“Know the personal but keep to the impersonal”

The Tao te Ching #28

Most patients come in with a story, but we don’t always know all the details or need to. We’re not counselors. But something seems to be missing from their lives. It is the norm in our society because our subconscious minds are programmed by our families who usually made mistakes. The outbreath I coach you in is the time to release all of that.

My book Healer is about how I healed myself in the family situation instead of continuing to project and offload those relationships onto others. It is possible for you to do the same if you apply the same rigor. The operative word there is rigor. No one is going to do it for you. It’s not fair to others to wish they’d fill the role of a mother, father, or mate in your life that will listen to you and love you, especially not a therapist. If you need that you can use online dating services.

I have kept to this boundary my entire career and a few of my patients do. It’s entirely understandable that patients come in with physical distress but there is no separation between physical distress and mental and emotional distress but I give you plenty of chances to release it. Maybe you need to see a counselor along with seeing me. If I recommend a counselor I’m not firing you as a patient. You can still see me. I’m not a counselor or your friend and it’s not appropriate for you to wish that to be the case. Your choices in your life in the past have created the situation and new choices will have to fix it. Every therapist who is not co-dependent knows this and should not pretend they’ll do it for you.

You have to change your habits if you want a higher quality of life. Given my empowering and educational comments, I’ve had more than one say, “No way. I’m not doing that.” And out the door, they go thinking, “She fixed me a little bit and maybe a lot but, Nah.” They think they’re a car in a mechanics shop and I’m the mechanic. It’s as though they think they live in the machine world of the Matrix. We don’t live like that. We live on Earth in a natural habitat and we are flesh and blood.

I know who my patients are personally but in my work, I keep to the impersonal. It’s a normal professional boundary in the midst of being friendly. Most therapists are not unfriendly! I’m not going to be either. Please don’t interpret being friendly as being a friend or being attracted to you. That is your ego and is not rational. You’re here to learn to love yourself in relationship to Source and then you do receive enough. I am not an angel. I want to do a good job for you but you are my patient. You are not to come into my office wishing for anything else. It’s not fair to me and it crosses boundaries I did not sign up for.

You’re paying me to help you reduce your pain in a kind manner. That is in short supply outside your door especially with someone who is experienced and skilled. It’s my business to be the opposite of sick care. I do care about your real health only because it’s my job, my calling. I care, impersonally, about humans.

Patients have no permission to open up their personal, ego, childhood needs to a therapist and try to form a personal relationship, or even take a shot or fantasize about it. I give none of those signals just because you’re paying me to attend to you medically. I have my own personal life.

I want you to focus on your body and what you need healthwise. That’s my focus. No texts telling me I matter so much to you or how much I mean to you. No comments coming in the office door about how much you missed me, or that I’m an angel or amazing. Focus all of that on yourself, please.

Thank you.