Therapists Are Human Too

What does the word "Therapist" & "Psychotherapist" or in fact any of descriptions of these relating to mental health professionals conjure for you?

Does the word therapist conjure up the historic vision of the submissive or distraught client, lying on the sofa whilst a Freudian type persona sits with pen and pad at the ready firing questions and digging deep into the person's past like he is excavating for gold. Interspersed with mutterings and mumbles of "ah interesting" and "tell me more". (Just imagine this in an Austrian accent). Sound about right? Or perhaps that's just my own imagination let loose as i write this. Has there a decision due to societal indoctrination that because there is some kind of "professional" qualification and years and years and years! Dramatic enough? of learning required to have said title. A title that can sometimes drag like an afterthought numerous letters requiring overtime on Google to understand, been made?Now i am in no way inferring that these are not important to the person who has earned them. Just that the potential belief that we/them are immune to the trials and tribulations that life throws sometimes quite randomly at us. Or indeed are so evolved that these outburst of humanity are beyond us and we work from a place of self actualization that requires no external input. Ha! Oh my oh my, can i answer with a "Hell No"? Have you stopped reading now i cursed? Ok now i have stopped chuckling at my own musings, i will move on. Do i think we have tools at our disposal that assist in our resetting to that place of neutrality? Yes i do. But i also know that we do not always implements them. Especially when things and events in our lives create a highly emotional response. We as humans are all on a journey of learning and sometimes that path is an uncomfortable one, in fact many of our most profound lessons will be. Not all of course, I'm not going all doom and gloom on you. It is through emotions that we connect. None of us are Spock. (what do you mean you don't know who Spock is?).Tsk Tsk. Even the most "Logical" of us will have memories associated with feelings. Your teens are a prime example of this. When you hear a song that takes you straight back in time to that "first kiss" or that "disco where you got drunk", or that time you nearly got caught after ringing the bell on someone's door and running away. Or was that just my lot that did that? Anyway, unless through severe trauma where some will have become dissociated with themselves and others,(that's for a different blog). Then most of us will have these accessible emotional connections. So as i was saying Therapists are human too. We are learning alongside our clients. We can't have every experience available to mankind, but we can expand our understanding as we work collaboratively with others in and outside our therapy rooms. We DON"T know everything and yes we get things wrong. We are not the scary pseudo intellects that we are sometimes portrayed as. Ok maybe some are. But hey go with your own instinct when looking for help. Don't let the word therapy or therapist be a scary concept. Remember us therapist have lives. These lives comes with challenges and difficulties the same as everyone. What we have learned helps us cope and understand our own beliefs and behaviours that sometimes require to be challenged. This in turn allows us to help others with theirs. So next time, or indeed if ever you need to reach out for that professional help, i hope you have a clearer understanding that we don't have all the answers, but we, and i know i speak for the authentic and heart centred ones, will do our damnedest to work WITH you in your search for yours.