Note from the Author: I am committed to keeping my client’s identity confidential while also being able to share some examples from therapy for educational purposes, therefore, names and details of their stories have been changed in this blog.

Allow your heart to be moved in session. Let me explain. I want to distinguish between being moved emotionally with your client in session and taking the emotional burden home with you. Allowing yourself to be emotionally afflicted is not the best practice and often resembles the blurring of boundaries of work and home life. When a therapist takes on the emotional turmoil from the session, they tend to take on the “savior complex” or personalize the client’s issues and allow it to negatively impact the therapist’s personal life. Stay away from such experiences through self-care and emotional processing after sessions.

I encourage you to allow yourself to journey with your client. On many occasions through witnessing my client’s journey and their struggle through their pain, I allowed myself to share in their agony alongside them. This was the case with one client, Edith. She was a young woman who was overwhelmed with distress due to a certain aspect she was going through. She shared with me her struggle to find true happiness and peace. She went on to explain some traumatic experiences that occurred in her past and shared how these experiences were currently impacting her. This impact caused her to see herself as having little to no value as a person. While sharing her story she expressed deep pain, the pain of believing that she’s alone, that she does not deserve love, the sensation of being in despair. So, painted on her face, was the tragedy of the longingness to be seen and valued yet not believing that such a reality existed. My heart ached for her. Sitting there with her I too began to shed a tear. On a separate occasion with another client, Alice, for almost a year we traveled together on her journey to self-rediscovery, taking the path of healing the past and facing her shame. A reality that terrorized her self-worth. She expressed on many occasions her shame, her pain, and her anguish. In those moments, I was moved with compassion for my client. I was changed. I bore witness to the human spirit, the depravity of the suffering of shame and discouragement and there I uncovered the power of the human resolve to persevere and make a meaning out of suffering. 

In counseling I witness the resolve of my clients, who choose to travel the road less traveled on, to process the past, expose their shame that holds them captive, and take back their identity and freedom, a choice that makes all the difference for them. The courage and strength of suffering changes a man’s perspective on life in eternity. Allowing yourself to be moved in session also means that you can be moved in a joyful sense. On many occasions, I would get excited for my clients, their progress, or the accomplishment of a small goal. Every small victory counts. As counselors, part of our role is to provide hope for our clients. A significant way of doing so is to assist them in pointing out their success and celebrating such accomplishments.  I do believe that it is very important to allow your heart to be moved by your clients because it shows them that they mean something to you. This work is sacred. It builds a trust that allows them to take unbelievable leaps of faith and step into a new horizon of healing and growth. When you allow yourself to show empathy, they see that you’re human, that you’re willing to suffer with them, and that they are not alone. Does this mean you become an emotional mess in session? No! In fact, I’ve heard a few stories of therapists who broke down and cried uncontrollably as a reaction to a client’s story. Clients would claim such experience was “off-putting” thus indicating that a therapist needs to work towards being able to “handle the issues” that clients bring to session.  You can’t allow yourself to be emotionally dysregulated in session. Clients trust that we can withstand what they tell us and that we need to stay objective. In other words, maintain objectivity and learn to not get dysregulated in session and at the same time be real, be honest, and be open with your clients. . It’s a real relationship, so allow yourself to be real. Match your clients and step into their mess. They need you there. I encourage you to journal or expressively process your emotional reactions in therapy (hence I started writing a blog.). Don’t turn into their savior. Feel or be moved, process, and separate after the session. I think of the verse in Romans 12:15 scripture where it says “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”  Look out upon the soul before you, see the value and worth of such a great treasure. Allow yourself to marvel at such beauty, learn to embrace such priceless worth and by doing so you will be moved, and their healing can truly begin.