CLassES

Psychology is basically a degree in professional suffering. For all the millions of pages of dense literature, the whole science hinges on a single, agonizing trick: extreme empathy. We are trained to absorb our clients' agony, a job description I am fundamentally unsuited for.

Today’s clinical lab was on Gestalt therapy. Specifically, we had to facilitate the "Empty Chair" technique—a brutal exercise where a client faces an (you guessed it) Empty Chair, imagines their abuser or parent sitting there, and then verbally unloads a lifetime of repressed trauma. As the student-therapists, our job was to circle around her, channeling a safe, parental aura.

Our first volunteer chose to confront her mother. It started slowly, but then it was as if she physically devolved into a child. Her body posture collapsed; she made herself incredibly small, leaning forward and looking up helplessly at the empty chair. At first, she spoke in a low murmur. Then, as the tears flooded in, she could barely string three words together without gasping for air. We could all feel the raw source of her pain hemorrhaging into the room in a terrifying array of screeches and gargled words. I’m really not much of a crier, but this hit incredibly close to home. The whole class sat in a circle, trapped in her shoes, drowning in her grief.

I can't do this for a living, I thought. There's no way.

But right at the peak of my existential dread, I found it: the holy grail of clinical detachment. The secret to keeping my emotions in check. As she desperately leaned forward to hug the imaginary representation of her mother, it appeared.

Her butt crack.

My tears evaporated, and I had to deploy maximum facial discipline to keep from smiling. Gus Hansen would be proud of my poker face.

I guess the key to emotional boundaries in therapy is just making sure your clients wear a belt.