10 Helpful Things Therapists Have Done

Therapists and those of us in the helping professions have a holy calling of great honor. We are called upon to heal the mind, soul, and often even the bodies of our clients.  How do we do this healing?  Through the words we speak (and write), the words we listen to, the pain and confusion we help our clients to confront and hold, and the uninterrupted time we give them.  There is something almost sacred, bordering on the religious, about the inside of a therapist’s office.  Perhaps it is fair to say that we have become the modern day shamans, medicine men, and story tellers.

I recall the time I spent on the Blackfeet Nation in Northwestern Montana with Buster Yellowkidney, the wartime chief and a distinguished medicine man of the Blackfeet people.  Although not a trained therapist in the Western sense of the word, people came to Buster with a vast array of problems ranging from emotional to health related and everything in between.  Buster gave them uninterrupted time and empathy.  He helped them to confront and be with their pain.  Buster helped people to “keep it real” despite the pain of reality.  Buster led talking circles in which people listened to, validated, and supported each other’s stories.  Perhaps Buster was a therapist and perhaps we’re medicine men (and women).

Following is a list of ten important contributions us therapists have made to the helping professions, as well as to the world at large.

1. We have encouraged the telling of stories. Everyone has their own story to tell, unfortunately many of us fear the social (and even the political) repercussions of making our stories heard.  As therapists we have provided time and space for people to tell their stories and for those stories to be heard.  Often times the simple act of telling one’s story and of having that story heard is powerful enough medicine to heal the mind, body, and spirit.
2. We have listened to the pain and experiences of others. We live in a world of common courtesy and pithy niceness but very little real listening.  We have provided listening ears that are trained to listen and ask questions in a very real and deep way.  It has been said that the gift of  a listening ear is the greatest gift that one can give.  We have listened to the pain of others and helped them to unburden their loads.
3. We have provided safe space for healing. All wounds need space to heal.  This is true for wounds of the mind and spirit as well for wounds of the body.  We have provided space in our offices in which healing can occur.  Now as teletherapy is becoming popular, we are providing more abstract type of space.  The space being provided though Skype and telepherapy is the space that exists within the healing relationship itself.
4. We have provided safe time for healing. Just as wounds need space to heal so too they need time to heal.  We have helped people know that their wounds will heal over time and to set appropriate and realistic expectations for the time frames they can expect for their wounds to heal.  Perhaps of equal importance, by giving clients uninterrupted time to express themselves we have provided time for their wounds to be aired out, salved, massaged, and re-bandaged.
5. We have taught skills for better functioning. We have taught our clients basic skills for handling adversity and bettering their communication such as deep breathing, using “I” statements, taking time outs, challenging upsetting thoughts, getting enough rest, etc.
6. We have taught people to be nice and to take care of themselves. Often times our clients come to us with feelings of guilt and self-beratement.  We have given our clients permission to ease up on their inwardly directed negativity.  We have encouraged clients to say positive affirmations and do things that they can feel good about.
7. We have provided healing relationships. Irvin Yalom has said that “It is the relationship that heals.”  Whether or not that is entirely true, there is definitely a significant healing that occurs within the therapeutic relationship.  We have made ourselves available to co-create healing relationships with our clients.  Perhaps it can be said that a relationship with great healers such as Yalom, Carl Rodgers,  or Milton H. Erickson was all that was necessary to bring about the desired healing.
8. We have worked to expose socially unacceptable and destructive behaviors such as rape, incest, and molestation. In the early days of psychotherapy, women who came entered into psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud who spoke about rape, incest, or molestation were deemed to suffer from hysteria.  Much progress has been made since those times.  We now realize that the world we live in is often a dangerous place and that unfortunately people get hurt by people who should protect them (or at the very least not hurt them).  As such healing is now able to occur where once only blame was laid.
9. We have integrated Eastern and Native healing concepts into Western culture. The Eastern and Native worlds are replete with healing traditions which include mindfulness, meditation, talking circles, and even various herbal remedies and medications.  By embracing these traditions we have added greater depth and diversity to the healing tools available to us.  Rather than limiting the work our clients do with us to the confines of the space and time of the therapist’s office (or phone line) we can now suggest to clients that they go out into the woods, walk barefoot along a sandy beach, volunteer in a soup kitchen, take a course in Yoga or Tai Chi, spend some time daily in prayer and meditation, or go camping for a few days in the woods in order to get reacquainted with themselves.
10. We have encouraged people to learn, live, love, and laugh. We have given our wounded clients permission to reenter the realm of learning, living, loving, and laughing despite the fact that to do so means that they might get hurt from time to time.