As clinicians, we deal with a great deal of trauma. After all, people don't see a therapist when they're feeling great about their lives and the world around them. So therapists do trauma. And by and large, we are pretty good at what we do.
Sometimes I feel an echo of what they're talking about in my own experiences—for example, when a gay man talks about having been teased and bullied in school, I can relate as I am also a gay man who was teased as a child.
The experience of this election changed all that. This wasn't just my clients' trauma that was in the room with us: My own was there, too. I was currently sharing the same pain and fears my clients were recounting to me.
There are strategies for maintaining respectful relationships with family, friends, and clients, especially when discussions about current events bring up such intense emotions.
Collection
[
|
...
]