Can I Really Tell My Clients What I Think?

A therapist asks me in supervision.

What are you thinking of? I ask.

Anything. Everything.

I hate you. I love you. I’m having a sexual fantasy about you. I can’t stand your rambling. I hate it when you’re late. How dare you leave group? I think you’re ex-wife was right! If I were your daughter, I wouldn’t talk to you either. I wish you were my daughter. I hate that this happened to you. If I had been there, I would have attacked him myself. Stop playing the victim and put on your big girl pants. Do you really believe that about Israel? That’s so racist. You can’t call people retarded anymore. Of course you have to pay, you just canceled this afternoon. When was the last time you showered? Stop screaming at me. Say something. What do you mean you’re stopping therapy? Stop picking your nose in session. Come here and let me hold you.

Yes. I say. You can say any of those things if you do so skillfully.

Well what the hell does that mean? Does that mean I need to go to fucking analytical training for 10 years or do 20 years of my own therapy before I can express myself?

No. What I mean by skillfully is that you take seriously the part of you that wants to say something taboo, and stay with it long enough for a possibility to do so to emerge.

What?

If you give that voice time, if you feel into and around it, see where it comes from in you, what relevance it might have for the patient, you will discover a way to communicate to this.

Yeah right.

Talk about it in the training group first. Group Therapy is the perfect opportunity to unpack the parts of you that are usually suppressed, and to clarify how to honor them.