Through the Therapist's Lens 01: When your Clients Make you Cry!
For those of you who have been following my MPhil Diaries, thank you for all the love and support — your kindness has meant so much to me.
I’m excited to start a new series: Through the Lens of a Therapist, where I’ll share personal reflections and insights from the therapy space. Not many therapists openly talk about their inner experiences, but I believe that in a field often centered around the "I," a stronger sense of "we" can create ripples of change. By ensuring to protect the confidentiality and privacy of my clients (as nothing beats ethics and values in my practice)
Sharing our stories not only bridges connections but reminds us that growth is a collective journey. So, this is my small step toward the change I hope to see in our profession. I hope this space becomes a source of learning, reflection, and shared wisdom for all of us. Let’s grow together. ??
Being trained in Counseling Psychology and certified in psychotherapy gives me the privilege of guiding clients through their healing journeys. But beyond the techniques and frameworks, therapy for me is a deeply meditative space — a place where I step into my clients’ world, feel their reality, and walk alongside them as we explore what weighs them down.
I’ve had the honor of witnessing clients take brave steps toward growth, and I am but a small part of their path to becoming their better selves. Yet, some sessions leave an indelible mark on my soul — this is about a series of such significant moments.
Some clients come to therapy disillusioned. They had experienced therapy before and walked away feeling unheard, skeptical about whether this process could truly help them. Sometimes, conversations in therapy space drift into existential and spiritual realms — life and death, the inevitability of suffering, the illusion of purpose, and concepts like detachment and the need for it all. Many times, my training and therapeutic techniques hit a dead end because some clients' worldview is so intricate, so rare. They don’t seek coping mechanisms; they are seeking meaning in a world that often felt meaningless to them.
There are sessions where I simply sit with clients, watching their minds unravel, witnessing their pain and profound reflections. The therapist in me gets humbled every time by the magnitude of their thoughts, and I often wondered: how do you help someone when even the idea of hope feels distant? But we kept showing up. Session after session, we navigated the chaos together, searching for even the faintest glimmer of light.
And then, one day, something shifts.
For the first time in the therapeutic journey, the client may speak about what could be done with life — what might make existence worthwhile. It wasn’t a grand epiphany, but a fragile, tentative spark. When I reflect this to the clients, they are usually taken aback, almost unaware of the shift they make. At that moment, something cracked open within me.
My body tingles with emotion, my eyes well up, and my voice softens. As therapists, we are trained to regulate our emotions, to hold space without letting our feelings overflow. But this wasn’t a moment to suppress — it was a profoundly human experience. Tears of joy, compassion, and relief flowed through me as I witnessed clients who had long been lost in the labyrinth of their thoughts take a small, but monumental step forward.
I take a moment to tell them how much that moment meant to me — how it reminded me of the humanness at the core of this work. It was a testament to the power of persistence, the sacredness of holding space, and the quiet magic of simply walking with someone through their darkness, even when neither of you knows where the path leads.
What I hope you take away from this story is:
Because sometimes, in that shared silence, something shifts — for them and for you!