What Are Therapists Thinking When You're Talking to Them?

How to you feel about that?

Psychotherapy works by addressing one of the most basic of human needs – the need to have one’s deepest pain and suffering understood by another person. “Nearly all societies designate a class of people whose function is to comfort and heal those who are suffering from emotional pain,” explains Dr. Permut, author of Inside Your Therapist's Mind. “Often these are very gifted people whose natural intuition is enhanced by special instruction, knowledge, and experience. In modern societies, this takes the form of rigorous scientific training that allows practitioners to understand precisely which techniques help in specific situations and with particular patients.

How to you feel about that?

“They allow themselves to feel your anger, annoyance, shame, joy, or whatever other emotion you are experiencing, even if you are not aware that you are feeling it yourself. That is how they know what lies beneath the surface of the problems you are struggling with. So it is not that they are reading your mind, but rather they are actually reading their mind which contains the thoughts and feelings they have sensed coming from you. This is not an awareness that one is born with. Therapists have to be carefully and thoroughly educated to be able to detect the subtle differences between their own thoughts and feelings and those of their patients. The education involves academics, supervision, and their own personal psychotherapy.