The Inappropriate Guest: Are Therapists Invited into the Right Spaces for Healing?

Are therapists invited into spaces where they shouldn’t be? Are we being invited into conversations that are out of alignment with our role in facilitating deep human healing?

Why are therapists being asked to give opinions on the legitimacy of a client’s disability insurance claim when therapists are not trained to diagnose mental illness?

Why are therapists creating treatment plans, full well knowing that outside of specifically protocoled modalities, therapists address what the client needs most the day of the session?

We’re expected to work with mental illness, but we are not trained in the medical model that was built to remedy illnesses.

When we operate within our scope we get backlash about being ineffective, doing it wrong. We are discredited because we are not trained in the scientific rigor of other medically trained professionals, but what if our inefficacy is perceived through a lens that distorts what we actually are? What if it’s the wrong lens to view psychotherapy?

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Should we be the evaluator of a person’s character for a legal matter when we only meet with clients 3-4 times over the course of a month before being asked to vouch for them?

We are discredited for not being trained as Ph.D’s or MD’s in some circles, but expected to show up for people we hardly know, to support them in some way, on a matter we really know nothing about? Does the average therapist truly know what possible implications could come from sharing our initial impressions during a client’s legal matter? Most likely the clients aren’t aware of the implications either.

And crisis work? Can we actually do therapeutic work with clients who are in survival mode, dealing with the loss of a job, financial difficulties, or events that require their energy to move into problem solving action in a crisis or with an impending crisis? Shouldn’t that work be the focus of crisis counsellors, or community social workers who can mobilize practical survival focused supports?

What even is psychotherapy anymore?

It appears to have become something that therapists aren’t trained to do when they come out of their training programs but are expected to know when they go into practicum sites. They end up feel inadequate, or unqualified, because they are being asked to facilitate therapy for clients who need something different from exploration of self, or witnessing through validation, or reflection, but are seeking therapy because its “what they should do”, or it will help them “look good” for whatever a client is attempting to accomplish.

Isn’t therapy more than that? Shouldn’t it be?

Are we misleading clients by putting therapists in places that they actually don’t belong?

Or maybe, publicly, we now call anyone who is supporting people through distressing times, therapists?

Perhaps we have changed the definition and expectations of therapists, but haven’t updated the core training?

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Perhaps we’ve lost sight of what “soul healing” looks like? Or maybe psychotherapy has evolved it to mean something new?

We’re all feeling this to some degree and taking to attacking each other in the field or between complimentary disciplines. But maybe we’re just noticing that the paradigm has changed and we haven’t been able to name it?

We know it’s different but as individuals we are unsure how to change it? So when we see the discrepancy overtly on social media, we feel that discomfort about the change rising inside. We know that something is off that we are falsely attributing to the messengers, rather than asking the deeper questions about what is prompting the discrepancy?

What is the source of this misalignment of practicing? And how can we work together to create a smoother pathway for ourselves and for clients?

I don’t claim to have the answers to these questions, but I do think it’s time we re-focus the dialogue, instead of pretending like we know what we’re doing.

Curious what this brings up inside of you?

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Therapy, Supervision, Mentorship & Coaching for those who want to bridge ancient & inner wisdom with modern psychotherapy.