Some of my most meaningful and powerfully therapeutic sessions have involved clients and me sobbing together. It’s always struck me as odd that “professionalism” is so often interpreted as locking away your feelings and never showing strong emotion. If that were true, we may as well hand the work over to AI, because it’s better at robotic, emotionless responses than we ever could be.
You will hear a wide range of perspectives. My own is this: the idea that professionalism equals emotional stoicism is deeply rooted in colonial values. It’s impossible to present a blank slate. Neutrality is a myth. I’m far more interested in genuinely meeting the needs of the people I serve than performing a narrow, culturally biased version of what a therapist “should” be.
But that said, crying can’t be about us – it must serve the person in front of us. The times when I’ve let the tears flow have been for people who have desperately needed my tears and had expressed that need to me – because it was the only way they felt permission to let themselves cry and grieve, and they needed to know that I genuinely saw and connected with them in their pain. People who have lived heavily masked, over controlled, and punished for having or expressing emotion may need my big emotions. There can be benefit in role modelling having big feelings without being scared of them or apologizing for them.
But when I’m in session, my focus is on the person and their needs. If they need my tears, they get them. But a lot of the time they need my calm compassion, my quiet presence that lets them know that no matter what they tell me, I’m big enough, strong enough, grounded enough, wise enough to bear witness to their pain without being overwhelmed by it, to hold space with compassion. So that’s what they get.
For me, it’s all about being boundaried and knowing at all times that regardless of my own emotional responses, the session is actually for them, not me. It’s about being self aware, reflexive, and deeply intentional in how and when emotion is expressed. Crying should not be something that shifts the session focus onto us.
I have had extensive supervision over the years – not because I am particularly vulnerable or feel like I’m doing the wrong thing, but because it’s absolutely critical to have people who can hold up a mirror, who can challenge, who can highlight transference and counter transference that might be missed.
I’m also quite lucky in that I work in spaces where the power of safe relationships is well understood.
Holding space and experiencing and expressing genuine emotion should be done with care and intention.
That’s me as a psychologist (and therapist, and supervisor, and peer).
At home though? I’m someone who literally bursts into tears regularly when listening to ‘Surface Pressure’ in the movie Encanto and can’t watch horror movies or social comedies about awful people unless it’s about their emotional growth.
I’m not afraid of my own emotions. And I’m not afraid of those of others either. Holding space isn’t about denying my own emotional responses. It’s about making room for others to feel safe to experience their own.
And if sometimes after bearing witness to stories of immense pain, and learning about what it took to resist and survive, I may shed some tears, it doesn’t make me a bad psychologist. It means I’m human.
Ceara Rickard, Psychologist 