“Stop analyzing me!” – Author Unknown
These words ring clear throughout the mental health community and cause trouble for so many people.
For those of you smirking right now, you must be closely related to a mental health professional.
You are not alone!
Psychologists, social workers, therapists, and counselors are many things to many people.
One of our most commonly perceived roles entertains me the most:
Great analyzer and all knowing master shaman.
Certain therapists, clinicians, and counselors have somehow managed to develop this reputation of constantly being aware of and analyzing people around them.
Can therapists actually do this? You bet!
Do therapists do this? Sure, I imagine some do.
Do therapists constantly monitor people with the illicit hopes of figuring out their deepest and darkest secrets?
Contrary to mythical belief, therapists and mental health professionals are people to.
They do not maintain secrets passed down over many years from one society member to the next.
Instead, mental health professionals maintain certain beliefs and harbor certain desires to help other people.
They devote many years of their lives to learning how to be compassionate, understanding members of society.
The most common occurrence seems to happen when others who are close to us (spouses, parents, children’s) imagine us to be impervious to making mistakes.
“I bet you don’t treat your clients like that!”
Or
“I hope that’s not how you talk to your clients.”
Perhaps the greatest obstacle in our professional identity is the precision to maintain this objective difference when we offer advice to those closely related.
There is a balance between personal identity and professional identity.
For some, this balance is skewed and for others this balance might not even exist.
Some people might even accuse of using tricks that are thought to be reserved for our clients…
Secret revealed:
Our ability to manage personal relationships is completely unrelated to our skills and the techniques we use to support, nurture, and help our personal clients develop.
