One room. Two people. Yet it is very different to walk into a consultation room as the medical professional who understands the system, the language and what happens next, versus the patient who needs so much from that person sitting across from them. Two roles. So distinct. So contrasting. One seen as powerful and seemingly unaffected. The other scared, vulnerable and confused. The power imbalance in itself can be daunting.
Being an MS patient from the tender age of 23 taught me what it’s like to be the person in the room with less power and that profoundly shaped the kind of therapist I am today. At 23 I went from living a carefree life, to being a patient at Mater Dei Hospital. Surrounded by professionals who seemed to hold the information and answers I desperately needed. But who at the time, did very little to lessen the fears I had. How small I felt.
I’ve been in the medical system as a patient for almost half my life and it’s been a pattern of many professionals talking at me rather than to me. Where expertise meant superiority. And as uncomfortable as it is to say out loud, it felt degrading many times. Being looked at through a file, feeling like a number and a list of symptoms rather than a person with real concerns and emotions.
And then there were the others. The wonderful professionals who taught me what a difference it makes to have expertise accompanied by humanity! What a mark these people leave on the journey of illness and life. In fact I almost hate to admit that both the former and latter played such a big part in me becoming the therapist sitting in my chair today - but they did.
One taught me what not to be. The other taught me who to be. To be the professional in the room who understands what sitting on the other side may feel like. To know the difference it makes to be seen and spoken to, rather than spoken at.
My warrant means very little without the client sitting in front of me allowing me to do my job as a therapist. Therapy is something we co-create. As a therapist I am not the knowledgeable one analyzing the client. I may have training and clinical knowledge yes, but my clients are the experts on themselves and as their therapist my role is to support them, remain present, curious and compassionate. Honoured that they have chosen to let me into their world.
Perhaps, another thing being an MS patient taught me first hand and helped me make peace with, is that helping our clients doesn’t mean fixing them nor saving them. As therapists we cannot always have the answers, nor can we always take the pain away, or fix the problem that brought our clients into our therapy room; But we can definitely make sure they don’t feel alone inside it!
Getting help through therapy doesn’t magically make the problem disappear but it sure makes carrying it less lonely. And that in itself, is a big part of the healing. Because knowing that someone is willing to really see you and sit with you session after session in the uncertainty, in the pain, in the fear and the unknown; in some moments, that really is everything. Especially in the fast-paced disconnected world we live in today.
MS does not define me, and being a patient surely did not make me a therapist. But both undeniably shaped the therapist I became. They shaped the way I sit with clients and understand vulnerability, the way I think about power in both the medical and mental health fields, and lastly the way I hope people feel when they’re in the therapy room with me.