The Mind Readers

“You’re a psychologist, you can read minds”. In my short span of working as a psychologist, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been told this statement. The perception of anyone working in the field of psychology is skewed and not aligned with reality hence I decided to write this article to clear some of these flawed perceptions.

Therapists are humans too. And we can make mistakes just like any other. Take for example Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology. He had serious cognitive distortions and lived a quite questionable lifestyle. In 1899 Sigmund Freud got a new telephone number: 14362. He was 43 at the time, and he was profoundly disturbed by the digits in the new number. He believed they signified that he would die at age 61 (note the one and six surrounding the 43) or, at best, at age 62 (the last two digits in the number). He clung, painfully, to this bizarre belief for many years. Presumably, he was forced to revise his estimate on his 63rd birthday, but he was haunted by other superstitions until the day he died—by assisted suicide, no less—at the ripe old age of 83.

That's just for starters. He refused to quit smoking even after 30 operations to correct the extensive damage he suffered from cancer of the jaw. He was a self-proclaimed neurotic. He suffered from a mild form of agoraphobia. And, for a time, he had a serious cocaine problem.

Neuroses? Superstitions? Substance abuse? And suicide? So much for the father of psychoanalysis. But are these problems typical for psychologists? How are Freud's successors doing? Or, to put the question another way: Are shrinks really "crazy"?

Being a psychologist, so the truth is that I had some preconceptions about this topic before I began to investigate it. When, years ago, my relative who "Only a crazy person can treat another crazy," I assumed, or at least hoped, that she was joking. Mental health professionals have access to special tools and techniques to help themselves through the perils of living, right?

Sure, Freud was peculiar, and, yes, I'd heard that Jung had a nervous breakdown. But I'd always assumed that—rumors to the contrary notwithstanding;—mental health professionals were probably fairly healthy.

Turns out I was wrong.

Doctor, Are You Feeling Okay?

Mental health professionals are, in general, a fairly crazy lot—at least as troubled as the general population. This may sound depressing, but, it’s not in itself a serious problem. In fact, some experts believe that therapists who have suffered in certain ways may be the very best therapists we have.

The problem is that mental health professionals—particularly psychologists—do a poor job of monitoring their own mental health problems and those of their colleagues. We are expected to have a “mental health professional robe” on 24* 7 and having emotions is seen as unacceptable. To match these expectations, we end up ignoring or trivializing our emotional distress.

This gradually like other individuals grow and manifest into “inappropriate” behavior. Considering that we are surrounded by tools and have the resources to these issues, we are told not to need it in the first place. We are questioned on humanly errors and emotions.

Let’s go deeper into our lives.  Imagine yourself listening to stories of grief, loss, death, individuals sobbing, mourning, anger, rage, assault, betrayal, conflicts between loved ones, dysfunctional life, criminal behavior, etc. for hours, every single day. How would an individual feel? How would an individual react at the end of the day? A special, intimate relationship exists between therapist and client, we invest our lives to help the client. A basic and most important skill of a mental health professional is empathy- keeping oneself in the client’s shoes. Some go through actual life-threatening situations. According to a number of research studies done on the life of a mental health professional, more than half of all therapists in India are at some point threatened with physical violence by their clients, and about 40 percent are actually attacked.

Try to put this in context. Needless to say, they feel more vulnerable and less competent, and sometimes the feelings of inadequacy trickle over into their personal relationships.

Virtually all mental health professionals agree that the profession is inherently hazardous. It takes superhuman strength for most people just to listen to a neighbor moan about his lousy marriage for 15 minutes.

Psychologists, of course, enter the profession by choice, but you can imagine the effects of listening to clients talk about a never-ending litany of serious problems -- eight long hours a day, 50 weeks a year. "My parents hated me. Life isn't worth living. I'm a failure. I'm impotent. On the way over here, I felt like driving my car into a cliff. I'll never be happy. No one understands me. I don't know who I am. I hate my job. I hate my life. I hate you."

Just thinking about it makes you shudder.

It's a Rough World Out There

Clients aren't the only source of stress for mental health professionals. The world itself is pretty demanding. After all, that's why there are clients. Statistics about therapists' lives and well-being prove that at least three out of four therapists have experienced major distress within the past three years, the principal cause being relationship problems More than 60 percent may have suffered a clinically significant depression at some point in their lives.

Therapists are chronically anxious. It's getting harder and harder to make a living, harder to provide quality care. The paperwork requirements are enormous. You can't have a meeting of practicing psychologists today without having these issues being raised, and the pain level is rising. A number of my colleagues have been driven out of the profession altogether. Mental health professionals commit suicide at rates about twice those expected of physicians. Among psychologists, it showed a rate of suicide for female psychologists is three times that of the general population. Wait there’s more. Many also tend to alcohol and substance dependency – Sigmund Freud being a great example.

We don’t know when and how to take time off. The sense of responsibility for a client is what drives us to have no retirement date.

If therapists really have special tools for helping people, shouldn't they be able to use their techniques on themselves? When mental health professionals treat clients, they follow the prescriptions of their theoretical orientation. But the amazing thing is that when therapists treat themselves, they become very pragmatic. In other words, when battling their own problems, therapists dispense with the psychobabble and fall back on every day, common-sense techniques—chats with friends, meditation, hot baths, and so on. Also, a therapist seeking therapy will face questions on his/ her credibility.

Hence, we need to bridge the gap between people’s perception and the reality of mental health professionals. We not only face a layman’s problems, but we face other layman’s problems too. 

Hence expectations from us must be kept realistic – humanly.