A PsychLinks Forum member asks: “Do therapists really care?”
Do you think your therapist really cares about you or is it just an interesting job? Do therapists have “favorite” parients? Or are we just another face among many to them? Are they trained to “pretend” to care so they can do their jobs better?
I think to be an effective therapist requires:
- the ability to empathize with and care about (connect to) your client. Alfred Adler’s way of describing this was, “To see with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, to feel with the heart of another”.
- the ability to create sufficient emotional distance from the client that you can remain objective and avoid getting “drawn into” or “swallowed up” by the pain the client is feeling. Without this, you can’t help the client – all you can do is share the suffering. You become merely a fellow traveller instead of a guide.
therapy, psychotherapy, therapists
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