November 19, 2019
Psychology Anybody Can Be a Therapist
You know how some people (not you visiting my website, of course!) think it’s no big deal to be a therapist? Like, you sit in a comfy office a few hours a day, nod sagely, swivel around on your chair, have lots of books on your bookshelves, dispense tissues, say stuff like, “And how does that make you feel?” and sound like a parrot when you say, “So what I am hearing you say is that you think you deserved the promotion that your co-worker got instead?”
Therapy, shmerapy. Easy, shmeasy?
Anybody can do this, those people think (not you, of course!). Whaddya need to go to school for? Who needs to learn all that stuff? Anybody can look sympathetic and say, “What do you think you can do about it?”
Just common sense, right? It’s all in the mussar sefarim, right? (Yep, that I agree with; it’s just kinda hard to learn therapy from the Torah in the same way it’s a little hard to learn geometry from Torah. Some people can do it, just mostly not. Regular folks need math books.)
Therapy, shmerapy. Easy, shmeasy?
Are you really interested in what goes into being a therapist?
A typical week.
I spend about thirty hours in session with clients. I spend about another three hours in supervision each week. I have a pile of books upstairs on the side of my bed and another pile on the shelf in my kitchen downstairs. All therapy related. Wherever I am, upstairs or down, I read a few hours a week. I’m slowly moving through my books, but the pile keeps piling as I buy more books.
My workday begins at about 6am and ends at 3:00pm. That’s a little unusual as most therapists have night hours. I don’t. Post session hours is when I write. I think many therapists also write. I write about therapy or related topics—even fiction—because it clarifies in my brain what I am doing and why. I find being a writer an integral part of being a therapist.
Supervision does that as well. Supervision also feels a bit like therapy; heart surgery without anesthesia. To be a real therapist, I need to be vulnerable in supervision. Although I will sometimes celebrate stuff I have done well, I will mostly use supervision to examine where I failed, or could have done better, or what flaws within me are impacting my ability to be the best I can be. And then I go home, read some more, order new books, and register for more trainings.
I’m in the middle of taking two trainings that are 3-year tracks. I’m in my final year for one of them, in the second year of the other; and then there are three other 3-year trainings I am waiting to continue or start that are in midst of being organized in the frum mental health community I belong to.
I also attend 3-4 conferences throughout the year, some overnight, that are geared to either specific issues I want to learn more about, for networking purposes, or to ground myself as a frum therapist in a frum mental health environment, listening to rabbonim speak specifically to our cohort of frum therapists.
Hmm. Anything else?
Yes.
Part of my work is pro bono. As a therapist I always have clients who do not pay any fee, or at a greatly reduced fee. I volunteer my time for specific functions or organizations, aside from lectures that I give as well, and I field many emails and phone calls in my capacity as a therapist because of my column; strangers who simply call me to talk to me from all over the world. Specifically, when a teenager calls or emails me, I take her contact very seriously, often connecting to her principal or community members to help her (with her permission, of course).
Volunteer and pro bono work is considered standard ethics in the social work field; and I think most of my colleagues do the same. And as a frum person who grew up in a community steeped with chessed, pro bono work is simply a way of life regardless of the social work ethics standard.
Of course, in between (and my kids will tell you really-in-between!), I have Shabbos, yom tov, suppers, simchos, shivas, grandkids (also, my really grand kids who put up with my crazy schedule!) and a day out with friends or family. Yep, vacation and exercise time too.
Does this seem like a lot? Does this seem hard?
Here’s the one thing I need to confess.
It is easy, shmeasy. I love it so much it seems effortless. Every last thing I do as a therapist. I wake up in the morning and it doesn’t feel like I’m going to work as much as it seems I’m going to learn. Not exactly play, but engage, in the most unbelievable, fascinating, rewarding, fulfilling, thirst-quenching production that I can do for hours at a time.
But can anyone do it? I guess. If you feel the same way I do about being a therapist.
It’s not what I do; it’s who I am.
Originally published in Binah Magazine
