Two Quotes on Therapy/Counseling that Make Me Feel Way Less Anxious About Pursuing the Profession
- Irvin Yalom said: “Indeed, the capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the profession. Though the public may believe that therapists guide patients systematically and sure-handedly through predictable stages of therapy to a foreknown goal, such is rarely the case: instead, as these stories bear witness, therapists frequently wobble, improvise, and grope for direction. The powerful temptation to achieve certainty through embracing an ideological school and a tight therapeutic system is treacherous: such belief may block the uncertain and spontaneous encounter necessary for effective therapy.” —From Love’s Executioner
- Carl Rogers said: “Can I free him (the client) from the threat of external evaluation? In almost every phase of our lives—at home, at school, at work—we find ourselves under the rewards and punishments of external judgments. “That’s good”; “that’s naughty.” “That’s worth an A”; “that’s a failure.” “That’s good counseling”; “that’s poor counseling.” Such judgments are a part of our lives from infancy to old age. I believe they have a certain social usefulness to institutions and organizations such as schools and professions. Like everyone else I find myself all to often making such evaluations. But, in my experience, they do not make for personal growth and hence I do not believe that they are a part of a helping relationship.” —From On Becoming a Person
Take that, you critical people! Counseling/therapy ain’t gotta be perfect. Because the whole freaking world isn’t.
