I cried. In session.
It wasn’t a full-on ugly cry, but it wasn’t simply tears welling up in my eyes, either.
In nearly 10 years of listening to people’s stories, I’ve never cried in front of a client. I’ve come close. I’ve cried many times after a session. I’ve cried at night, alone, thinking about the suicide, or the cancer diagnosis, or the childhood abuse or the self-injury my clients revealed that day.
But I’ve always held it together during sessions.
My client, a new one, barely said hello and dodged my eyes as I picked him up from the lobby and walked him back to my office. He sat down and began crying before he even spoke. He had cried on the phone setting up the appointment so I knew a little about the backstory. By the time he told me the full story, he was sobbing – the kind of crying that forces you to gasp for air between sobs, and is accompanied by both shaking shoulders and a runny rose.
And I began crying too. His story hit me. Hard.
I apologized right away, of course. Counselors aren’t supposed to cry! We are supposed to be the strong ones, the omniscient sounding boards for everyone else. It’s a lesson I learned in grad school, and was pounded into me during my 3,000 supervised clinical hours from various experienced clinicians: check your own emotions at the door before session.
We. Can’t. Get. Emotional.
When I apologized to him, he thanked me – thanked ME – for being real. And not a robot. I was sure he wasn’t going to come back, sure that I blew it for him. But he has. For many sessions. (And no, I haven’t cried since.)
Like my client reminded me…..counselors are humans…..we are not robots. Let’s be gentler with ourselves. It’s ok to be real and be genuine with our clients, and most of all….to show our own emotions.
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