I’ve been pondering this month about what it looks like to “offer my face” to my clients. It flows from the question, “if people change through genuine encounters and if I’m attempting to open a channel of understanding my clients through my felt experience in the room, what seems to aid or hinder this channel and promote more of my presence?”
When Does the Tension Appear?
I started noticing a pattern. My jaw would clench most often during moments like these:
- During couples therapy, especially when anger and aggression were alive in the room.
- In moments of my own tiredness or boredom.
- Right after I offer an articulation of my thoughts and feelings about our therapeutic relationship.
- When there is a misunderstanding or conflict between my client and I.
As I clenched, I would then find myself attempting to get “back into a therapeutic mode” be that more alert, attentive, or curious. This incongruency of what I was feeling and what my clients were often seeing has interestingly enough led to a curiosity of, “what the hell is happening? Why am I trying to move myself out of the states that are occurring at the moment…what am I afraid will happen if I let myself know this?”
While this answer is nuanced, I feel more compelled these days to attempt to “mine my mind” of whatever feeling is there and metabolize it (“What the hell is going on here?”, etc.) compared to attempting to “get back to being therapeutic”.
An Experiment: Relaxing the Jaw
In light of this, I’ve been playing with opening my jaw ever so slightly when I have this awareness. I find this relaxes my face, thus allowing it to be more impacted by the moment to moment experience. As you can imagine, this feels vulnerable as my reactions are a bit less tempered and my clients have more access to how their story is impacting me in real time.
The tension is that sometimes the affect feels so overwhelming that I do feel the clinical need to “go back to them” or clench a bit to find a bit of stability for myself. It’s not about one way being “right” or “wrong”, there is an ability to play with either ways of engaging these clinical moments.
The Value of Vulnerability
Offering my face is certainly more vulnerable. But there is a way it keeps me on the edge of my seat in the consulting room.
I encourage you to try it out in your own life, whether you’re a therapist or not. Notice the moments when you say something that you know is false. Or you want something but have a hard time getting it out of your mouth. Perhaps try relaxing your face a bit in conversation, see what it opens for you and the authenticity it could bring.
And if you have any insights about what helps you tap into your own felt experience, I’d love to hear them.
Until next month,
Alex