When you're the client.

  Hello friends,

   On this stormy Friday night I find myself feeling disconnected from the world and wanting to reach out.  I'm also processing a lot and itching to write about a situation I had with the counseling center on campus and I want to share that and the conclusions it brought me to with y'all.

  As a wounded healer I'm just now arriving at the point where I'm integrating my "wounded" and "healer" parts. There are some days and things where I am definitively wounded and some days and things where I am definitively healer. One of my definitively wounded things is that for the last 3 semesters I've been a member of the survivors of sexual violence group through the university counseling center at my school. It's been a really challenging-in-all-the-right-ways experience. It has definitely illuminated many things for me as well as provided a space to sit with my identity as a survivor of sexual violence and what that means. Because of some staff transitions and maternity leaves and such the group for the current semester will be run by different staff counselors than in the past. At the end of the last group the facilitators brought in one of the counselors who will be co-facilitating the group the next time it runs. It turns out that I knew this person, we'd had a class together just the previous semester. This person did a practicum with the counseling center as part the clinical psych program on campus and then was hired on. Because I'd talked to this person before when we were in class together I knew that one of their interests was sexual violence. I imagine that's why they inquired about the group.

   So here's the thing about therapy and therapy groups-confidentiality is really important. So important that it's sacred, it's considered a foundational principle of therapy. It's so important that it transcends all theoretical orientations and modalities of therapy. It's literally the one thing all mental health professionals can agree on. By hiring a person who was literally weeks ago a student of the university that the counseling center serves, the counseling center puts itself in a situation where they need to consider the ethical implications at play including confidentiality, dual relationships, power dynamics etc. And not to be a bitch but they really failed here. They were remiss in their calculation a former grad student would be a good fit as a facilitator considering the groups are mixed between undergrads and grads and also considering what a small university it is. Please understand that I'm not saying they should have known I'd had a class with this person. I'm saying it's clear that they were remiss in thinking through what the potential outcomes are of hiring someone who again, literally weeks ago, attended this school are. My position is not that this person should not have been hired, it's that there should have been more thought around what ethical implications might be on the horizon with them as an employee. I'm just saying all they had to do was think about it.

  When I saw this person walk in the room and initially made eye contact with them my heart sank and I felt so ashamed. I had sat in class with this person for a whole semester. While I am somewhat open about my history of trauma it has to be my choice to do so, and my very presence in this group tells all others present something about me. I consented to being in the group, I did no consent to that information being shared with anyone unless I was the one doing the sharing. In short, it felt awful. Tears of embarrassment and shame for needing help pooled in my eyes and I let my hair cover my face. I looked at the floor until they left the room. I felt totally silenced and so ashamed.

  This was weeks ago. I made a mental note not to do group in the fall, obviously, and just pushed all this under the rug. I just didn't want to talk about it, I guess I was too upset. Fast forward to the beginning of the semester and the other co-facilitator emails me and asks me if I'm interested in group. In my head I'm immediately like "NOPE." But as I think about it I become angry. I like this group, I was here first. I don't want to not go, and I'm still hurt about them exposing me as a group member. I made the choice to talk to someone I'm close to about it and she advised me to advocate for myself and tell the counseling center what happened. I ended up doing it but I didn't want to. I waned to just quit and not tell them why. But I did it, I made an appointment with the person that contacted me and I told her what happened and how I felt. I hated doing it, all leading up to it I felt like I was going to throw up. The 20 meeting threw off my entire day because I was so anxious both before and after. She apologized, and she understood how I felt.
Just writing this is making my stomach churn again.

   Anyway, she mentioned that a possible option was having the new practicum student (from WashU, not our school) co-facilitate the group instead of my former classmate. While I sincerely appreciated her efforts to try to make group something I wanted to do, I became angry at the idea of a practicum student co-facilitating the group. In my head I was like "I'm a practicum student. That's weird." First they mess up and expose me as an sexual trauma survivor, and now they want to add a practicum student? Yuck. Then I immediately flashed to people in mental health saying they want to work with trauma. That narrative of people sort of glamourizing diagnoses and pathologizing people's experiences presented itself. Only this time I wasn't experiencing this narrative as a metal health professional/peer, I was experiencing it as a client. And I became enraged that my personal experience and my need for a therapy group would be in relationship with someone's education and clinical interests. And then I considered that I'm a huge hypocrite, because I am also a practicum student and I also have clinical interests and I also have clients who are teaching me. I have even sought out clients because I wanted to work with their specific diagnosis. Mentally I immediately begged the universe to forgive me for participating in mental health in this way.

  Being on the receiving end of services in these ways- being exposed by my therapists and then potentially participating in a group co-lead by a practicum student- has been eye opening and very humbling. It's also made me very ashamed. Not just because I was exposed, but also for the way that I have acted. It has given me a sense of gratitude for my clients who have shared their hearts with me, even when they understood that I was in-training. Recognizing the narrative of pathologizing and the sort of voyeurism that exists around certain diagnoses (Dissociative Identity Disorder, for example) has been disturbing me for several months but it all came to a head when I felt like I was on the receiving end. It's never felt right to me to use the word "population" to describe people and I always feel so out of place when I'm asked what kind of work I want to do post-graduate school. Thinking about all of this I sort of have an answer. The truth is that I want to be with people. I want to be with people, expand their coping skills, hear their stories, feel their pain with them, feel peace with them. I just want to be with people, I just want to connect.

 So, be careful out there friends. Remember that the people who seek services are people, as cliche as as that sounds. Not a diagnosis, not a set of symptoms you might find interesting or hate. And their willingness to be with you and to trust you even at the most basic level, like showing up to your session, is a big deal and it shouldn't be taken for granted. It takes a lot to even begin to let someone in. For me this whole experience has been a very pointed reminder that there is virtually no difference between me and my clients. I have grown in my gratitude for their trust and also grown in my respect for them. I happen to be the therapist, they happen to be the client. In other circles in my life I am client, and someone else is the therapist.

Good night friends, thanks for reading <3