Our society is highly polarized by political and cultural issues. This touches all of us on some level and has the potential to impact the therapy process as well. How a therapist handles this is not only important for our clients’ trust or sense of safety, but it also may be therapeutically useful or not. So I’d like to share how I work with political issues when they come up in my therapy practice.
My clients’ well being and growth is always my priority, and this takes precedence over any political disagreement we may have. I generally don’t share my own opinions about political issues, unless it serves a therapeutic purpose to do so, because my role is to help my clients explore their thoughts and feelings, not to promote my own views. I have clients with a wide range of perspectives, and I appreciate and empathize with the unique ways that they are affected by what is going on in the world.
The type of therapy that I practice encourages self-exploration, and this can include looking into how one is being impacted by society. In addition, societal conflicts often evoke feelings from our personal history, and this may be reflected in our political positions. Therapy provides an opportunity to look inwards and see where our opinions and feelings are coming from.
I believe that therapists do a disservice to our clients if we engage in political debate, or simply reinforce our client’s existing positions, while avoiding the deeper issues, such as the meaning of those views to the person, and the unconscious feelings that may be underneath. No matter what someone’s political perspective is, if they are willing to look into the feelings underlying their positions, they will probably gain new insight into themselves. This is true even when circumstances in society are very challenging. In these times, therapy clients have an opportunity to explore how they are being affected internally, so that they can face the situation with maximal clarity and self-awareness.
In order for therapists to effectively work with clients who have different political views, we need to have awareness of our own emotional reactivity in relation to politics. We have a responsibility to understand how our feelings about politics, such as our own righteousness, outrage, or fear, might impact our clinical work. I also believe it is helpful for therapists to avoid limiting ourselves to an “information bubble,” in which we are only exposed to people and news sources which reinforce our existing views, making it harder for us to understand those who think differently.
Therapists tend to be passionate about helping others, which often coincides with having strong political views. However, we must have the space within ourselves to accept differences of opinion, and the capacity to appreciate how everyone’s views make sense based upon their life experience and individual psychological dynamics. If a therapist decides to share their own perspective with a client it needs to be because there would be a therapeutic benefit to doing so.
