Kyle: Somebody calls their therapist for the first time – a brand new therapist…they go, “I want to get an appointment with you.” They say, “Come on in.” They got an appointment and they say, “I’m here because I broke up with my boyfriend and I loved him. I’m devastated. I’m a mess and I’m here. What do I do?”
What are the mistakes that professionals are making when they get that client?
Dr. Ramani: I’d say one of the biggest mistakes we can make is to “brightside” a client. Most therapists don’t “brightside”. Most therapists will be present with the pain and the grief, but I think by “brightsiding” I mean saying, “Well you were complaining about him anyhow. You’re going to be so much better off or there’s plenty of fish in the sea.” That kind of nonsense. That’s “brightsiding.”
It is also important that good therapists would validate the loss. Listen, Kyle. The key to remember is that whether a relationship has lasted two months or 40 years, heartbreak is heartbreak and it is unfair to say that that person who’s been in a relationship for two months is not experiencing a heartbreak.
If anything, what they may be experiencing is the loss of all they thought was going to have happened.
I had a friend once who lost a partner in a relatively new relationship – six to eight weeks. She was very devastated.
Kyle: When you say she lost a partner…he died?
Dr. Ramani: He died.
A lot of people were trivializing it. They’re like, “Oh my gosh why is she making such a big deal about this? They weren’t together that long.” I said, “Do you not realize what she lost? She lost all that possibility because they were falling in love, right? It was a really lovely experience and she’d been waiting for that for a long time.”
I said, “Not all losses are accumulated history. Loss can also be what we thought would be possible.”
And so the role of the therapist is to sort of receive that hurt. The therapist shouldn’t recoil from the anguish. We should be present with the anguish. But instead we’re like, “Oh my gosh this is so terrible.” We’re wailing along with them. We’re almost overwhelmed by it.
Our role is to not be because many people feel a sense of shame when that happens or they feel like they’re even being a burden to the therapist.
So that’s why therapists are trained. We spend so many years in school learning how to to be present. I happen to believe humanistically, authentically present.
We’re not a machine. We’re not a robot, but we’re also not recoiling. We’re being present and validating it. It is real. It hurts everywhere. There is no magic way to make it go away and this experience of loss is a natural one. It’s a human one, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
