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View Poll Results: If you were a therapist, what would be the hardest part of the job for you? | ||||||
Being patient | 11 | 18.97% | ||||
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Dealing with insurance companies/discussing money | 11 | 18.97% | ||||
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Remaining calm and grounded | 7 | 12.07% | ||||
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Interacting with clients | 2 | 3.45% | ||||
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Trying to think of what to say to clients | 7 | 12.07% | ||||
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Empathizing with clients | 2 | 3.45% | ||||
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Dealing with emergencies outside of session | 2 | 3.45% | ||||
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Other (please elaborate) | 16 | 27.59% | ||||
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Voters: 58. You may not vote on this poll |
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Child of a lesser god
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#1
If you were a therapist - or are a therapist - what would be the hardest part to deal with for you?
Me, it would be coming up with the right/useful thing to say to a client. I threw up a couple other options that occurred to me in the poll, but feel free to submit an "other." |
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#2
For me it would be being patient. I work in healthcare and have always struggled with this, especially with myself.
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#3
I'm okay working for an organisation, but I dread working for myself. I hate anything to do with finances/marketing and I have no business head at all. Just making sure I pay the right tax etc will be a pain for me. The whole idea puts me to sleep.
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Magnate
Member Since Feb 2016
Location: Appalachian Mountains
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#4
The hardest part for me would be being emotionally present for each client, all throughout the day. I'm very sensitive and can tune into others' emotions easily but it is extremely draining. I wouldn't have anything left to take care of me. Which is why I'm not a T, even though I have the training.
__________________ "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers which can't be questioned." --Richard Feynman |
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mostlylurking, TrailRunner14, Yours_Truly
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underdog is here
Member Since Sep 2011
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#5
For me, first - I don't want to sit around while people yammer on about their feelings.
Secondly - I would be quite outdone when stupid pointless things worked. Sometimes I try saying the stupid empty **** the woman has tried at me - to my students. And it quite often, mysteriously to me, works - they pack up telling me how much better they feel. I have to stop myself from yelling at them "stop - I just made that **** up- don't fall for it. I didn't mean it. I don't even really know what it means. Come back here and continue feeling bad rather than letting my drivel work." I don't of course, because if it helps end the emotional angst at me from a student, I am mostly for it = but I am torn. And I am baffled at how it helped them. Like seriously I want to say- "that was the most basic pedestrian made up thing ever and you are saying it helped - are you messing with me? Do you have a brain?" But I have found that students rarely mess with me like that, and they tend to think me asking if they have a brain is an insult - so I refrain. Again, I don't know why but there we have it. And then I become indignant and pissed off that the woman is just phoning it in = seriously did she really think that crap would help me somehow? She really is just spewing stuff out without any thought and hoping. So, third, I would feel like a charlatan. __________________ Please NO @ Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. Oscar Wilde Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. |
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atisketatasket, justdesserts, missbella
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Veteran Member
Member Since Jul 2016
Location: US
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#6
I'm similar to Mobius, I empathize so readily that other people's emotions are contagious for me. Generally if someone else is crying I will find it very hard or impossible not to cry (sometimes even when it's a little kid, it all depends on how they sound and whether they're being adequately cared for by nearby adults). When there's a crisis I can put my emotions aside but it's like they're a ticking time bomb that might blow at an unknown moment. I certainly couldn't make it all day, and even if I could, what a nightmare for the people I'd come home to.
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Yours_Truly
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Always in This Twilight
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#7
I said remaining calm and grounded. I think I'd get too caught up with my clients. I'd be the T answering texts at 3 a.m., who wouldn't feel like I could limit them because my client needs me. I'd feel guilt over those I couldn't help. So...that's why I'm not a T--even though I'm good at reading people and empathizing (my T has commented on this), so in some ways, I'd be a good one. But I feel like it would be at the expense of my own mental health/life...
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mostlylurking, runlola72, TrailRunner14, Yours_Truly
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Is Untitled
Member Since Feb 2016
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#8
I dunno -- sitting still and not giving in to bodily tics? I can't seem to stop shaking my legs rather violently for the life of me -- I imagine that might potentially distress a client or two.
Current T scratches herself quite openly (armpits, underside of breasts etc) -- I find her lack of adherence to rigid social norms quite charming, I must say. Former T on the other hand would be very still (almost lifeless) and then suddenly erupt into some wild gesticulation and then equally suddenly stop it. And, then very precisely, with very rigid robot-like movements, pick up her gas-station coffee cup, hold it in a precisely precarious fashion and wait for the precise moment (when I wasn't watching and yet, it wouldn't be impolite for her to drink the awful liquid because I didn't seem terribly distressed) to drink it in equally precise movements. It was......disturbingly fascinating. |
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atisketatasket, LonesomeTonight
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Aug 2008
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#9
Other. For me it would be setting and kindly holding boundaries. I think I would want to be very available yet would know that I can't do that for 30 or so clients or however many a t sees. I think I would have to be like T2 and T3 and have no outside contact other than returning calls during normal hours and I think there would be some people that I would think need more than that. Because of my conflict over that, I would likely be abrupt.
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Bipolar Warrior, LonesomeTonight, Yours_Truly
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Legendary
Member Since Apr 2012
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#10
Other- knowing when to trust a client and when a client needs IP.
__________________ Dx: Me- SzA Husband- Bipolar 1 Daughter- mood disorder+ Comfortable broken and happy "So I don't know why I'm tongue tied At the wrong time when I need this."- P!nk My blog |
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LonesomeTonight
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Grand Poohbah
Member Since Dec 2013
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#11
Self care/boundaries.
My boundaries as a veterinarian are abysmal and clients text/call/email me all hours of the day and night with questions etc. My T is so strong yet so kind and yielding. She knows exactly what she can give and that is all. I just give til I pass out from exhaustion. |
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Bipolar Warrior, LonesomeTonight, TrailRunner14, Yours_Truly
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Crone
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#12
Listening to the patient who goes on and on about the same issue and feeling sorry for themselves but never really working on the issues.....id probably tell them to get a pet, leave and come back when they were serious about healing and truly moving on in their life. A pet would help them more than any therapy at that point.
__________________ Nammu …Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. …... Desiderata Max Ehrmann |
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BoulderOnMyShoulder
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Feb 2016
Location: Mississippi
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#13
Trying to "fix" their problems or walk them through their issues. I always want to fix a problem for someone and make them feel better. I really don't think I could be a therapist because I would stress myself out or run my clients away by being too (what's the word?) maternal. ??
It would not be a good fit for me. __________________ "What is denied, cannot be healed." - Brennan Manning "Hope knows that if great trials are avoided, great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted." - Brennan Manning |
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LonesomeTonight, Yours_Truly
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Big Poppa
Member Since Oct 2011
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#14
Humility.
I'd want to be clever and I'd enjoy being looked up to. (Patients who didn't look up to me would be terminated.) __________________ Mr Ambassador, alias Ancient Plax, alias Captain Therapy, alias Big Poppa, alias Secret Spy, etc. Add that to your tattoo, Baby! |
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awkwardlyyours, LonesomeTonight
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Wise Elder
Member Since Nov 2013
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#15
The hardest part for me would be boundaries. I'd probably be too empathetic and too emotional to remain a strong, stable person for a client.
Also being patient. I don't do well with drama, manipulation, anger, rudeness, attention-seeking, etc. __________________ "Odium became your opium..." ~Epica |
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LonesomeTonight, Yours_Truly
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#16
I can't be a T. I have great difficulty extending unconditional positive regard to people who malinger (different from factitious disorders and psychosomatic disorders), and people who feel their mistreatment of others is their entitlement.
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CantExplain, LonesomeTonight
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#17
Holding back from immersing myself in their problems.
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LonesomeTonight, Yours_Truly
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#18
For me most likely a practical element: working with exact appointments all day every day. Always having to be present for each client when I am required to, in ways they want me. I've worked highly flexible and autonomous times in my whole career and like it this way (I think by default, why I choose to work this way), so this aspect would be hard to get used to. Also, I would probably struggle if I had too many clients, probably would not see more than 2-3 per day, I am too much an introvert for more. But I actually think that working as a therapist part time might be interesting for me.
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#19
Impossible to answer. One would be only projecting their own woundedness into a fantasy scenario.
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Child of a lesser god
Member Since Jun 2015
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#20
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Argonautomobile, awkwardlyyours, Bipolar Warrior, stopdog
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