Not sure when to stop therapy or how to bring up feedback with your therapist if it’s not working out? It’s common for clients to have a hard time talking to their therapist about things that concern therapy directly. Here, LA therapist Kim Bielak shares a few tips for having difficult conversations with your therapist, and a few things to keep in mind.
The minute people suspect a partner is cheating, they often start to investigate. They ask questions like “Where were you?” “Who were you with?” and “Why didn’t you answer my call?” These questions can often put the accused party on defense, and become frustrated or even avoid the questions all together, only further adding to their partners concern.
Whether or not you’ve been in therapy before, it can actually be quite hard to know what to expect when you start with a new therapist. In a way it’s a lot like dating (we are talking about a real relationship here). And, just like every client is unique, every therapist is also going to be a bit different from the next.
Moreover, when a new client walks through my door, I also don’t know exactly what our sessions will hold. I can’t know what unforeseen incident is going to hit an unexpected wound, the places they might not be ready to take me to for months - even years - into our work, or the parts of our work for them that will feel like a hit, and the parts that will feel like a flop…
Clients often come to me looking for a way to “get rid of” their anxiety. Even if most people know it’s not realistic to think they’ll do away with it forever, their underlying intention is to “fix” their anxiety, “overcome” their anxiety, and get themselves to a place where they won’t have to “deal” with anxiety anymore.
The truth is, you’re never going to just “get rid of” anxiety. It’s kind of like saying you can just get rid of sadness. Sadness will come and go many times in your life, and quite frankly I don’t think we’d want a life completely without it…
I was recently invited to share my thoughts on codependency on fellow therapist Marissa Esqibel’s, podcast, “The Codependummy Podcast,” based on my experience as a clinician working with individuals and couples. And it got me thinking - rarely do I use the word “codependent” when working with clients because - like many terms in the mental health field - it’s become quite heavy with pre-existing stigma and negative connotation.
And yet one of my favorite things about our conversation was the opportunity to normalize the idea of codependency - explaining how it makes sense that people often enter relationships this way, and even share some personal experiences related to codependency of my own.
"Just tell me what to do."
It's one of the most common things I find my clients saying without - you know - actually saying. Sometimes it's a look in their eye, as they long for me to be the one to save them from the uncomfortable silence. Sometimes it's a subtle sense of frustration in their voice, as they recalibrate their expectations around what they thought therapy would be. And, of course, there are the clients that just lay everything out in front of me and ask: "So now what?"
News flash: You don't find the perfect career. You CREATE your perfect career.
One of the biggest patterns I've picked up in my own work with clients is that most people simply accept their roles at face value. They resign themselves to what their managers tell them to do. They feel like they have to "settle" until they finally land their dream job. They never think to negotiate a role, because that's not how it works, right?
Actually, it is…
Clients often come to me in the middle of a big decision: whether or not to pursue a career change, go back to school, accept a certain offer, etc.
First, I encourage you to destroy the idea that you will ever "know" with 100% certainty what you should do next, or that there is one "right" direction at all. However, there are decisions and lives that will feel more fulfilling, authentic, and satisfying than others, and there are many different ways of tapping the information and intelligence that will guide you closer to them.
We call these different ways of knowing…
I always find it interesting that no matter what advances we make in technology, productivity, and even standards of living, we somehow only use them to find a way to work more, rather than less. Our companies have become more competitive and often create a culture of fire drills, staying late, and answering emails at night and over the weekend. Even our "leisure time" has become productive - whether it be a side hustle, something we can post on Instagram, or meditating 20 minutes twice a day because we're told it makes us better.
Build your career around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your career.
Have you ever stopped long enough to consider the difference? When we grow up with the question what, rather than who, we want to be when we grow up, it can become easy to conflate the career we want with the lifestyle we want without really realizing it. In fact, the career you want and the lifestyle you want can be really different, and when they come in conflict, intentional choices and compromises sometimes have to be made.
I recently picked up a copy of Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans - in part because it felt like a slightly more inspirational balance to some of my heavier reading in grad school, and in part because I thought it would be a helpful resource to eventually offer others or integrate into my lil’ career course.
I was excited to return to some of the exercises I had done throughout my whole quarterlife crisis, such as really intentionally outlining what my priorities were (i.e. work, relationships, health, spirituality…) and making sure they were in balance, but as I opened the book I found myself thinking: “Haven’t I done this already?”
Yes both optimists and pessimists alike have tended to earn bad reputations in different ways over time - from the Debbie Downer or cynical New Yorker scrooging through life, to the Pollyanna type that gets into trouble for being unrealistic and naive.
But when we dig a little deeper into the actual differences in mindset between more optimistic people and more pessimistic ones, we start to see how we, too, are constantly choosing between the subtle differences in these approaches in our everyday challenges and decisions, and just how tangible the effects of two very different perspectives can have on our greater lives.
Kim Bielak, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #143946
(310) 734-8140 | kimbielaktherapy@gmail.com | 32 S. Raymond Ave, Suite 3B, Pasadena, CA 91105
