drcliff

Clients-- What do I expect?

Psychologists (like me!) are people, too-- it becomes all-too-apparent when we melt down, have a personal crisis, or cannot show up for a client for whatever reason.

I enjoy working with a wide range of clients-- from kids to adults, with issues that range from neurological to characterological. I am more pulled to certain types of issues than others. Gee, surprise!That makes me like every other person on earth.

BUT-- there is a need for me to give everyone my best effort-- and that simply isn't always possible.

For example, in 2004 I was in a serious accident. I needed to have several surgeries and I was on some narcotic pain killers for a few months. I couldn't ride my bike for a few weeks, so my major form of stress management was gone. Under such conditions, there was no way that I could say I was at my best. But, I continued to see most of my clients off and on.

When you are medically down, people seem to understand. Now and then, however, I get down or out but it is more mental and emotional rather than physical. That is harder for people (including myself) to handle. I think, given my family history and my personal history, that I tend toward depression and anxiety. Sometimes these things have arisen  during the course of my work as a psychotherapist.

That's a bit of a double bind. How can my clients have confidence in me if I am falling victim to the same things they are paying me to help them try to change? On the other hand, how can they have confidence in me if I fake it in order to not be rejected by them?

There is no easy comfortable exit where all looks good and no one gets hurt feelings. Working as a psychologist, doing psychotherapy day after day, is, amazingly, a lot like being a human in any other endeavor. Do I perform mental health as an act, or am I mentally healthy? Do I need to learn a lot of big words and clever ways of thinking in order to impress others, or will my true self, my genuine self, be enough?

What I expect from clients is no different than what I expect from myself. Being human isn't always easy, even for those of us that are supposed to be experts at it.

Introduction to the blog

Hi there. I am starting this web log (blog) so that you can learn more about what I do and how I approach my work. I, in turn, am really interested in hearing about you. I have recently been reading a book about blogging called Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. The book, while geared to business readers,  has helped me understand the benefit of transparency in the work I do as a psychologist.

For me, there isn't anything really secret or hidden about psychology or psychotherapy. It should be a transparent process. I think that what I do is serve as a very clear, skillful mirror for people.

Mirrors are handy. My wife and I eat a local seafood place a lot. One of the sides I order is Italian Spinach- basically, it is spicy spinach with some Parmesan cheese. Tasty.  Spinach, as you probably have noticed, looks really bad when it is stuck to your teeth. Currently, because of my accident in 2004, I have braces. Spinach sticks to braces, it seems, even more than it sticks to regular teeth. So, I can eat a dish I really enjoy, with my side of Italian Spinach, but I might leave the restaurant with a speck of spinach on my teeth.

That's where a mirror is handy. In the absence of a mirror, another person that I trust (in this case, my wife, Carol) is quite handy. Carol says something like "Uh, dear, you might want to swish with some water..."

I am glad to have that feedback. In essence, I think that is what psychotherapy does-- it shows you where you might have spinach on your teeth that you cannot see. Or, to be very concrete, it shows you where your best thinking is self-defeating, where the WAY you are trying to solve your problems could very well be problematic.

Kelly Wilson and Steve Hayes (and a lot of other people) have created something called ACT -- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy -- it is worth checking out. In essence, there isn't much to it-- figure out what is important to you and do it. Kelly and Steve have just figured out how to publish articles about it-- publishing is helpful if you are in a university and I guess it might give you some credibility with some clients now and then.