Becoming a Therapist, and Learning from Therapy

hello and welcome back to my therapists a witch my name is elizabeth and i am a somatic psychotherapist in training today i thought we could dive a little bit into the somatic psychotherapy world and share a little bit about the lessons that i've learned as i've completed my graduate program this inquiry was inspired a bit by a couple of folks who reached out to me with very tender and sincere questions around what it's like being in a graduate program and kind of what to expect and also is this the right fit for me and it inspired kind of this uh moving back in time moment where i really looked at the core parts of my experience and the things that have really landed and show up to this day when i'm in the room with clients the tree of psychotherapy is huge and the fun part about it is that there are branches and you know little areas for everyone and if what i share doesn't quite resonate with you i guarantee you there is a place on the tree that probably will and that's what i think is so great about our field is that because we're in the work of the psyche the soul of mind everyone is unique and so there is a place for your specific type of abilities and your specific interests so if i don't touch on them that's just because i'm speaking from the branch that i happen to find my home on so with that said the process of becoming a therapist and going to grad school and all of that it's a journey it's a journey for everyone and no one can tell you how your journey is going to go because everyone has a unique experience for me this journey really brought me into a deeper connection with myself and brought me to what i feel is my purpose and that purpose then motivates me to continue on this journey and at least in my experience i feel like this journey of becoming never really ends that it's a continual process and practice of learning of growing and learning how to be flexible and surrender to the forces that emerge in the therapeutic space one of the first lessons that i learned that really stuck with me was that psychotherapy is really soul work and there's something really sacred about holding space for folks as they dive into the unknowns of who they are of who they might be and i've learned to hold this work with a lot of reverence and i truly feel honored to be able to hold the stories of people who have entrusted me with parts of themselves and i think when we even from the beginning kind of hold that frame around this work it already starts to cultivate compassion it already starts to cultivate a position that perhaps being a therapist is truly a position of service i think no one can tell you how to be a therapist you can read about other people's experiences you can watch videos of people doing psychotherapy with a client and things like that but you don't really learn how to do it until you get in the room with someone now it's really important to study to train to have a foundational theory that sort of is a pillar of your work because it then gives you a lot of insight on how to communicate what is arising in the space but very rarely have i directly used things that were exactly from a book that i read the education part of your experience is mostly learning the language learning the language to these feelings that you will have and being able to communicate those to another person because often we're working kind of in the liminal spaces of the unconscious and consciousness we're working within that world of co-regulation where for some reason that day things just click and more of the story can emerge and it's really helpful for some people for you to be able to tell them what's happening in a very grounded mundane world kind of factual way because that brings them a sense of comfort and safety and it also helps you as you're sort of navigating the sea of sensations that will inevitably arise when you're sitting with someone as a part of the process i think you learn how to be a therapist by being a therapist it's your first clients that will teach you the most and they will show you the kind of therapist that you are if you're willing to be open and learn from them now a common thing that i think we all face when we're in that liminal space of we're still in our graduate program and maybe we haven't quite sat with clients yet and the fear of oh god am i going to really mess somebody up what happens if i make a mistake and all of this and i think you need to find your way of grounding in the experience so for me that grounding really came from a frame that i took on to myself where for me the efficacy of a psychotherapist is directly connected to their willingness to face their shadow process their trauma and do their work so because i was in this process of doing my work while i was in graduate school i mean i was doing deep trauma work with my therapist on one hand it gave me a purpose to continue to do my own work as i was facing some of the hardest things that i had ever done in my life because there was this wisdom inside of me that knew i have to clean out this closet because i might need this space for someone else i might need to hold something for a time and if my closet is full i'm not going to be able to do that and i truly believe that we must clean out our closets we must do our own work so that our hands are big enough to hold someone else and for people who have resistance to doing their own work or who just aren't ready yet i've noticed that their clinical work struggles a bit because there are places within themselves that they're not willing to go and so they're not willing to follow their clients into those spaces this kind of leads into i think a part of the process that a lot of people don't talk about and that is how much of yourself will come through in supervision a lot of the training is sort of how are you showing up in the room what are you struggling with as the therapist and you know regardless if you go to therapy or not you're kind of going to have some therapeutic moments in your supervision because we cannot help but be changed and transformed ourselves by being a part of this process even if we're in a position of power even if we're a person that doesn't really lean too close to something and we try to create distance even then you will still feel that force that changing drive and i think you get the most out of your training when you're willing to be really honest with yourself a lesson that i've learned from many clients and i continue to learn through many clients is that of parallel process so what do i mean by parallel process parallel process as i've come to experience it is that say i'm i'm you know in a session with someone and i'm noticing that there's some resistance or we're not quite getting to a place it kind of feels a little clunky and maybe there's some misses you know it's just not quite in the flow and almost always when i take time to really go inside of myself and ask the question what am i resistant to with this person what am i struggling to lean towards when i go through that parallel process of doing my own work on the side a very interesting thing happens where when i'm with the person the next week or a couple sessions after that that opening happens and it can sometimes feel very magical to be honest where the thing that you're doing completely outside of the therapeutic space that the person has no idea you're doing something about that work opens up a new capacity in the work that you're doing with this person so often when i notice resistance i don't immediately move to oh maybe there's something with this person or blah blah blah i first look at myself and i very objectively and critically look at myself and go hmm am i resistant is there a part of me that's resistant is there a story that i'm holding on to that is being awakened by being with this person at this time that i need to pay attention to and that i need to spend some time with before i can really be available for this other person and you know as new budding clinicians you'll feel a lot of pressure you'll feel a lot of pressure from your clients you'll feel a lot of pressure from your fellow therapists in training like there's just a lot of pressure going around and we can't control other people and often we can't control the situations but we can change ourselves even if that's just a subtle change of the way we think of something or a subtle change in how we're showing up in the session and those little subtle changes can have huge cascading effects so when you feel stuck and you feel like oh there's absolutely nothing to do look inside yourself first and see if there's something to do inside along with this parallel process that i'm talking about and you can probably tell as i'm going through these a little bit is that the journey is still going the journey never really ends and the more that i have turned my inner eye to myself how i'm showing up how can i change in order to better support someone else that i've learned where it gets clunky are the times when i have asked people to go farther along the journey than i have gone on myself and when i hold this awareness of if i'm going to ask this person to go this far or to be this vulnerable or to dive this deeply into their unconscious then i better have done it first because i'm the one guiding this experience i'm the one holding the torch and i think there is a wisdom in our clients on an unconscious level that they can tell when we're asking them to do something beyond our own scope whether that scope of practice or our scope of awareness so the journey the journey keeps going and this is why i kind of get excited now when i feel resistance because now there's like a new part of the journey for me to explore and what a gift that this client has given me the opportunity to move even deeper into myself to venture farther than i thought possible along my own journey you can kind of tell i'm pretty in the way that i conceptualize this stuff that's partly just who i am and that's how i think about it but the next thing that i'm going to talk about is a little bit more concrete and this is a lesson that i am very grateful that i learned very quickly and that is that therapy is not about fixing people and i'll say it again therapy is not about fixing people it's not your job as a therapist to change someone for the better it's not your job to get this person to change their life and to you know become whatever you think they should become therapy is really about being company along someone's journey and it's not a passive thing it's not this oh you just sit back and you kind of sit in a chair and you listen to them talk and you're like okay your time's up and there you go there are often these very intricate and subtle processes that are happening underneath the words that we share with each other this is what i mean about it so i'm a trauma informed somatic psychotherapist and everything that i think about in terms of holding space with a person the therapeutic alliance and bond is really framed around how i've been taught to view trauma how that shows up in the body how to track a nervous system and things like that so for me and also being a somatic therapist we're paying attention to the body there is a different type of listening that is happening when you sit with a somatic psychotherapist because yes we are paying attention to what you're saying but we're also paying attention to what your body is saying and what your nervous system is doing so it's not a passive thing at all in fact it's a lot of effort to hold your attention and kind of widen your awareness and listen with your whole body with that person and this is where we get into the realm of co-regulation attunement mirroring all of these really powerful forces that help someone move deeper into a relationship with themselves so i think about it this way i'm a nerd i play d so hopefully this analogy makes sense when someone comes into therapy and that co-regulation starts to happen it's almost like the therapist is giving the client temporary hp and for those of you who don't play dnd that's temporary um like health so you're getting a boost in your health you're getting a little bit more from a somatic perspective everyone has a window of tolerance and within this window of tolerance this is about as the space a person has to be able to process and be with their story their material what's happening for people who have experienced trauma in their life that window can be very narrow so even just starting to talk about what happened boom they get sent out of their window of tolerance there's mild dissociation happening and they can't actually be with their experience with a somatic psychotherapist who's aware of this we can help support the person to widen their window of tolerance and that can happen through co-regulation that can happen through a lot of different ways but that's in a very simplified version what can happen where in that moment where you're sitting with that therapist you go from a very narrow window of tolerance to a little bit wider and now you can talk about it perhaps without getting flooded and overwhelmed and dissociating you can move a little farther down your journey and this is why therapy is different than sitting with your friend and talking about what happened to you these are the subtle forces that are happening underneath the words so for instance when i'm really focusing on co-regulation it's more of um an art in my experience and it takes some time to figure out how to kind of connect with someone on that level like how can we feel safe together can you feel my presence right and it's sort of this dance but when you can dance with your client in that way when we're both in that rhythm together that window of tolerance can widen by quite a lot and then new things emerge because it's safe enough for those things to emerge so i'm not necessarily healing someone's trauma i don't think i have that power but i'm supporting someone as they heal themselves i can offer again to use the dnd metaphor a little bit more health a couple temporary hp points and maybe that's enough to finally get to you to a place that you haven't been to before where now you can really be with your awareness looking at the thing that happened and allow for your body's own natural wisdom and nervous system of how to process it to naturally unfold and i think when we take this approach it starts to kind of guide us into this other lesson that i learned which is training to be a therapist it's a long haul it's like 3000 hours or so um that you need to gain before you can even move on to licensure and i've i've just begun this journey it's fairly new for me but i'm actually grateful that it's going to take that time because training and this is the lesson i got from my first supervisor and i think i can remember the quote actually he said that the 3 000 hours of training is about reducing the primacy of your ego's forces so again kind of what i was talking about before it's letting go of that story that you're here here to heal people it's letting go of i'm responsible for blah blah blah i should get this person to change blah blah blah and when we can just sit without our ego without being attached to it be without being attached to our own story of am i doing this right or am i a good therapist or does what does my client think when we can let all that go it actually gives us more space to listen and when we listen on that whole body experience then all this other stuff gets to come online the last thing that i want to talk about here is sort of more speaking to often the fear that i hear in people who [Music] are thinking about becoming a therapist and i think we all have fear because whether we're conscious to it or not there's a part of us that's aware of how deep and tender this work is and it takes stamina and you're not going to know if you can do it until you get in there and try it and that's why i think it's so important to ask yourself the question are you called or are you driven is there a force that is pulling you towards this work is there a flow that's naturally happening is there a purpose or are you driven are you have you pulled you know so many cards out of a hat and decided okay i guess i'll be a therapist is the paycheck something that you really care about is your ego attached in some way to being a therapist if you venture on this branch of the tree that i sit on you will be called into the depths of hades over and over and over again you will venture down into the depths of someone's unconscious with them you will face their terror with them and that takes a lot of stamina and the reason that i have that stamina is based on how my entire life has been up until this point there are many things that i can't do in fact there are a lot of things that i can't do that i just don't have the stamina for but my body and my nervous system and my mind and soul have the stamina to do this work and i think that process of going down into hades over and over again is that you will be transformed over and over again like i said before this is a journey and the journey never ends there will always be new depths to venture there will always be things that arise that need your attention and the ease comes from the fact that you have done this over and over again and so you know you will be okay and i think when we accept that and we're willing to surrender to be changed on an unconscious level our clients or the people that we share sessions with there's an unconscious part of them that can feel that that can then trust what's happening perhaps it's a part deep inside going like well if she's done it then i guess i can do it and i think in particular when it comes to trauma work i think that's really true because for me as i've been a client i think there was a part of me that wasn't ready until i found the right therapist and so because i've had that experience of being on the receiving end i don't take it personally when i'm not quite the right fit for someone because when i am the right fit for someone it becomes evident very quickly that we will both be transformed by this process i think as a therapist i really view this position very similar to being a witch in that i think therapists are creatures of liminal spaces especially if you're into depth psychology um trauma work things like that because there is a very deep and rich world that exists in people that is rarely ever witnessed outside of the therapeutic space so in a way being in the room together is kind of this non-ordinary state of reality and there's something very magical about it and i enjoy being odd and amazed at the wonders that exist inside of people and i don't think i'll ever get tired of it so if you feel called to this journey as i'm ending at least this educational journey myself i think i would tell you what i would tell my younger self and that is to follow your joy and joy isn't always what you think it is because at the very beginning i was pretty resistant to being a trauma therapist i didn't think this is where i was going to end up but by following my joy reading the things that i found interesting connecting to the people that i found interesting listening to that thing deep inside of me that went oh wow i found myself here so if you can listen to that part of yourself that's deep inside going oh the curious part because that will lead you to your joy and i think joy leads us to our purpose now the irony does not leave me in the fact that i guess i find joy in being a trauma therapist but i do i really do because there is something so joyful when a person realizes who they truly are who realizes who they are without all the masks or the character armor or all the things that they needed in order to survive and just get to this place where they're at now and so when finally they get to let all that go even if it's just for a moment even if it's just for a moment with you there's this joy that just emerges out of out of people and it's a pure magical thing so with all that being said i think if you're afraid to take up this work from where you're sitting now because perhaps you've experienced trauma or you've gone through your own hardships or you've gone into your own journey and you've gone wow there's some in my closet at least for me i get curious of wow what gifts are inside of you that someone needs because perhaps it's just you it's just exactly how you are warts and all trauma and all that is just the right medicine that a person is waiting for as always i hope that something that i said was helpful or useful and again if anything i said didn't quite land i encourage you to keep searching because like i said at the beginning this tree is very big and there are many branches that are very different than mine and so if you're feeling called to being a therapist i can assure you that there is most likely a branch that is just the right fit for you thank you so much for spending this time with me i look forward to the next time we get to spend with each other until next time take care

Channel: Elizabeth Ferreira

Views: 3,627

Keywords: Mental health, personal growth, therapy, elizabeth ferreira, witchcraft, personal mental health practices, complex trauma, pmdd, cptsd, complex ptsd, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, self-criticism, psychology, somatics, somatic psychology, psychotherapy, masters of family therapy, family therapy, holistic health, holistic, humanistic, humanistic psychology, trauma therapy, therapist, polyvagal, polyvagal theory, become a therapist, becoming a therapist, learning from therapy

Id: qWsL1EYgNFg

Length: 36min 4sec (2164 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022