The power trip of being the safe one

I stopped pretending that my composure is a gift I give to my clients. I know the standard line that we tell ourselves in supervision and during those expensive continuing education units. I am supposed to believe that my stability provides a foundation for the client. I am told that my lack of reactivity creates a container for their chaos. I hear people use words like regulation to describe what I do. I do not buy it anymore. I realize that my professional distance is actually a form of structural invulnerability. I am the only person in my client’s life who cannot be hurt by them. I have realized that this position provides me with a specific, unearned power that I find addictive. I have to admit that I enjoy being the person who does not flinch.

I spent the afternoon with a man who has spent three years destroying every bridge in his life. He has lost his marriage. He has lost his relationship with his children. He has lost four jobs in thirty months. He walked into my office and spent forty five minutes trying to find my breaking point. He mocked my shoes. He questioned my credentials. He told me that my office smells like failure and cheap air freshener. He leaned forward and shouted that I am a parasite who profits from his misery. I sat there. I did not get angry. I did not feel my heart rate accelerate. I did not worry about what he thought of me.

I felt a sense of immense superiority. I knew that he could say anything to me and it would not change my evening. I would still go home to my family. I would still receive my paycheck. I would still have my reputation in the community. He has no use over me. He has no way to damage my sense of self. I am the only person he knows who is completely immune to his behavior. This immunity is not a result of my personal growth or my years of training in cognitive behavioral therapy. This immunity is a function of the contract. He pays me to be the one person who stays when he acts out. I am safe because the walls of the profession protect me.

I see therapists all the time who claim they are doing the hard work of holding the client’s pain. I think that is a lie. I think many of us are in this chair because we want to be the one who has the upper hand. In my personal life, I am vulnerable. My husband can hurt my feelings with a single look. My children can make me feel incompetent with a dismissive comment. My friends can exclude me and I feel the sting of that rejection for days. I have no armor in my kitchen or my living room. I am just another person trying to manage the mess of being alive.

The office changes the math. I walk through that door and I become the one who is never wrong. I become the one who is never out of control. I get to play the role of the stable observer while the person across from me falls apart. I am the one who decides when the session ends. I am the one who determines the goals. I am the one who holds the clinical secrets. I am the safe one because I am the one with all the weapons and none of the risks. I have realized that I crave that feeling of being untouchable. I look forward to the clients who are the most difficult because they provide the best opportunity for me to prove how little they can affect me.

I have started to look at my colleagues differently. I see the ones who specialize in high conflict cases. I see the ones who brag about their ability to work with borderline personality disorders. I suspect they are just like me. They do not do it because they are exceptionally compassionate. They do it because they love the high of being the only person who can withstand the storm. They like the feeling of being the lighthouse. It makes them feel strong. It makes them feel like they have solved the problem of human suffering by simply refusing to participate in it.

I noticed a shift in my clinical decisions when I finally admitted this to myself. I had a client who was making significant progress. She was becoming more assertive. She was starting to challenge my interpretations. She was becoming less reliant on my approval. I found myself feeling annoyed. I did not want her to be my peer. I wanted her to keep seeing me as the person who had the answers. I caught myself trying to steer the conversation back to her old traumas. I wanted to remind her that she was still fragile. I wanted to maintain the gap between my stability and her instability. I was protecting my power trip. I was prioritizing my need to be the safe one over her need to be a functional adult.

I see this happen in group supervision constantly. I listen to therapists talk about their clients as if they are interesting specimens. I hear the condescension in the way they describe a client’s relapse. They say they are concerned, but I see the satisfaction in their eyes. The client’s failure confirms the therapist’s success. The client’s chaos reinforces the therapist’s order. I think we stay in this job because it is the only place where we are guaranteed to be the most put together person in the room. I think we are afraid of what would happen if we sat in a chair where the other person actually mattered to us in a way that could hurt.

I had a client who kept coming back for two years after the presenting problem was resolved. He is a successful executive who treats everyone under him like garbage. He comes to me because I am the only person who does not quit on him. I realized last week that I am not helping him. I am providing him with a playground where he can be his worst self without consequences. I am the safe one, and that safety is actually preventing him from changing. He does not have to learn how to be a person because I am a professional. I am a paid shock absorber. I am doing it because I like the feeling of being the person he cannot break. I like the way he looks at me with frustration because he cannot get a rise out of me. I am using his pathology to feed my ego.

I do not think empathy is what keeps me in the chair. I think it is the desire for control. I spend my day in a controlled environment where I am the authority. I do not have to worry about being abandoned by my clients because their abandonment of me is just another data point to be discussed in the next session. If a client quits, I just fill the slot. If a client dies, I process it with my own therapist and then I go to dinner. I am structurally protected from the very things I am supposed to be helping my clients face. I am teaching them how to live while I am hiding behind a professional license.

I have to wonder what my work would look like if I were actually at risk. I wonder what would happen if I allowed a client to have a real impact on my life. I think I would be a better therapist, but I think I would hate the job. I chose this career because I wanted to be useful, but I stayed because I wanted to be invulnerable. I have built a life where I am the expert on everyone else’s pain while I remain untouched by it. I call it professional boundaries. I call it clinical distance. I should call it what it is. I am on a power trip that lasts forty five minutes at a time.

I watched a younger therapist the other day during a break at the conference. She was complaining about a client who had yelled at her. She was talking about how she had stayed calm and held the space. She looked so proud of herself. I saw that same look in the mirror for a decade. She thinks she is being a good practitioner. She does not realize that she is actually enjoying the fact that she was the one who didn’t cry. She is enjoying the fact that she was the one who got to go home and tell the story while the client stayed trapped in the emotion. She is addicted to the safety of the chair.

I am not saying that I should be a mess. I am not saying that I should let clients ruin my life. I am saying that I need to be honest about why I like this arrangement. I need to admit that the safety I offer is also a wall I hide behind. If I do not admit that I like being the safe one, I will keep my clients small so that I can keep feeling big. I will keep them in the role of the damaged one so that I can keep the role of the healer. I will keep them coming back because I am the only person who doesn’t flinch, and I am the only person who doesn’t flinch because I have nothing to lose.

I look at my schedule for tomorrow and I see three clients who are in active crisis. I feel a sense of anticipation. I know that I will sit there and I will be the voice of reason. I will be the one who knows what to do. I will be the one who is not afraid. I will feel very powerful. I will enjoy the way they look to me for a stability that I only have because I am not in the game with them. I am a spectator who gets to tell the players how to run. I am the safe one. I am the one who wins every time. I am the one who never gets hurt. I think it is time I stopped pretending that this is a sacrifice.