Becoming the Therapist in the Room: Reflections on Presence, Emotion, and Humanness
Summit Counselling Blog
Becoming the Therapist in the Room: Reflections on Presence, Emotion, and Humanness
One of the most fascinating aspects of the therapy room is how it can become a place of wonder. I have noticed that it can take us into a different inner dimension. Time seems to stop or dilate, and we travel with the client to distant lands, enriching cultures, and complex universes. Each session invites us to places where suffering, resilience, meaning, and hope coexist.
As a clinician in training, I am always curious to explore those places from a different stance. In this role, I am learning to witness the process. I do not try to fix, take sides, give my opinion, or talk about my own experiences. I simply stay with the client, present in the moment. However, an important question arises: how do therapists deal with their own emotions in the room? For me, emotions have space to flow freely inwardly; however, sometimes they get stuck, and when they do, I flag them internally, set them aside, and later, after the session, I am eager to bring them to my own therapist.
This process has deepened my appreciation for the importance of therapists having their own support systems. Interestingly, I once assumed I would naturally fall into familiar friendship patterns in the therapy room, particularly when working with Portuguese-speaking clients who share a similar linguistic and cultural background. Yet that was not my experience. Years of training, personal reflection, and experiential learning had already begun shaping a different professional presence. While I am still developing my clinical identity, I trust that these foundations have given me the competence to begin this journey.
As clients journey toward themselves, we clinicians discover parts of ourselves in the work, too. We grow as we gain insights that help us align the building blocks of our practice. I realized that sometimes information comes months or years in advance, and insight follows when we are ready to be open to new perspectives. Recently, while discussing emotions with a client, I noticed an emotions wheel printed on a pillow in the therapy room. Although I had seen versions of the emotions wheel many times before, something felt different in that moment.
For the first time, I recognized that emotions are not organized hierarchically. They are not arranged by importance or divided into categories of "good" and "bad." Instead, they exist together in a circle, side by side — like Arthur's Round Table, where there is no head because everyone seated there has equal status. Our emotions are the same. Each has a place, and each belongs; without them, we would not be whole as humans. Emotions are life.
My journey toward becoming a therapist has also taught me that our relationship with emotions is closely tied to our relationship with the body and the mind. At times, I have noticed how easily thoughts and long-held beliefs can convince me that they alone know what is best. During my Hakomi training, however, I encountered the body's profound wisdom in a way that shifted my perspective. In one deeply meaningful moment, I reassured my mind with compassion. I realized she was never the smartest part of me after all. She is important, certainly, but she had been trying to carry responsibilities that were not solely hers.
In moments like this, grief visits and reminds me that emotions offer important information, while the mind offers understanding and context. Neither is superior to the other. Much like the emotions wheel itself, body, mind, and emotions sit together in a circle. Each serves a different function. Each offers a unique form of wisdom. And each contributes to a shared purpose: helping us become more fully ourselves. Some might describe this process as self-actualization. For me, another phrase feels more fitting: wholeheartedly-minded humanness — an integration of emotion, thought, and embodied experience into an authentic, compassionate, whole way of being.
As I continue making time and space for my own growth as a new therapist, I remain grateful for the opportunity to journey alongside clients. With each conversation, I learn more about the people I serve and the therapist I am becoming. Perhaps that is one of this profession's greatest gifts: as we help others discover themselves, we keep exploring parts of ourselves, too.