Will I feel listened to and heard?

There’s a lot of branches to my story and I don’t want to feel like I’m dramatic all the time. I want to get to a place where freedom and a happy life is real not just a dream but a reality.
Asked by Neo
Answered
11/04/2022

Thank you for this question. We as therapists try to remain as impartial as possible with our clients. Plus, we all have various branches to our stories. Family branches. Relationships branches. Work or school branches. Life difficulty branches. And while we may not all have the same branches or even types of branches to our stories, empathy helps clinicians relate to others. 

Empathy helps us attentively listen to others without judging others. The way we relate to our clients is by getting down into the dark place with them and acknowledging that "hey, it really is dark down here! I'm going to stay here with you so that you don't have to be down here alone" rather than yelling "it seems bad down there! Good luck with that." By sitting down in the pit with you and listening to your story (regardless of tangents and amount of drama), we can work with you to better create a plan on how to get out of the pit together. Sometimes the plan can be vague and seemingly simple by learning a few new tips and tricks. Sometimes the plan needs to be very detailed and have small steps to measure progress along the way. That's one of the beauties of therapy- you make the change. Therapists are there to only guide and help where needed.

While there are many wonderful therapists out there, not everyone will be a perfect personality fit. It's very important to trust and be open with your therapist. If you feel like your therapist isn't listening or really hearing you, please let them know. We aren't perfect people, but we do want you to be successful and achieve the goals you want (even if we aren't the right fit for you personally). One of the biggest predictors of success in therapy is the level of comfort in the therapist/client relationship. You are trusting us with precious, and often hard to share, information.

Trusting us to hear you and for the person you tell to hear you is one of the scariest and best steps to make to start your journey. I wish you all the best with your journey to finding the freedom and happiness in your life.

(MS, LPC)