I rarely self-reveal to my clients during session, but a question I’ll always answer is this one:

Do you see a therapist?

Yes. Hells yes I do.

I’m always more than baffled when I talk with a counseling colleague and I discover they are not seeing a therapist. If you are an active, practicing therapist, be it in private practice or an agency setting, I feel like it’s a must.

In graduate school, the idea was presented by a professor that all therapists should be in therapy.  Of course, being a busy grad student with two small children my first thought was……yeah, right. Ain’t nobody got time (or money!) for that. I thought of therapy as only something for the rich or elite – a luxury rather than a necessity. I had never been in therapy before. Pretty ironic for someone who was planning on dedicating the rest of her life being a therapist, right?

My first exposure to personal therapy was a mandatory group class. We were required to participate, once a week, in a group session. I was skeptical at best and quite resistant to the entire process. What I discovered in group therapy (once I got over my bad, close-minded self) was how my parent’s divorce when I was 14 affected me, plus how I had not resolved one issue related to my mother’s unexpected and sudden death when I was 32..

After that, I ran…..not walked……into individual therapy. And I’ve been there ever since.

Like many professions, being a therapist is stressful. My clients come to me with trauma, grief, suicide ideation and everything in-between. I don’t always want to bring that stress home and try to release it in other ways. Therapy helps me figure out ways to do that, how to process, how to not transfer or counter-transfer, and helps me reset myself when I feel this area of my life gets off track. Sometimes I utilize my own therapy appointments to staff difficult cases. Being a sole practitioner, I don’t have a business partner in the next office to bounce problems or challenges off of, and my very-seasoned therapist is awesome at this. More often than not, my own therapy appointment is spent discussing family challenges, personal struggles or whatever it is that is happening in my life.

Admittedly, it took time to find the right therapist for me, but I’ve been seeing the same one now for 4 years and have no plans on stopping. I kick up my appointment frequency when things are going awry, and I stretch it out when things are humming alone quite nicely. But I’ll never, ever stop going. Therapy is a lifeline for me. It’s not a luxury – it’s a necessity for my own mental health. I couldn’t imagine my life without it.

So therapists, listen up: there is a reason why Dr. Yalom wrote the book “The Gift of Therapy.”  Therapy is a gift, one you give your clients everyday but one that you need to give yourself. Honor yourself – and your own mental health- with this most-important gift.