Therapy is the supportive process of accompanying one’s journey of transcendence from darkness to light to darkness again, ultimately landing somewhere in the middle. Therapy is an experience I wish for us all.
And that is all that it is: a wish—because therapy is a privilege.
Therapy is one of the few privileges of my life as a Black woman. My privilege is multiplied as I am both a therapist and a therapy client. These two parts of myself are in a beautiful marriage, evolving each other. It is an honor to support others’ transcendence. It is a blessing that my therapist has supported me in mine.
My setting changes by the day, sometimes within the same day, depending on which part of my identity is present. When I am the therapist, the backdrop and scene depend on the choice of service delivery. My teletherapy clients are met with a backdrop of brown floating shelves suspended behind my L-shaped desk. There are framed prints from Black artists alongside a framed Toni Morrison quote— “She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you’ve got a woman who is a friend of your mind.” The latter was a gift from a previous client.
A hanging linen tapestry reads: “Black history is our history” in all black capital letters. My doctoral degree, licenses, and other academic accolades hang on the wall to my left. My teletherapy clients need not see my credentials. I’d rather them see me. My décor choices, all thoughtfully selected, give them a glimpse into the interests and values of their therapist. They already only know me from the shoulders up, and clients appreciate glimpses, so I offer them in this way.
My clients who connect with me in person are offered a fuller setting. They are met with a blue and gray loveseat across from my matching armchair. Between us sits a small table with the phrase “breathe” written across a sea of blue and coral hues. A coaster, hand sanitizer, and tissues accent the table. Admittedly, the off-brand tissues in my office don’t give Kleenex with lotion, but they are available and can get the job done. The wall to our right holds three poster-sized art pieces by the same artist who designed the table. I like things to feel…integrated. Four off-white walls enclose us. The room’s overhead lighting is sterile white, so I always opt for my three-legged shaded lamp to help soften the room.
Within these four walls, I am a healer. Within these four walls I also heal, because in 50-60-minute increments my soul dances with the souls of my clients. How can one not be moved?
I invite them to share their innermost parts without any physical motion. “Let me hold that with you, please?” I ask for permission before we enter the unknown of the session.
I sit across from one of my clients, a Black woman in her early 20s, whom I have been meeting with in person for the past couple of weeks after close to two years of teletherapy. It feels different and yet the same. She is currently on a leave of absence from work as her depressive symptoms have recently become unrelenting in some ways. Without her daytime work obligations, she opts to drive into the city to meet with me in my office twice a week, increasing from our usual once-a-week meetings to better support her current needs. We explore her desires to be seen, accompanied by the chronic disappointment of this unmet need. We talk self-perseveration as I remind her that “Anyone can catch a boundary!”— this is my way of saying that a person’s role in our life or identity does not evade them from being on the receiving end of our both healthy and necessary boundary setting. My client will later use this as a mantra in her yoga practice.
I recount my history with this client. Our work began some years ago, during which we were initially processing some life transitions and a strained relationship with her father. Week after week, we met through a teletherapy platform until termination.
Termination is the series of final sessions between a client and therapist. It is the termination of their time and their relationship together. I must admit there is something juxtaposed about getting close to someone, knowing the intimate details of their inner world just to one day conclude and potentially never see or speak to each other again. In this way, I have planted many seeds I have yet to see bloom.
Termination is a different experience when the ending is forced. Sometimes, therapy ends because both client and therapist agree that they have journeyed all that they needed to journey together and that it is time to separate. But sometimes, a wedge is placed between a client and therapist, a forced termination due to systemic influences, resources, accessibility, or logistical considerations. The latter was the wedge that came between my client and me.
She was moving.
Teletherapy is deemed to take place in the state/jurisdiction to which a client is located at the time of the appointment. So, while it seems benign, clients must be in states/jurisdictions to which their provider is licensed; otherwise, their provider could be deemed as practicing illegally (though there are different legal versus ethical considerations, I’ll spare the technicalities).
My client was moving just one state over—less than 50 miles—but because of this, she would be outside the state in which I was licensed to practice. The reminder of termination called us chronically like a debt collector. Though forced, because we knew our time would be ending, it allowed us to process what it would be like for my client to no longer have this space. We processed what it would be like for her Tuesday evenings to be free from our set virtual meeting time.
I recall our last session poignantly. My client was tearful. I empathized with her feelings. Black women at large, and my client specifically, endure the agony of loneliness and silence that accompanies the experience of feeling unseen. The weight of oppression multiplied by individual experiences, such as growing up in homes that were vacant of people with the capacity to meet our emotional needs, weighs heavy on our shoulder blades. I told my client, “It has been my pure joy to be able to hold space for you.” That was true. It is such a beautiful experience to really see someone and then to see them learn to see themselves. My client told me through tears, “It’s like I’m packing up all of these boxes to move, and it feels like our relationship is the one box that can’t go. It’s the one box that gets left behind.”
I was beautifully stunned by her analogy. Again, how can one not be moved?
I remember the feeling of tears creeping up the walls behind my eyes. “Keep it together, Jessica!” I told myself. “Who’s the therapist, and who’s the client here?” My thought suggests that only one person should be getting tearful right now. The strict expectation that therapists do not allow their clients to see their vulnerability seems counterintuitive, unrealistic, and rooted in ideals that lack cultural consideration. The role boundary should be maintained between client and therapist but in a way that still centers the humanity of this work.
My client is now able to sit across from me over a year or so after our termination because the need for telehealth practices led many states to adopt legislation that allow licensed psychologists to practice across state lines (this was all birthed from the impact of the pandemic). We were both secretly hoping for this: a chance to reconnect and resume our work together. There is a joy in being able to see previously planted seeds take root.
I think of another client who reminds me to center humanity. She is also a Black woman in her mid-20s and Queer. We occasionally held abbreviated phone call check-ins outside of our regularly scheduled appointments. One call we had on a Saturday afternoon has always resonated with me. Yes, a call on a Saturday afternoon because, while mental health work is not 24/7, it is undoubtedly not Monday to Friday, 9–5 pm. In this call, my client shared some stressful events of the previous night that were triggering and confusing. While I cannot share the details, I can share something that I told my client near the end of it. “I will choose you. For as long as you will have me as your therapist, I will choose you over and over again.” I announce my commitment to my client with this statement, a healing duty I do not take for granted. Her tearful choking up seeps through the silence.
In therapy, there is a concept known as the “corrective emotional experience.” It is when the relationship between client and therapist, rooted in safety, loving-kindness, and empathy, helps to correct traumatic emotional/relational experiences clients may have had in the past. When it happens, it can feel deeply profound for clients. My client is worthy of being chosen. My words penetrate her emotional defenses meant to keep her safe and unlocks a layer of worth that she did not realize was hers. And in truth, she reminds me of my own worth, as she is also choosing me.
The perception that the client-therapist relationship is one-way is debatable. There is an exchange. There is the capitalist gain as it is ultimately a fee for service work. But there is something more decadent. If I could take some of the most beautiful exchanges I have had with clients, it would create a healing serum for my spirit. Through holding space for them, I have had the opportunity to be deeply moved and humbled. I have been the container for anxiety, rage, sorrow, grief, excitement, joy, deep pain as black as tar (as one client described it), depression, suicidal ideations, fresh wounds of trauma, and wounds that keep reopening.
I would not say I am a “good” therapist. I am not sure that this work is about being “good” per se (skilled, yes). I think I am a present therapist, a dedicated therapist who never feels satiated and whose clinical curiosity maintains a hunger to constantly learn and evolve. I am a self-aware and keenly attentive therapist. I am also a funny therapist! (I think most of my clients would agree). I can’t help it. My authenticity makes room for itself by way of my humor, when appropriate, in therapy. Life is hard. Living is hard. We’re allowed to share a laugh here and there. One could walk by my office on any given day and hear a symphony of laughter or mmm’s—the octave contingent on the content. This is the duality of healing—it is gritty, and she is soft; it is deep, and yet she is funny.
Most notably, I am the therapist I am because I have and continue to walk the journey of my own healing. I am in therapy because life, past and present, cares nothing about my occupation. Trauma does not surpass me because of what I do for a living. I am seeking my own wellness, my own redemption. Being a client has shown me the darkness of suffering and yet the possibility of healing and life. After five years and counting, my healing has surely been earned, but I have also learned it to be my right. Indeed, my ability to show up and hold space for my clients is a byproduct of someone holding space for me.
The therapy session starts in our usual room, but this setting is different from mine. Her big, comfy (presumably) upholstered chair sits across from a leather couch for the client. And on this Friday, in the 8:15 am slot, the sofa is meant to hold me. For this hour, I drop the Doctor part of my identity and am simply Jessica. This feels nice. It feels nice to be tended to after tending to others.
Next to me is my bag so that I can head straight to work afterward. Within me is my invisible bag, the stuff we are about to dive into. We start our soul dance by returning to a previous conversation— the treatment plan.
My therapist, also a Black woman, believes that I may benefit from the addition of EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that is designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. It is to help me unclasp the stuff trapped in the bottom of my invisible bag. I can touch some memories with my fingertips, but it is not enough to fully grab them and pull them up or yank them up to look at them, explore their underpinnings and functions, and explore the ways they still engulf my life. I told her I’d given it thought. The recommended Doc seems nice enough. My therapist trusts her, and I trust my therapist, so…
I do raise two concerns: the first, admittedly, the easier one to raise is finances. Paying two providers for services simultaneously can get expensive. The fact that I can even contemplate this is a privilege nonetheless. Many people cannot access the resources to see one provider a couple of times a month, let alone two.
My second concern is deeper. My second concern is loss. I don’t want to begin (albeit adjunctive) work with another clinician because I’m afraid to lose my therapist, to lose my 8:15 am spot. I’m scared to lose one of the safest and most sacred relationships I have ever had. It is one of the few relationships in which my whole self, the sum of all my parts, is invited, accepted, and affirmed. Seen and still loved. How many people can really hold space for all of us without splitting off the parts they could do without?
Even the idea of termination is experienced differently on this side. Tears enter the room with my eyes as the entry points. I grab a tissue; she has the good kind— so damn soft that it leaves no residue as it glides across my cheek.
What my therapist and I share are more resounding than one-liner Instagram quotes. It is a gentle mental health surgery. Her warm and deep care is the anesthesia that helps to keep me from feeling the pain of peeling back my layers with a scalpel. In this surgery, words replace the silver medical instrument.
Therapy is one of those places that I am loved simply for existing. It is one of the few places where my thoughts’ repeated tangles don’t cause frustration. In therapy, I am safe and anchored.
I’m certain I look out the big beautiful office windows down onto the city streets. I’ll admit it, I break eye contact in moments of discomfort. “Can you put your thoughts into words?” — one of her therapy slogans. I try my best to put words to what is coming up for me emotionally.
She speaks. I listen.
The gist is a clear message that evokes no doubt: she will always have a spot for me. I am sure more tears rain down on my face. I can experience the feeling more than I can remember the facts of the memory. My therapist has saved my life many times and in many ways. At this moment, she does it again. I recollect a few sessions ago when she told me she desired my suffering to be alleviated.
Things are settled at the conclusion of our session. I will proceed with our new treatment plan, EMDR, with one day returning to her.
To this day, I remain with my EMDR therapist. Our work has been rich, but I miss my therapist in a way that creates a constant low-hum sadness. But even in our distance, even though I am in a different therapy setting on a different day, at a different time, there is something the same. It is the knowing that my spot will be held. I am held.
*Edited by Non-Fiction Editor, Jina DuVernay
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