Having hour-long sessions—weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly—with people I have no history with invites a kind of mindful attunement. I become sharply aware of how each person affects me. How I experience their choices, their presence, their silences.
Sometimes, their vulnerability moves me. It calls something forward in me, nudging me toward the harder, truer conversations I might otherwise avoid.
Other times, I feel shut out. Flattened. Like a kicked dog.
Being in the therapist role offers a glimpse into the intimate architecture of someone’s inner world. Often, I find myself holding things for my clients—quiet, half-formed insights that echo inside me. They bounce around until, eventually, the clouds part and the timing aligns. The words come together, polished, ready to be offered back.
Those moments feel risky. I worry I’ll push too far, or too soon. But when a client has already shown me they can do hard things, I lean into that. I trust the strength of our relationship. I trust myself. And I trust that stretching into discomfort is often precisely what growth requires.
But growth isn’t gentle. It’s often severely uncomfortable. That discomfort invites retreat—not to safety, but to habit.
I challenge the word comfortable when clients use it. I prefer familiar.
I think of that baby monkey in Harlow’s study—the one clinging to a wire frame meant to mimic a mother. What a painful image: holding cold metal, not because it’s safe, but because it’s known.
In session, I often feel what others in a client’s life probably feel—guilty, unsure, like I need to tread lightly. That’s valuable information. It doesn’t mean I’m the bad guy. It means I’ve stepped into the relational matrix they carry with them.
Orna Guralnik would call this a reenactment of the internal object world. The therapist is cast in the role of the abandoning, disappointing, or emotionally unavailable figure—not because that’s who we are, but because that’s who the client fears we’ll become.
I see myself as a relational therapist—someone in it for the long haul. The kind of work where, even after years, an out-of-the-blue destabilization still has something important to say. These moments hold meaning. They tell us what the client still needs—not just from me, but from the world.
Self-examination is familiar terrain for me. For a long time, I cut people off without realizing I had also cut off parts of myself. I didn’t know different. But once I did, it no longer ruled me. I could choose.
And now, that’s what I offer:
A space where insight doesn’t lead to shame, but to agency.
Where the familiar can be gently questioned.
Where, with time, something new becomes possible.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 