Raised by My Clients: What They’ve Taught Me About Healing
After our first session, she looks at me and says:
“You are so normal.”
I smile back, a little surprised, and ask, “I am? Do you want to say a bit more about that?”
She laughs and explains she’s not used to people like me (psychologists, therapists) being so… human.
I hear this so often now, and I love it. But I didn’t always.
You see, to become a counselling psychologist, we train for years. At least seven, often longer, to ensure we know how to practice safely, how to sit with pain, and how to listen deeply.
We are required to be in our own therapy, take part in personal and professional development groups, and undergo constant evaluation. It’s rigorous, and in many ways, it has to be.
So when I was newly qualified and a client told me I seemed “so human,” a part of me bristled. That’s it? After all the years of study, training, and work?
It took me a while to realise that being “so human” is not a small thing at all. In fact, it’s the work.
The Gift of Letting People Matter
When I was training in the early 2000s, everyone I trained with was reading Irvin Yalom’s The Gift of Therapy. I’ve read it over and over, but the line I’ve never forgotten is:
“I urge you to let your patients matter to you, to let them enter your mind, influence you, change you — and not to conceal this from them.”
At the time, I thought I understood it. But years of sitting with people has deepened that knowing beyond anything I could have learned during my training.
I’ve realised something: I haven’t just worked with my people. I’ve been raised by them.
Each person has shifted me. They’ve taught me about courage I didn’t know existed, about grief that reshapes a life, about joy that still finds its way in.
The people that show up to work with me have changed me.
Not always in a warm, gentle way. It has sometimes been hard. I’ve had to face mistakes I’ve made and the places in my internal world that still needed tending to.
Being Shaped in the Moment
I remember a conversation with my mentor, Bonnie Badenoch, about a client who lived with relentless self-criticism. We talked about how you can’t simply will yourself out of self-hatred — these parts have protective roles.
The only way they truly soften is to experience compassion, to be loved out of it.
Bonnie writes beautifully about what she calls the relational field, the invisible, living space between two people in connection. It’s more than just building rapport. It’s an embodied, moment-by-moment exchange shaped by our nervous systems, our histories, and our capacity for presence.
We are not separate observers, sitting back as “fixed” professionals. We are participants in an ever-evolving process, being subtly shaped by each other through co-regulation, empathy, and attunement.
For the therapist, this means letting yourself be moved. Not as a boundary violation, but as an act of shared humanity.
For the person we are with, it often means feeling seen and felt for the first time.
The Neuroscience of ‘Being Human’
Through mirror neurons, our brains are wired to feel what the other person is experiencing.
In therapy, our nervous systems are in quiet dialogue:
My calm, grounded state can be “borrowed” by your nervous system, even without words.
Your presence shapes me too. I feel your grief, joy, or courage deep in my body. And I want to be with you in it, to hold your hand, to be safe enough for you.
This mutual influence builds a co-regulating field where safety is felt, not just talked about.
So when a client says I feel “human,” what they’re really noticing is something their nervous system already knows: I’m not standing apart, analysing from a distance. I’m here, with them, and in those moments, our internal worlds are quietly communicating.
Keeping the Heart Open
It’s not always easy. Being human with someone in pain asks you to keep your heart open when everything in you might want to protect it. But I’ve learned that openness is where the work happens.
And honestly, it is far less tiring than trying to avoid feeling, or trying to be the one who always knows.
I get to walk with wonderful humans to places they don’t want to take anyone else. I get to witness tenderness and gentleness arriving for the first time.
I’ve been raised by people who didn’t think they could go on, but did anyway.
When my clients say I’m ‘so normal,’ what they’re really saying is: you’ve let me matter to you. And that, in turn, has made me more of who I am.
Funnily enough, it is probably the least ‘normal’ experience many people will ever have, to be truly heard and listened to.
With so much care,
If you want to keep reading, here are some other blogs.
“Why I Write: What You Will Find Here” — for reflecting on presence, healing, voice, attunement.
“Nothing is Something: Why am I so sad all the time?” — touching on invisible or quiet suffering.
“Will I ever feel good enough? — The Story of Self-Worth” — perfect to reference emotional worthiness themes.
“Sneaky Burnout” — to knot in discussions of exhaustion, nervous system, adaptation.
“My Anxiety Creeps Inside of Me” — great for illustrating embodied anxiety experiences.
“What to Expect When Starting Therapy?” — useful for linking readers to practical “first steps” info.
