Ask Susan

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Moving Through Shame to Access and Transform Guilt

Compassion for self, which extends tenderness in the face of one’s flaws and vulnerabilities, is a primary antidote to shame. Such compassion is a viscerally felt emotion, a nuanced form of love that has transformational power in treatment. Compassion is a light that overtakes the darkness of shame. The more the therapist can perceive and communicate caring for the suffering behind defenses, the greater the likelihood that compassion will be activated within both therapist and client. This healing process is an embodied art form, a relational dance of touching beauty.

Just today, I watched some video session material that I’m considering showing for my next training session. It showed work with a proud and kindly man who had been confronted by his wife for not being a “team player.” She’d experienced being dismissed by him when she’d asked him to do something for her during a stress-inducing holiday dinner. His anger was palpable as he ventilated about all he had done to help out, and we had definitely been working on his freedom to feel his anger and to assert himself. At the same time, there was truth in her comment as he was often detached and dismissive of the feelings and desires of others as well as his own.

Here we have an intuitive call, to focus on his anger towards his wife or his unconscious guilt and shame for having ignored her. There are some who would be absolutely clear that precise interventions were called for and would have resolved his issues. But I personally resist the algorithmic approach, finding that intuitive inclinations often take the process forward into marvelous new territory.

We’d done work previously on his anger and I knew we would again, but in this moment, I chose to focus on the unconscious guilt and shame that I sensed. He would vacillate between stating the reality that his wife had a point and then defending himself and pointing out her communication errors. It was extraordinarily difficult for him to focus on having hurt her and face his guilt over that simple fact.

The forces of unconscious shame and defense were powerful; repeatedly pulling us in the direction of what she had done wrong, and there was validity there. His expression of grievance was also quite subtle. But again, how difficult it was for him to admit he had made a relational mistake and to do something positive with that awareness! I saw this blockage as tremendously damaging to him and the relationship he wanted to build with his wife, so I repeatedly circled around, giving him opportunities to face his guilt with me without having to annihilate himself with shame. It really was a dance. A narcissistic injury and misalliance constantly loomed, and I found myself being tentative while also tenacious, doing a sort of side step.

My tenacity was driven by compassion for the harm done by his avoidance of healthy remorse and I wanted to make every communication convey my compassion in tone and body language, the non-verbal elements behind the message: “I see how you would be offended by her critical tone and I also hear that it is difficult for you to explore your feelings (i.e. shame and guilt) for having ignored her request. Yet I know this disturbs you because you care so much for her and your relationship and your feelings about having hurt her seem very important. If we ignore them, will we not be dismissing you as you experienced being dismissed by your wife and were also dismissed many times by your parents?”

Gradually he began to “get” the reality that shame was impeding him from exploring his guilt. He then revealed a significant secret for which he felt sizeable guilt, a breach of trust (not an affair) that could irreparably harm his marriage if his guilt was not faced. Fortunately, he chose to work on his guilt with me and initiated some truth-telling conversations with his wife. His expression of remorse proved to be one of the turning points in his floundering marriage.

Tip to therapists: if you feel pulled in a certain direction, based on your sense of what the client most needs in a moment, listen to that prompt. Perhaps share with the client why you feel pulled; or simply stick with your intuition and check out the client’s response to your endeavors, i.e. does the material go deeper? Or one might seek permission to continue a path of exploration. While we have certain guideposts that most of us rely upon and that we teach in our training, each relational moment is always unchartered territory. This is what can make our work such an amazing discovery and joy. I love learning what the moment has to teach.

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SHAME IN THE THERAPIST

A friend and advisor recently sent me a most moving piece of spiritual writing, believed to be Native American origin. If you care to read it, see below. Little did my friend realize how timely his message would be! The prayer mentions shame and in our training program that very day, we as a group shared aspects of our shame experiences, which drew us very close to one another.

Each month that I train, I ask for inspirational guidance and it usually comes. Therefore, no training event is manualized, though it has structure. This time I was led to chew on one of the teaching principles in DEFT, which states that DEFT “Actively attends to the therapist’s state of well-being.” This means that self-compassion needs to extend in both directions in the therapeutic dyad. I began thinking how we place such emphasis on skills and the dictates of theory but so little on the impact of shame within the therapist that can be triggered when we are devalued, dismissed, seen to be ineffectual, or seem powerless to bring about the results we’d hoped for. Or when we think we’re not as good as a colleague or teacher and feel the sting of envy.

Shame afflicts us not only in our offices but also in our training programs, when we are embarrassed because we don’t know as much as someone else and we cringe realizing that gaps in our knowledge will be exposed in our public discussions, role-playing and group supervision. Our shame leads to fear that we will be identified by our struggles and labeled as lacking forevermore. We may bravely show a piece of work to get help with it, but then we fear that our colleagues will hold on to those impressions and draw negative conclusions about us, as we also do towards ourselves. Even though we know that there are deeply gratifying periods in our work, that aspect recedes from consciousness.

My premise is that the way we deal with our shame experiences holds as much weight in our effectiveness as a therapist as the skills we are learning. I wish to put forth that working with our own shame as we train with other colleagues is one of the most valuable uses of the training experience. This involves attending not only to content but also to the process that takes place as we attempt to absorb that content. How do we get the most from our training or stay attuned to our client when our hearts are pounding, our hands are sweating, and sometimes we can’t even think clearly? Maybe our mind is actively engaged in devaluing us viciously.

It happened to me the other day at a lecture I had attended. I was moved to share something of a personal nature and held up my hand twice. The speaker looked past me both times. I battled internally about giving up, and my hands began to sweat. For a brief period, I couldn’t follow what others were saying. Ultimately, I retreated. I would like our training program to be a place that encourages us to share these distressing experiences so that we might help each other to nurture ourselves in our shame states and move beyond them.

Let us remember that shame dissipates when there is awareness of it; when we allow ourselves to share and work with our shame; when we make course corrections that may be indicated; and when we really take in that a mistake or shortcoming does not define us… that there is far more to us than the thing we are ashamed of. Even really big things that are or have been sources of excruciating shame can be separated from, like leaving a sinking ship and walking onto land, taking new steps afresh and anew, able to forgive and accept ourselves no matter the humiliating source of shame.

Last Saturday at training, something told me to address the omnipresent undercurrent of shame that stifles our speech, participation and self-exposure. These very same forces that smother us in our training do the same in our offices. It takes a great leap of faith in ourselves to stand with what we are learning and go against powerful character habits that exist in most of us. These are habits that pull us into compliance and into pleasing our clients so they don’t have to deal with the discomfort of going into new territory either. However, since the very mastery that we envy and want for ourselves demands that we come into relationship with our own shame and work with it actively and caringly, wouldn’t it be even better to practice our own inner shame work with loving colleagues? Must we feel so alone?

I began to share with my training group about my own shame journey and that I’d been noticing I was more tolerant of my shame states than I once was. I told about an experience at a recent professional meeting led by an eminent and famous teacher, and he’d said something that made me think he’d misunderstood me and may have thought I knew less than I did. Of course, what I know was not the relevant topic but rather my concern that he and the group underestimate what I knew. There was a time I would have felt compelled to correct his misperception or withdrawn and agonized that this had occurred. But this time I rather rapidly let it go. Just having a choice was refreshingly freeing.

I also teach with tapes sometimes that were created years earlier. Though still illustrating powerful teaching points, I see things that I would do quite differently today. It’s been wonderful to present these tapes and publicly assess what still works effectively and also discuss what calls for improvement and why. It becomes possible to have a non-defensive discussion about this without my needing to hide. On more than one occasion, my trainees have said they appreciated that I could admit aspects of my work that I no longer like.

Over the years I’ve learned some tough lessons that came from overexposure in professional forums. When there had been critical or dismissive responses, I felt compelled to set the record straight, so to speak. But my struggle to clarify and be understood only discomforted others and dug the problem deeper. While I don’t regret speaking up, my lesson was to release conflicts more quickly that can’t be resolved and share with kindred people with whom there is not such a struggle to be understood.

An amazing process unfolded in our training this past Saturday as person after person began to share vulnerability after vulnerability, sometimes with tears in the eyes, as we asked each other for help or empathy for our painful self-doubts that could be so discouraging. The spirit in the room shifted to something very alive and beautiful and deeply connected. One person asked rhetorically, “Was this group special today?” This is a good place to share with you this wonderful Native American piece:

Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.

American Indian – Lakota – Chief Yellow Lark – 1887

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Surmounting Shame

As many of you know, I’ve had a particular interest in studying shame on a case-by-case basis for at least 15 years. Shame is now emerging from the shadows in the therapeutic world, as more therapists are writing and teaching on this topic and the empirical research is burgeoning. I’m excited to discuss and illustrate how I work with shame in two upcoming presentations featuring analysis of recorded clinical material:

Shame in Psychotherapy: Bringing Theory to Life

Susan Warshow, LCSW, LMFT

June 25-26 2015, Aarhus, Denmark

Information/Registration: sonne@aarhuspsykologerne.dk

Penetrating Defenses and Surmounting Shame

Susan Warshow and Jon Frederickson

Sept. 26-27 2015, Los Angeles, CA

Information/Registration: www.ceuregistration.com

Shame derives either from not being seen or being seen as unworthy… and left alone to crash about with emotions that can only be resolved through connection to a caring other. Shame is one of the most torturous emotions to experience and can be highly delicate to respond to therapeutically. It’s been my consistent observation that when the feeling of shame can be brought to immediate awareness, in a manner that evokes tenderness and compassion for self, there is noticeable relief from tension and anxiety. This includes both client and therapist shame.

I’ve had a number of exchanges with colleagues who hold the view that shame equals self-attack and that we want to help the client to turn against this self-punishing process, e.g. “Now you attack yourself with shame.” While there is often self-devaluation involved with shame and there is unquestionable efficacy to this theory, we might also ask, “Who is doing the devaluing?” There is evidence that this collapse or retraction of self can occur in infancy and throughout life as an implicit state of being with non-verbal manifestations.

Allan Schore describes a “surface, verbal, conscious, analytic explicit self vs. a deeper nonverbal, non-conscious, holistic, emotional corporeal implicit self.” He states, “The ongoing paradigm shift from the explicit cognitive to the implicit affective realm is driven by both new experimental data on emotional processes and updated clinical models for working with affective systems.”  A defenseless child or infant incorporates shame as a bodily experience and body memory, e.g. an instant introjection of the scathing or disgusted expression on another’s face, especially when the experience is repetitive. The verbal conceptualization is a secondary process. For me, understanding shame through this lens captures the complexity and the relational component to the shame experience more completely than the concept of “self attack.”

The first tape that I presented at an International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association conference showed a painful, painstaking process in which the male client was trying to tell me with great difficulty about a shameful, self-defiling behavior. Dr. Robert Neborsky told me that he felt a change moment occurred when I expressed unscripted, deeply felt, spontaneous sadness over his self-harming actions. A wordless world of feeling was communicated through the eyes, an antidote to the unseeing eyes of his mother. These moments form new body memories.

Communication experts have long recommended we not use “you messages” because “you” messages have a tendency to make people more defensive. Sometimes when we say, “Now you attack yourself with shame,” our client may respond with “Not only am I ashamed of my failure but now I am also ashamed of shaming and attacking myself.” There are many ways to help a client to transcend shame states both non-verbally and verbally, especially with careful attention to language and prosody. I will illustrate this process with video and lecture when I speak on this topic in more depth in my upcoming presentations on shame. How about using our creativity to think about more shame sensitive ways to comment on shame? E.g, “How sad this sense of unworthiness seeped into your body from the time you were a small boy, and now it feels like a real part of you. Someone must have passed this on to you but have you considered you no longer have to carry this raggedy robe around with you for the rest of your life?” Or a shorter version: “So would you say that we’re seeing that learned shame mechanism attacking you again?” “How do you feel about this? How would you want to respond to it?”

I previously mentioned therapist shame, which can be just as virulent as the client’s. I’ve often been asked to show my mistakes and fumbles in my video recorded material and to show sessions that didn’t work. The reason for this is intuitively obvious. We want reassurance that we are not alone with our struggles to perform as therapists and also to feel hopeful is spite of our shortcomings.

In my upcoming Denmark presentation, I decided to show a mix of older and newer work and to explore how my work has developed over the years as I sought to make my interventions more shame-sensitive. As I watched some of my earlier work, my language and tone actually made me cringe a bit. Sometimes even more than a bit. There might be a rushed quality to my voice, when the client had just shared something that was particularly embarrassing for him… and my mind was recapping something in a very left brained, clipped kind of way… “So what I hear you saying is…” Fortunately, those particular clients looked past my moments of flawed embodied attunement and improved anyway. But that wasn’t always true. Working with shame sensitivity has increased my therapeutic results.

Often, those times when we’re off the mark occur because our own shame avoidance, driven by the quest to “do the right thing,” drives us out of the moment and into our heads and agendas, missing important cues that are right in front of us. Recently I did a supervision session with a very talented therapist, and because she had a particular agenda in mind, she sped past the client’s mention of feelings of guilt. Our performance expectations cause us to speed up, when what is really helpful is to slow down.

We all know that therapists are just as human and vulnerable as the next person, though this often surprises people. Not only do others have higher expectations of us, but we often do as well. Shame can attack quite viciously when we lose a client, get lost in a session or experience harsh devaluation from a client. Therapist shame is also often activated when we are exposed to the work of some of the true geniuses in our field. One aspect of their greatness may be that they do what only they can do… be themselves. Their personality, even quirkiness and idiosyncrasies, sometimes comes through in dramatic and creative ways. They may say something we couldn’t imagine saying. Or they do something that would never seem natural coming from us. While we can learn great principles from them, there are some things we cannot reproduce effectively because it wouldn’t be us. Their vocabulary isn’t ours, their inflection is different and the way they would express something may not work for us.

This does not mean we shouldn’t study the skill set of these great teachers carefully, but we should really try to refrain from pushing ourselves to mimic them. Often theoretical breakthroughs become codified into a system from which one dare not deviate, as the system becomes the gold standard and all else is lacking. When we hold this view, it only activates our own shame and quashes our unique creativity. Shame and creativity are not likely to co-exist.

I can tell you from my own experience that it is possible to reverse our shame-driven tendencies through conscious awareness and having the intention to surmount them. We need to remember again and again that nothing is more valuable than being authentic and staying present in the moment. With these operating, we heighten our perceptiveness and release our creative intuition, thereby elevating our work.

When we move into a space of truly not requiring anything from our clients, including their “growth” or approval of our work, an exciting new space for unlimited exploration emerges. We can begin to enjoy and appreciate every tiny step towards true connection and self-disclosure, such as when a client can reflect upon his resistance in a new way or reveals annoyance with us for the first time… all can be seen and commented upon as hopeful developments. We no longer value only the big unlockings but also the little unlockings of intimacy, and this will create more satisfaction in our work. While I will still encourage the option to delve deeper into underlying feeling, as an alternative to learned restraints, I will no longer attach an implication of failure about the choices a client makes. They are simply choices and no one needs to be judged because of them.

A group of therapists were having a discussion inspired by Allan Schore’s recent evocative presentation at a UCLA conference, which he entitled “The Right Brain in Therapeutic Creativity, Connection, and Play.” They mentioned Big C and little c creativity, which I supposed was like a Van Gogh painting compared to one of my flower arrangements. While there is obvious validity in the distinction, something in me rebelled against linking the words “little” and “creativity,” as all creativity, including a therapist’s creativity, has a value that cannot be quantified. To do so can move us towards shame, and the following process that is beautifully described by Jean Baker Miller, MD, founder of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Stone Center, may become less likely:

“Most important of all, the therapist needs to learn how to participate in the therapy relationship in such a way that she facilitates “movement in relationship.” How does she do this? If she is really present and authentic, she will be moved, i.e. feel with the patient’s expression of her experience. If the therapist can make it known that she is moved, the patient will be moved, i.e. feel with the therapist feeling with her. The patient, thus, has the very valuable chance to know that her thoughts and feelings do reach another person, do matter and can be part of a mutual experience (Miller and Stiver, 1997). We think that this is the key source of change in therapy. It is so important because the basic trouble has been the disconnections in which the patient has little or no possibility of having an authentic effect on the disconnecting relationship.”

I’d like to share a bit of a transcript from a dialogue with a client that would not have transpired had either of us been in a state of shame or restricted receptivity to the moment. During treatment, she had shared with me her rage at God for apparently abandoning her almost at birth, leading to a state of despair. She’d had a violent, alcoholic father and a narcissistic, absent mother. After working with her rage towards her parents, something moved me to also explore her rage towards God, an avenue that is sometimes discouraged in the traditional therapeutic community. However, my interest helped her to have the experience of having all parts of her seen and held, which led to the following exchange:

Pt: I’m so grateful that someone cares…

Th: Me.

Pt: You.

Th: Me. Yes.

Pt: Somebody wants to help.

Th: Thank you so much. That’s such a beautiful feeling. Gratitude.

Pt: Thank you.

Th: You are so welcome. It’s such a privilege for me. You’re so worth helping. It’s striking isn’t it? This is another force. You talked about your rage at God. “How could God let this happen?” And now we see that God lets this happen too… would you say?

Pt: Yeah.

Th: I feel like the caring that I feel…(the caring) that comes through me…is very big. I feel it very big towards you. And I also feel like it’s coming through me…like it’s me, and its bigger than me. How does it feel to hear me say that?

Pt: It feels believable. I feel that too. Like if I look in your eyes, I don’t see just you. I see…or I feel a very—like a timeless sense of caring, eternal compassion and connection.

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Shame-Sensitive Defense Interventions as Developed by DEFT (Dynamic Emotion Focused Therapy)

Scroll down to read about the “contagion of shame” (Morrison, Herman). Check out new Gallery photos! Hope to get new training videos posted soon.

WEBINAR on Compassionate Interventions
to Dissolve Defenses

You and your friends are happily invited to attend two of my upcoming events this week and next. It’s my great pleasure to be presenting a Webinar again through the ISTDP Institute with my brilliant colleague, Jon Frederickson, on October 19, 2012,12-3 pm EST. You can register at www.istdpinstitute.com.

I plan to illustrate my own therapeutic style through role plays dealing with specific defenses with Jon Frederickson aimed at dissolving defenses in cooperation with the client. I hope to demonstrate the conveyance of compassion through carefully selected language, vocal tone, facial expression and other aspects of neurobiological attunement. There are other factors too, like how we promote a sense of equality, build upon client strengths and create a felt partnership through healing attachment and authentic, egalitarian relationship between client and therapist.

“Going Slow to Accelerate Later” at LACPA

Also, please join me for my presentation on mindfulness, “Going Slow to Accelerate Later,” as it applies to Dynamic Emotion-Focused Therapy (DEFT) at an LA County Psychological Association event. Follow the link to register.

I’m loving the expansion of the DEFT/EDT community here in L.A., and feel extremely fortunate to have such great therapists participating! May everyone enjoy the fabulous photos added to the Gallery page, contributed by DEFT participants, as thoroughly as I have, as they capture our joy in learning and in supporting each other on this journey. I also thank each participant for your feedback on the program, which just keeps inspiring me to make the DEFT training better and better.

 “CONTAGION OF SHAME” IN THE CONSULTING ROOM AND IN TRAINING 

In our September and October training, we dove into the riveting topic of shame as it affects both clients and their therapists… and also myself (perfectionism perhaps?) as I’ve tackled the daunting task of sharing DEFT/EDT with high-aspiration therapists! Curiously, I’ve had some serious shame attacks myself while taking on this most central subject affecting our work. I endure my own performance anxiety/shame issues for one reason only … this work begs to be shared!

It also strikes me that my own shame experiences may actually be helping me to be even more empathic and attuned to the experience of therapists in training who doubt their competence. Seasoned therapists also have self-doubt and I believe that appropriate humility has advantages for all of us.

One of the topics we covered was “adaptive aspects of shame.”  Epstein & Falconier: “[Shame] can motivate people to make positive change.” There is truth in the statement that the more you know, the more you know what you don’t know… which is an invaluable motivator. Therapists tell me it would be helpful for me to show session material that reveals my own struggles and I plan to do so in future trainings.

That being said, we can all celebrate those times when we really make a difference in people’s lives and we have reason to feel deeply gratified to be informed by such great thinkers and scientists as Sigmund Freud, MD, Habib Davanloo, MD, and many others.

It was my awareness of the shame experience in my clients that drove me over the past 10 years to painstakingly craft defense interventions to reflect the most sensitive language, to communicate equality with the client by sometimes revealing myself and eschewing the role of expert, and to convey the compassion that I truly feel around the pain of shame.

I also feel strongly that we are better when we avoid language that is directive or overbearing, “You need to..,” “You must…” “We will…” and remember to ask permission and to honor client choice. This does not have to be cumbersome to the process, as therapists tend to think, and it goes a long way towards building self regard, sense of self and reducing compliance. I know of clients who gained symptom reduction in treatment but retained the same degree of co-dependency/compliance and I think our therapeutic stance can have an impact on this. Generally speaking, “You Messages” provoke shame… “You’re doing it again…,” “You’ve forgotten…,” even perhaps “You treat yourself like you’re nothing.” As i write, I ask myself, could it be preferable to say, “After all those years of being treated like you don’t count, it’s no wonder you have learned to treat yourself as though this is true. Do you see what I mean?” “How is it for you inside to see this so clearly with me?” and “It’s so great you want to turn this around!” Of course, tone of voice and facial expressions are HUGE in their impact on how our communications are received. Do we lean forward or do we appear disengaged? How about an occasional comforting smile or look of compassion?

It was my pleasure to write an article entitled “Slaying the Serpent of Shame” and it contains transcript material on the treatment of a chronically depressed, anxious patient. It appeared in Volume 11, Number 3  December 2007, Page 6, “Ad Hoc Bulletin,” an international journal of the Dutch Association for Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (the VKDP). It can be accessed through the Southern California Society for ISTDP.

Participants in our DEFT program expressed enthusiasm for this topic and all of us felt that something powerful occurred as we supported each other to deal with our own internal shame experiences. We discovered that as we do this, our own performance anxiety is reduced and we are therefore more able to be mindfully present for our clients.

SENSITIVITY TO SHAME ON LISTSERVE AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

It’s become something of a mission with me to support a therapeutic community that helps each other to refrain from shaming either ourselves or each other. Toxic shame is poisonous to any person or group. Recently, I felt personally challenged to find ways to address communications that I found to be shaming and devaluing on a list serve without engaging in the shaming of others or myself. How do we request that something be changed or corrected without sounding critical? It’s tough. And there’s always the punitive superego, doing its projection thing, that may misinterpret… not to mention the great difficulty communicating feelings electronically. I also want to say here, for the record, that I plead guilty to erring in choice (and quantity) of words at times and that I am by no means above anyone else in needing to work in this area. I didn’t entirely succeed at my endeavors but some very good things did evolve for me personally as a result of taking the risks of exposure, such as some deepening relationships and also learning a lot from the experience.

Brene Brown, Ph.D., had fascinating findings about the links between showing vulnerability and connection to others. Certainly when we communicate in a public forum about a controversial subject, there is indeed vulnerability. And also benefits!

Stadter tells us, “Therapists are vulnerable to shaming and being shamed by clients.”    I would add that we are vulnerable to shaming ourselves and each other professionally as well. I have always encouraged my therapists in training to use the listserve as a resource. I may not always be available to answer their questions and others on the listserve can add valuable perspectives. It also takes considerable repetition of certain principles before they really sink into our minds. But some who posted questions about their cases were told to “speak to their supervisor.” It struck me that these are sophisticated people who don’t need to be told they can call their supervisor and who have made an inquiry on the list serve to explore additional ways of understanding their clients. Practically speaking, many therapists don’t have the funds for both training and a lot of supervision. So, it concerned me that these individuals might interpret that reaching out to the list serve was somehow inappropriate and that such information should only be obtained through supervision. Seems to me that a good use for a list serve is to share our expertise with one another and to also normalize our self doubts by sharing our vulnerabilities with each other. There were other areas that also aroused my concern even more and I hope that the lengthy discussion will bear some fruit along the way.

Gilbert tells us “Shame may be a major reason that important material is not disclosed during supervision.” Indeed, this is a clarion call to all of us who teach and supervise to heighten our sensitivity to shame inducing language and tone and to bring shame into the light of awareness for our therapists in training and for ourselves. Interesting, I’m finding myself using the phrase “therapists in training” rather than “trainees”  as “trainee” creates an impression to me that doesn’t reflect the advanced knowledge and experience that many “trainees” have. Also, I advocate that teachers of the work promote a sense of equality and collegiality with the therapists we teach, showing a willingness to share our own limitations and stumbles, and also appreciating the way that our colleagues in training often teach us too.

And finally, I agree with the following statement:

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