My clients have always been my greatest teachers and my practice is shaped by each relationship
A letter to my clients
To my Beloved Clients (past, current and future)
I’ve worked in healing spaces for half of my life so far. Walking along side a wide variety of people at all different stages of their healing and growth. Me, learning and growing right alongside them as I deepened in my own healing. How does one sum up all they have learned in an entire adult lifetime immersed in wellness and healing spaces. Trying to describe the process is like trying to describe the air. Invisible, intangible, ever shifting and omnipresent.
With over fifteen years of experience working with people in pain, my greatest teachers were not the prof’s in grad school, or the endless research I had to do for the thesis I wrote, it wasn’t the classes on human development or learning about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. My greatest teachers have ALWAYS been my clients. The clients I stayed up talking to when they couldn’t sleep on my night shifts. Or the ones who were so resilient, trying at sobriety again. The ones who bravely faced their fears, their worries, or their past as we walked along side eachother. The ones who trusted me, despite being hurt by others in roles just like mine in the past. Clients who just needed a safe place to rest for a while, because the world doesn’t give everyone a fair chance. My clients have always been my greatest teachers and my practice is shaped by each relationship.
In one of my many meanderings about how to describe therapy, I was in the search for how many therapeutic modalities there are… according to the SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Counselling and Psychotherapy there are over 300 different approaches. Each claimed to have found the answer to ease human suffering. While this may hold some truth, there are answers in each of these modalities; my experience working with people has been that there is no one answer to healing. Our healing journey is as unique as our life stories.
Maybe I still can’t fully describe what I do (some words like magic, love, agape, compassion, connection come to mind) but I do have some guiding principles that I can articulate, ideas and values that bring into my work and everything I do.
As your therapist, I promise:
To provide space for you to process and explore what is going on for you
To listen for the golden threads: these are your passions, your values, and dreams and your goals - let them be your guiding light
To witness your story - every moment that you have experienced has brought you to where you are
To work with you in opposing any shame that you might be carrying. Shame hides in secrets and darkness. It is an act of rebellion to resist staying in the dark
To see you as a whole person, not by labels, symptoms, or diagnosis.
To be gentle and go slow. The therapeutic process can be scary and overwhelming, let’s not make it harder than it needs to be
To accept you for all that you are - I have no agenda for you other than to live a fulfilling life.
To remind you that there isn’t anything wrong with you.
To do my part is to deconstruct society that isn’t built for everyone to thrive.
To remind you that our society isn’t built for everyone to thrive.
To encourage you to inch closer to your truth
To amplify your voice
To help you to unlearn anything that no longer serves you
To provide a healing container for you to learn and grow.
To empower you to make the decisions that are right for you
To be aware of my own biases and let them be known as one opinion, not as the ultimate truth
To continue to grow, learn, and educate myself in areas that I am not as strong
To live in alignment with my truth
To continue to do my inner work
To go into the darkness together, so you don’t have to do it alone - It is terrain I am familiar with and comfortable in.
To be an anchor when we are in deep waters
To listen deeply and reflect what I’m hearing
To humbly accept when I am wrong
To take accountability if I have done harm
To normalize your experience- the only true experience of normal is diversity in experiences
To ask reflective questions that guide you to your own truth
To encourage you in finding your own sources of healing. Therapy is not the end, I do not hold all the answers. Healing is a multifaceted journey
Not to tell you what to do. Lessons and teachings are in every experience and can help to guide your future decisions.
To show up as the best version of myself I can be on that day - I am also moving through the ebbs and flows of life, if I’m feeling a bit off that day, I will let you know.
To remind you that your perspectives are true, valid, and real. Even if someone else thinks differently
To provide space for all of your emotions to show up. Even the ones that aren’t experienced as positive
I hope that when we work together, you can feel this. I will share the books that I read and the different theories that I stumble upon. And maybe you will find something in there that is helpful.
With every session absorb what is helpful and leave the rest behind.
with love,
Chantelle