Quote by Mark Dworkin

I have been posting a lot about finding a the right therapist because I know that having a therapist you can feel comfortable with is the single most important factor in your healing.

It matters more than type of therapy or therapeutic orientation of the therapist.

And we are real human beings. We are not ‘blank slates.’ We bring ourselves into the therapy room and with us comes all of our past experiences, both as therapists and as people.

Each of us has a different comfort level with how much of our real selves we are going to share in the therapy in terms of our own self-disclosure.

But how we show up with you in the therapy room is also how we bring our ‘real’ selves to therapy. Am I the kind of therapist for whom being the expert and having all the answers is important? If so, you are going to feel that in session, regardless of whether I share anything about my personal life.

I come from a community health background, that really focused more on equal relationships in which both the client and myself were viewed as real, complex people. This has absolutely aligned with both my values and what I have learned in being a trauma therapist and working as an ally and an outsider to many communities.

I have learned I need to own what I do not know. I do not see myself as some all-knowing, all-powerful expert sent to fix people. I see myself as a fallible human, who is always looking to improve myself and my knowledge so that I can be a better collaborator with my clients. I am there to help facilitate healing, but I do not carry a magic wand, and my clients ultimately determine the focus of treatment and how they want to heal.