The Weight of a Therapist’s Love

              Love? Therapists shouldn’t love their patients! We are to be warm, friendly but professionally distant, right? Yeah, right! Therapists are human too and I believe I do my best work with people when I’m emotionally invested in my patients’ wellbeing and progress.

              In therapist training we are taught that the relationship is integral to doing any meaningful therapeutic work because it creates a safe space wherein the patient can feel comfortable being vulnerable. That is obviously true, but I believe there is more to it. I posit that the human connection and strength of the relationship is part of the healing power of therapy, as well.

              This is what I mean by therapist love. We invest in our clients. We worry about them. We feel discouraged when they backslide, worried when life hurts them, and genuinely encouraged when they move forward. We are emotionally invested. We intervene in session led by love and caring. It’s a form of love. Therapist love!

              Therapist love comes at a cost. It weighs us down when we work with treatment-resistant clients. We experience vicarious trauma when our patients are hurt and process their trauma. At times, we worry about our patients and take them home with us in our hearts.

              I’ve been working with a seriously depressed man, I’ll call him Dave, for many years now. I can honestly say I’ve never seen him happy. The best he gets is “pretty stable”. Most often he tells me, “it’s been worse”. My heart hurts for him as every intervention, every medication change, every suggestion he implements doesn’t seem to make his depression any better.

              I found myself thinking about Dave on my drive home. I’ll admit, I was wishing he wasn’t on my caseload. I felt bad for having this thought (and feeling) but examined it further. I wish I didn’t treat him because I feel like I’m failing him. His pain hurts me. My therapist love isn’t enough to make a difference in his life.

Dave keeps coming back though. I asked myself why and came up with an important answer. He is not giving up and I shouldn't either. One day I may run out of ideas. I may run out of medications to try or interventions to suggest. But I will never tell Dave that he is not worth my time or my effort. As long as he keeps showing up, I'll keep showing up too.

              There are other ways in which therapists’ hearts can be hurt in our process of helping. We all have our fair share of patients who get angry with us. With every relationship comes spats and miscommunications. Misunderstandings. Sometimes we just remind our clients of someone who they don’t like or who has hurt them in the past. Those moments hurt more than many people realize. It also threatens us as a healer as it feels solely our responsibility to build and maintain the therapeutic relationship.

              Our patients are human and sometimes they die. Sometimes they hurt themselves. Sometimes they get cancer. Sometimes they lose a loved one. Each adverse outcome to our patients provides another opportunity to suffer due to our therapist love.

              I believe that a therapist’s love is a secret, magical ingredient in therapy. Although it can sometimes come at a cost, it also ignites our work and makes our job meaningful. I’ll take the joy with the pain of my love for my patients.

Feel better, y’all!