“Why don't you write about what it's like to live with a therapist,”' my husband suggests.
“I don't want to make my readers jealous that they don't have an in-house therapist,” I say.
“If I write the column,” my husband observes, “they will know that they have nothing to be jealous of.”
So this column is for all those married to therapists who wish their spouses had normal jobs, for all those whose parents are therapists and wish that therapists' kids were not known for being nuts; and for all the rest of my readers who sometimes wish a therapist lived in their house.
I am part of an online group of therapists comprised of psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, and PhD’s. We are talking about highly educated people, many who, aside from the the work they do in the field of mental health, also write prestigious books and articles in peer reviewed journals, are professors in universities, spearhead projects, research studies, and workshops; and are innovators and leaders in their fields. (And then there is me!)
So I send out a post.
I write, “I am writing a column and would like feedback about the struggles you hear from your spouses and children who face the daily challenge of living with a therapist in the house.”
Whew.
Must have touched a real hot topic because in a short time, the responses came tumbling through cyberspace thick and fast.
***
“My wife's complaint during a 'discussion' or 'argument' [is] 'Would you say that to one of your clients?' to which I respond, 'That is why you are my wife and not a client'.”
“My daughter says she's going to start a [support] group for children of therapists.”
“Aside from the immersion required by me to understand and treat complex trauma and dissociation everyday, the main complaint I get from my wife is that no matter what my relationship skills might be in the therapy room, they don't have relevance at home. In other words, I get zero points for any clinical acumen I might demonstrate.”
“One day, when my son was about fourteen and we had one of our you-just-don't-understand moments, he looked at me and shook his head with an expression somewhere between pity and patronizing on his face and said, 'It's so hard to believe you're a therapist!' Ouch!”
“[It's taboo to share my] interpretation within the household...[I may] NEVER pathologize [family members].”
“...My tween often asks where she can find a therapist 'like my mom' and my husband reminds me that 'I am not one of your patients'...I love what I do and would do it for free. I have to remind myself that [being a] a therapist is only a part of who I am.”
“What problem? I'm a THERAPIST. I [am supposed to] know all, understand all, and [can] never [be] wrong. My twenty-three year old son recently said to me, 'I am shocked [today at] what came out of your therapist mouth'.”
“My ten year old daughter [calls] me a nooooroosiiichoooologist as if I have some disease she hopes never to catch.
I don't know when I completed the irreversible metamorphose into therapist, but I do know some individuals (and I am not pointing fingers!) who have something to say about it.
****
I remember when my children were young, they begged me to just yell. “You talk very quietly,” they accused me. “It's better if you just give a good smack or scream out loud. Your quiet talking is much scarier.”
“I'm not interested in you listening when I talk to you,” my husband says. “I don't want you empathizing with me. You are supposed to argue with me. You are not supposed to validate me. You need to try and convince me that you are right!”
Members of my group describe other experiences.
****
“I find I have lost some of my spontaneous emotional response and sympathy with family because of my training and experience with empathy and [containment].”
“In my early days as a clinician I found myself stuck in therapist mode even at home, which was not appreciated. Nowadays, if my husband and I are arguing, he'll say, 'Would you please talk to me like one of your clients? Where did all the empathy go'?”
***
So let me create a synopsis of what it's like to live with a therapist.
A parent or spouse who also happens to be a therapist is never supposed to act like a therapist. No interpretations of why a person may be acting obnoxious or angry; absolutely no diagnosis of behaviors. No listening, validating, or empathizing. No using a quiet therapist-voice. No modeling of appropriate relational skills. No empowering of others to figure out their own solutions to problems.
Fair enough.
But heaven forbid, if a mother-therapist acts like a mother—you know, doing motherly-like things such as telling everyone else how to get the job done or how to act normal, getting frustrated when they don't, raising her voice above a whisper, saying the wrong thing, not getting it or totally missing the point—everyone else is allowed to say, “And you are supposed to be the therapist around here.”
I asked my kids the same question I asked my therapist-group.
“You act like a therapist all the time,” one son informed me. “You see everything through the eyes of a therapist.” He thought for a moment. “Everyone does that really,” he said. “I also look at things through my own lens [as a bochur]. So maybe it's not a problem. Just different.”
Maybe that's why this response seemed so familiar: “I'm not sure if it's because he is a psychologist or just an exemplary father, but many moon ago when our daughter was fifteen...[she] threw herself on the sofa crying, 'You're so reasonable you make it impossible for me to hate you!'”
The last response I received from my group at the end of the day (and right before I finished this column) summed up this conundrum of parent-spouse-therapist perfectly.
“Being a child of [two therapists] and having ended up in the field myself, [I am reminded] of how my dad used to ask me how I'd feel about washing the car. My response? 'Not to good, Dad,' was worth the try but in the end I had to do it to get my allowance; so the parent in him eventually won.”
I am going to start a support group for therapists who who face the daily challenge of living with spouses and children.
LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-blumenfeld-a8067583
My book, Therapy, Shmerapy, can be found in bookstores or online