Ask a Therapist

Perhaps you’ve been wondering, or maybe even worrying, about whether your therapist will think you’re a bad person because of the things you’ve done. And the answer to that is no.

Therapy is really, really not about passing judgement. It’s not about judging people or their behaviours as bad, or as good, or as anything. It’s about being genuinely open to, and curious about, the meaning of someone’s behaviour. Why are they doing what they’re doing? Why is this particular person doing this particular thing at this particular time? What does it mean for them individually? And that’s such a rich source of therapeutic information.

Behaviour is a communication. It might tell us something about somebody’s past; it might tell us something about what they’ve had modelled to them, what they need in this moment, what they want in the future. And as therapists, we really do empathise with everything clients bring to us. I really genuinely can’t think of something that I wouldn’t empathise with a client for doing. And by empathise, I don’t mean condone. I don’t mean judge as negative or judge as positive. I really just mean understand.

So, I mean, to give an example, perhaps, that might be helpful. A client might say, I’m having an affair. And in “the real world”, outside of therapy, that might be judged as a “bad thing”. But in therapy, it’s really about understanding, okay, well, what does this mean for you? Tell me about this affair. How can we understand what it’s communicating? What does it say, perhaps, about what’s missing in your current relationship? What does it say about what you’re looking for in relationships? What does it say about the relationships you’ve had modelled to you? How is it sitting with you? Is it serving you? What would you like to be different? How might you achieve that? So, honestly anything you say in therapy is going to be looked at by your therapist as a really rich source of therapeutic information.

So, certainly if you’re not telling your therapist something because you’re worried about how they’ll judge you, please do say. Or if you can’t say directly, say that you’re worried about saying it, and you can talk about that together. I really can’t think of a situation where a client’s told me something, and I haven’t been genuinely interested in what they’re saying, and haven’t been able to empathise with them, and the meaning of what they’re doing, for them personally. So the short answer is: no. A therapist will not judge you for the things that you’ve done because we’re just not in the business of judgement. It’s not therapeutic. We’re in the business of understanding and empathising.