Why You Definitely Want a Grand-Therapist

Yes, it's a thing! If your therapist has a therapist (all the good ones do!), then they are your grand-therapist. You may not get to meet them or get spoiling from them like traditional grands, but I assure you that their knowledge and wisdom is being passed down through your individual therapist.

Wait wait wait.... but don't all therapists have

their lives together?!

Ok, Ok. A lot of exaggeration there. We mostly aren't insane, but we do have our own "stuff" to work through. I can help somebody see alllllll day that perhaps the decisions they are making today are directly related to the decisions they previously made, but I can't notice that same exact issue in

myself. Therapists have their own fucked up lives, their own traumas, and their own shit to work out. My therapist makes me a better clinician for you! A lot of therapists got into the business of helping people because either they have experienced mental health concerns or somebody close

to them experienced mental health concerns so we want to help others who were in our/their positions! I love when my therapist calls me on my bullshit (which in turn does help me in the long run) because it better helps me call you on your bullshit...which helps you in the long run ;) I can spot out thinking errors in someone else all day, but noticing them in myself? It is not my best quality.

At the same time, I've learned how to validate, validate, validate! And then address what we can do to fix the issue that I am pissed/mad/sad about. I've learned I can have the thoughts that "this fucking sucks" and "I am going to do x to change it." Because I want to decrease the suffering in my life (can you tell I like Dialectical Behavioral Therapy?) These skills help me to help you work through your issues. I personally learn the best when I fuck up or I experience something happening to myself.

My therapist was ultimately the one to point out that the way we think about feelings affects which feeling we actually feel. What the hell does that mean, right? Did you know the feelings of anxiety and excited activate the same parts of the brain and body? So when I was feeling my heart race and my mind race and getting that "coming out of my skin" feeling about starting my own private practice, my therapist is the one who called me out and questioned whether I was feeling anxious or excited about it. I default to anxiety, but when I really got down to it, I was more excited than anxious to start my own practice. And then, I watched Atlas of the Heart on HBO Max with the wonderful Brené Brown, who ultimately said the same thing.

Therapists also experience a lot of secondhand trauma. Listen, I'm not saying we can't take it! Don't you stop sharing those secrets and those traumas with us, we can take it! We just have to process it with our own therapists sometimes to make sure we make it through. "They" say it's easy to just talk all day, but since we are often so empathetic, we take on a lot of other people's emotions, traumas, and attitudes, good or bad. But your wonderful grand-therapists swoop in and remind us we are bad bitches and have the skills to shed others' emotions, traumas, and attitudes.

So even though your therapist seems like a pro at calling you out on your bullshit, we learned from the best and are just carrying the torch to our clients to call out their feelings and emotions. Because honestly, feelings and emotions are hard to learn differences of and hard to sort out sometimes!

And sometimes, it really just takes a grand-therapist to make your therapist walk the walk instead of just talk the talk.

Therapists don't come for me for spilling the tea that we are all learning from our therapists and taking that knowledge to our clients!

***I adhere to all HIPPA requirements and do not disclose anything about my patients to my therapist***