Why do we want to be therapist?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question: Why do I want to be therapist? Initially, I thought I had an answer — after all, it seems so clear on the surface. We want to help people, right? But as I dug deeper, I realized the answer isn't so simple. It's not just about helping others. It's about understanding ourselves, confronting our own stories, and perhaps even healing parts of us that we didn’t know were broken.

Here’s what I discovered: the path to therapy is often shaped by something more personal. A lot of the time, it’s a calling born from our own life experiences — maybe a wound we’ve never fully addressed or a search for something more.

I’ve found that becoming a therapist isn't just about sitting in a room and listening to someone else’s story. It’s about connecting with them. But it’s also about connecting with yourself in ways that might surprise you.

Think about it: when we listen to clients talk about their struggles, their fears, and their hopes, we’re not just learning about them. We’re also learning about ourselves. There's a moment of raw honesty in therapy — a sort of “controlled intimacy.” And here’s the thing: in that space, we often find ourselves.

We hear emotions that we’ve kept buried. We reflect on our own pain. And in that process, we heal — not just through the work we do with our clients, but because their vulnerability creates a space for our own.

Here’s a question that always floats in the back of my mind:

are we really helping people? Or

are we walking alongside them while they learn to help themselves?

There’s a subtle but important distinction. When we enter the therapy room, our role isn’t to fix anyone. It’s to witness, to hold space for someone’s story, and to guide them as they discover their own answers.

But in order to do that, we have to do some heavy lifting ourselves. If we're being honest, there are times when we, as therapists, are still working through our own emotional layers. Our own stories aren’t as neat and tidy as we'd like them to be. So when clients share theirs, it's a mirror — it forces us to look at things we might not have fully processed yet.

The more I’ve reflected on this, the more I've realized that therapy is a constant process of self-awareness. There’s no “finished” version of ourselves. Every session is a new opportunity to check in:

What parts of me are showing up in this work? and

How can I be present without carrying too much of my own baggage into the room?

And here's the paradox: the more we open ourselves to our clients' stories, the more we realize we’re not so different after all. We may have different experiences, but the emotions — the struggles, the fears, the joys — they connect us as humans.

As therapists, we often hear about the importance of boundaries, and while that’s true, I’ve learned that we need to remember the dance between giving and receiving. We are here to provide support, but we can’t forget that we’re learning and growing right alongside our clients.

The real beauty of therapy comes from the relationship — the shared human experience. We learn from our clients, and they learn from us. That’s the beauty of this profession. It’s messy, it’s intimate, and it requires us to step out of our heads and into the messy, beautiful, and complex terrain of our hearts.

As I’ve journeyed through this process of becoming a therapist, I’ve found myself grappling with some deeper, more personal questions. I think they’re questions that every therapist should consider — not just once, but repeatedly, as they evolve over time.

• Why did I choose this path? Was it because I found healing in this space for myself and wanted to offer it to others, or was it the power of simply being seen — truly seen — by someone who listens without judgment? Is it because I felt disconnected from my own story and found therapy to be a path to understanding myself? Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen firsthand how transformative it can be when someone truly listens to you, with empathy and without judgment.
• Am I truly healing alongside my clients? Am I, as I sit across from them, also offering myself a chance to heal from the parts of me that remain untouched, unseen, or unresolved?
• What part of me still needs mending? What aspects of my own emotional life am I not yet ready to face? How do these unhealed wounds show up in the work I do with others?
• How do I remain present without carrying my unresolved emotions into the room? Can I truly hold space for someone else when I still need to hold space for myself? How do I balance the need to help with the need to be whole?
• How do I differentiate between fixing and walking alongside? When I help someone uncover their truth, am I enabling their transformation or simply being a mirror to reflect their own healing?

Maybe these questions will evolve as time goes on. But for now, they’re helping me stay grounded in what this work is really about: not just being a therapist, but being human, just like the people we’re here to support.

These are the questions that are challenging me right now, and I invite you to reflect on them as well. They’re not answers to be solved — but more like invitations for deeper awareness. What resonates with you? What challenges you? Let’s continue this conversation and grow together.

#TherapistJourney #SelfReflection #HealingTogether #MentalHealthMatters #Therapy #HumanConnection #PersonalGrowth