Therapy is Like Having Braces

“Therapy is like having braces,” Joey began as he gazed longingly at Bridget, “uncomfortable and embarrassing, but you get straightened out.”

“Last week you compared it to an onion,” Bridget replied, “saying you have to peel away the layers to get to the sweet spot. Which is it?”

It appeared that her matter-of-fact response was deflating, as though Joey once again feared that he’d “struck out.”

We sat in a circle—Indian-style, as one of the group members had referred to it–12 middle-schoolers and me, their group leader. Attendance varied from Tuesday to Tuesday, but most weeks the seven young women and five young men arrived within five minutes of our agreed upon start time, four o’clock, and stayed until we ended at five-thirty. They walked, rode bicycles, or were dropped off by their parents.

In each case their normal adolescent lives had been disrupted by traumatic events at home or in school prompting the referral to me. The agenda was simple: talk about their week, and brainstorm to find alternate ways to navigate conflicting circumstances, all of it done without judgment and with encouragement and support. None of them wanted to be in my office, but all warmed up to the idea of being able to speak “their piece” without fear of a parent, teacher, or other adult reprimanding them for voicing honest thoughts or feelings.

Bridget was the outspoken, and most popular one in the group. She was also the one the boys couldn’t take their eyes off of, and the one all the girls envied because she was beautiful, seductive, acne-free, and had it “all together” by their standards. I knew different, and in time so too would the group members. Pretensions, outward appearances (“Airs” as Bruce, the “greaser,” called them), and efforts to avoid being “real” would be stripped away, mine included. In the grind of those weekly sessions we all struggled with resistance to change, timidity, life’s messiness, and aversion to talking about and being uncomfortable.

Sam’s presence in the group intimidated the others. He was the one destined for success, or so everyone thought, handsome, smart, best athlete, and the one whom adults fussed over. Isaac was the scholar among them, and only Gretchen rivaled him in classroom performance; both were outspoken, though with limited social skills. Every group has its geeks, and they were ours. The balance of the group, Rachael, April, Wendy, Tanya, Zoey, and Ben were cautious and assimilated into the group process slowly, but integrate they did.

Each of those young people, desperate for approval, fraught with age-appropriate anxiety, and conflicted about their respective places in life taught me early lessons about the gentle art of psychotherapy. Most, if not all of us, experience anxious moments of self-doubt, construct protective barriers, feel alone and misunderstood, betrayed at times, and question whether we’ve done “the right thing” regarding others in the work place as well as in our homes and with our families. We’ve all known brokenness, whether as children or as adults, and for some of us, both.

The adolescents I worked with in group during that two-year period matured and discovered, with each other’s aid and input, that navigating their respective “life-cups” could be achieved, and that joy and sorrow could be embraced. They found adults, for the most part, to be okay even when clueless and misinformed.

Joey survived Bridget’s rejection, and she came to realize that the “me” of who she was entailed more than being pretty and popular. The others developed social skills, greater acceptance of being okay in their own skin, tolerance for their differences, some confidence in their unique “voices,” and ways to cope when life got squirrelly.

I have fond memories of those casual and intense sessions, a coming of age for all thirteen of us.  I continue attempting to straighten that which is crooked or broken in my life. I listen to the travails of others who invite me into their lives, and attempt to assist them in peeling away the layers that often prevent all of us from living fully. Many times that path, for therapist and client alike, where the twists and turns of life resist alteration, requires living fearlessly, accepting and being comfortable with the disarray—it may be the only way through to the other side.

(photo courtesy of the Vidalia Onion Committee)

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