Psychology: Dear therapist, do psychologists have one on the waffle themselves?

interview

asked
Do therapists actually have one on the waffle themselves?

Good cooks are not slim, pilots sleep with stewardess food and psychologists have one on the waffle themselves. Clichés about professions are a dime a dozen and journalists only write in metaphors anyway. Having just proved the latter, I’m inclined to believe that there is a grain of truth in some stereotypes…

That’s nonsense, of course: As far as I know, the waist circumference usually says nothing about the cooking skills and there are certainly loyal people in the aviation industry. But what about the therapists out there? I’ll present the next thesis in a moment and claim that almost every one of them has had to listen to the cliché of their own insanity at least once. And the next thing is that it wouldn’t be so bad if they had experienced psychological problems as well – after all, we’re trying to value mental health just as much as physical ones, and depression can be caught just as easily as a cold by certain circumstances.

But my own theses don’t get us any closer to the answer, because I’m a journalist and not a therapist, which is why I do what is clichéd in my job: I ask. And the things you really don’t like to ask.

Luckily I have a therapist ready who doesn’t take offense at the somewhat impolite question. Andrea vorm Walde is the name of the good lady and she is a coach and psychological consultant – which makes her the ideal research candidate for me. So I just ask Andrea directly at our current contact:

“Hand on heart, do therapists have one on the waffle themselves?”

This is followed by a laugh, I’m lucky because she takes the question with humor. Better still, she is familiar with it: “Haha, I’ve often thought that myself. I could tell a few stories…”, Andrea begins, but then shows loyalty to her colleagues and gets serious: “It is maybe there’s a bit of truth to that, because a lot of people who get into psychology do it because they’ve gotten to know it first-hand.”

Lights up. Anyone who has had to experience the vastness of their own psyche – and its pitfalls – often only really thinks about how important it is for our lives. I understand that this creates a passion that you then turn into a job.

Nonetheless, there is no need to be afraid of the cliché that the patient and psychologist then tend to treat each other: “Of course, every therapist is obliged to take a certain number of therapy sessions of their own,” Andrea explains to me, “so that’s at least clear that we’ve all shed some light on our own ‘quirks’ quite well.”

Then it can actually be an advantage if the treating person has already laid on the couch himself: “Own experiences often strengthen understanding for others,” interjects Andrea, because: “Empathy is a basic requirement anyway, (a good one) to become a therapist. But the more I’m ‘on the waffle’ myself, i.e. the more abysses I know, the better I can empathize with patients. To be honest: when I’m heartbroken, the best thing to do is to have someone help me who knows how painful it is, isn’t it?” It’s correct. That’s how it is with weakness in general: We often prefer to show it to people who don’t always signal strength themselves.

My conclusion: For me, the idea that psychologists have to carry their own baggage is a mix of wishful thinking and self-disclosure. Because on the one hand, the thought takes the barrier between omniscient therapists and helpless patients – and puts them on the same level again. Second, it’s always easier for us to look for the madness in others than ourselves, isn’t it?

Guido