Imperfection and Stutz
I recently watched the documentary by Jonah Hill called “Stutz” on Netfix. It’s about a client (Jonah) and his therapist (Phil Stutz). It is about their relationship and work together over several years. I wasn’t sure about watching it. I didn’t know how I felt about someone making a documentary about their therapist. That is a sacred relationship that sometimes the outside world does not understand. As a therapist, we are taught to be in the room but to mostly to keep ourselves out of the room. I verbally gasped when Phil Stutz makes a joke about Jonah’s mom coming into the therapy session and joking that he had a sexual relationship with her. WHAT!?!?!? However, that was the kind of relationship that Jonah and Stutz had and you know what? It worked!
I further sank down in my couch when Jonah asked Stutz, his therapist, about his life. He asked about his romantic relationships and about the death of Stutz’s brother when he was young. I typically do not share things about myself in the therapist chair unless I think it’s going to be at service to the client and that I won’t make the therapy session about me or take away the focus from the client. Yet I do sometimes have people say that it’s odd for me to know so much about them and they don’t know so much about me. Yeah, It’s supposed to be that way. I suppose that my clients could Google me and find out some basics but that’s not the same info about me that I know about them.
When I first became a therapist I was worried that people seeing my imperfections would make them think I was not able to be a good therapist. It has taken time for me to realize that it is because I don’t expect myself to be perfect that I am a great therapist. I remember before I had kids I was the perfect parent. Everyone WITHOUT kids IS the perfect parent. Guess why? By far, it’s the toughest job you will ever be called to do or find yourself in. My kids have taught me so much about myself. They are a mirror for all of my imperfections. They challenge me in ways I’ve never been challenged in other areas of my life. They love me no matter what or how imperfect I am. They love me because they know I’m a human and I’m doing my best. In some of the worst parenting moments in my life are the same times I’ve also grown so much as a mom.
I love working with clients going through breakups. It’s such a raw time of grief and opportunity. I love hard. I lose even harder. I grieve wholly. This is what makes me so available to be a therapist holding space for someone going through a breakup. I have had relationship trauma and unfortunately have been in situations where I accepted much less than I should have. And I learned from that. I worked on it and implemented it. It wasn’t easy but it was worth it. While I don’t bring that in the therapy room to discuss, I can empathize with my clients because I’ve been through it myself. It doesn’t mean their journey is the same as mine, but I know what it looks like on the other side. I can pinpoint a breakthrough that has happened in every single breakup. That’s my goal with clients. Ok, the love didn’t last? What happened? What led up to it? Are you repeating patterns of things that happened before the relationship? What are you willing to take responsibility for and what belongs to the other partner? What did you learn? What does this mean for the future?
I remember I was in supervision with a therapist who had grown children. She told me that her son had explained something that happened in his life from his perspective, which was wildly different from her own recollection of it. Both versions were true because that’s the way they remembered it. It was a pain point for her son and although she felt called to stick up for herself by asserting her version, she recognized that he had a right to his version too. She mentioned that her sons were in therapy and I shot her a worried look. I asked her what can a parent do to avoid damage to their children. You know what her answer was? She said that the thing that parents need to do is to admit to their faults before their kids realize it on their own. Wow. So simple. So what that said to me is that there is no perfection, even in parenting. There is ownership and accountability.
Do you know your faults? I have brought this perspective into my work with clients. I tell people up front that I am a great therapist and I also am not great at billing or back office work. They know it before they see it for themselves. I’ve gotten a whole lot of grace and understanding in return. I am not perfect and neither are you, no one is. So keep laughing at and with yourself and lean in to your faults. After all, everyone has them, even me, even Stutz.
