If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
01
What you do when it is your turn
Knowing the field may not make this any easier.
You can describe your own pattern in clinical terms, and the description changes nothing. You notice the moment you would name for a client, and you let it pass. In your own therapy, if you have one, you may find yourself being a good client.
With friends you listen. With family you are the calm one. Colleagues may assume you are fine, because you sound fine.
People often assume that someone who does this for a living has it handled.
The cost may be isolation of a particular kind: being surrounded by people who are good at helping, and not being helped. It can also make the work heavier than it has to be.
02
What being stuck may be protecting
"If they didn't need me, why would I be here?"
The helping position may be the one you know how to be in. Under Needed, being the one who receives help can leave you unsure what you are there for. I can comfort everybody else. I can't seem to do it for me.
Read about Needed →"Being wrong isn't a mistake. It feels like a verdict."
You are the one who is supposed to know. Under Right, being stuck may read as having gotten something wrong, in the one field where you are trained to get it right.
Read about Right →"Strong is the only version of me they know."
Your steadiness is part of what people rely on. Under Strong, letting a colleague see you unsteady may seem to put that at risk. People count on me, so I figure they need to see me steady. Not scared, not too excited either.
Read about Strong →These three are not the whole list, and it may be none of them.
03
What is under the rule
Under Needed, the fear may be that without your usefulness there is no reason for you. What would answer it is being wanted rather than required.
Under Right, the fear may be that if you are wrong about this, what else are you wrong about. What would answer it is being able to remain yourself while someone thinks you are wrong.
Under Strong, the fear may be that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. What would answer it is being seen at less than full capacity and still being held.
04
Two questions, in order
First, for Needed and Strong. Which would be harder: them not needing you, or them seeing you struggle?
Not needing you is the Needed answer. Seeing you struggle is the Strong answer.
Second, for Right and Strong. Which is harder to have people see: that you got it wrong, or that you're struggling?
Got it wrong is the Right answer. Struggling is the Strong answer.
These two do not sort Needed from Right. Going by the two rules themselves, Needed is about being indispensable and Right is about never being wrong. That is a place to look and not a test.
If the questions leave you where you were, there is not enough to tell yet. That is a result.
Some reserve is simply professional. Keeping your own life out of a session is not what this page is describing. For Strong, what to look at is cost, and whether the concealment is costing you support you need outside the session.
Here subtraction means only that each question can rule something out.
05
One thing to try this week
Write the one sentence about yourself that you would least want a colleague to read.
Don't show it to anyone.
Under it, write what you expect a colleague would think if they did read it.
The nearby page for coaches is When You're a Coach Who Can't Coach Yourself.