Therapy is Shared Work: Honouring the Vulnerability of Both Sides
Therapy is often spoken about as a sacred space for clients to be held — and rightly so. It's a space where people bring their rawest parts, their childhood pain, their longings for healing and change. They are courageously opening up their lives and inner world to a stranger (a professional, but stranger nevertheless) and are asking for support. And as therapists, we are taught to honour that deeply. We are taught to be cautious with power dynamics, attuned to trauma, mindful of how we speak, intervene, and reflect.
But I wanted to also draw attention to some of the protective layers that clients have that can make therapy difficult, and the invisible labour and responsibility that a therapist carry. Yes, we are professionals who are paid to provide this service, and competent therapists will undergo reflective, supervised and deliberate practice to support clients with not only the work but their ambivalence and fears in doing the work. Nevertheless, this is a shared work that we cannot do without clients showing up with regular attendance and openness.
There’s a quiet myth that the psychologist holds the insight, and the client holds the need. That the psychologist is responsible for movement, and the client simply needs to show up. But anyone who has sat in the room long enough knows: therapy is not something done to a person. It’s something built with them.
The process is slow, layered, and reciprocal. It requires time, space, trust, courage, permission, and mutual risk. And more often than not, the work that a psychologist does is not as visible or talked about. There is so much that a therapist does when holding space for therapy, and clients sometimes mistake that effort for ease. There is an invisible emotional labour that psychologists carry, and in this blog post, I would like to address both clients and psychologists out there.
When Clients Enter the Room
Clients often come to therapy after long periods of emotional suppression, interpersonal hurt, or internal confusion. They may feel anxious, guarded, hopeful, ambivalent, or all of the above.
It makes sense that some may not be ready to trust, to open, to let themselves be helped. For many, therapy is their first experience of someone being consistently present, curious, and non-judgemental. It is hard to immediately adjust themselves to trust that. Also, unfortunately, some has experienced being harmed, doubted, or judged by health professionals. Hence, their wariness has cause.
This vulnerability deserves protection. Clients should be discerning. They should feel empowered to ask questions, change therapists, or say when something doesn’t feel right. Therapy is a big commitment on all fronts, including emotionally and financially.
Yet, for clients who hold such guardedness or protective layers (understandably so), these can become barriers to the relationship required for therapy. Therapists often see these barriers and work slowly to set up safety. This may result in therapy feeling “slow” or stagnant, yet that isn’t from incompetence nor indifference.
What most people don’t see is how much work goes into not working too hard. More often, the therapist is working extremely hard *not* to overwhelm the client, *not* to rush the process, and to hold a space that feels tolerable, even if not always comfortable.
Psychologists who are attuned are constantly balancing: pacing, timing, silence, curiosity, reflection, challenge. They are noticing guardedness without naming it too soon, tracking the emotional climate of the session, rewording a question mid-sentence because something in the client’s body shifted.
They are offering a reflection that may not land, then sitting with the ambiguity that follows. They are remembering what a client once said about their father three sessions ago, and why that matters now. They are holding back an interpretation because the timing isn’t quite right, even if the insight to them is clear.
And often, they are doing all of this without the client knowing.
Let me explain more below.
The Invisible Labour of Therapists
“As a psychologist, all you do is listen and talk, right?”
Wrong. So much goes into this work, and at any moment, we are considering several different factors all at once in deciding
How and when to speak,
How much or how little to,
Whether to allow for silence,
Whether to challenge or validate,
Whether there is enough relational safety,
What you’re saying and NOT saying,
What we discussed in our last session and whether we should open something up or pin it and postpone,
What I noticed about you and when to bring it up given your stated goals are something else,
Whether to bring up the underlying common thread we’re noticing or whether that would seem too threatening right now,
Whether you’re needing understanding or strategy,
Whether to address the 5 things you’ve said in your monologue or to continue on the last sentence you ended with,
What we have enough time for in a given session,
Whether if we bring up what we’ve noticed at this time, you would feel understood or too emotionally exposed; what is your level of readiness and insight,
What worked for you in previous therapy and what didn’t, and what modality or approach will serve you best in therapy,
How does your behaviour make sense given your attachment history, and how to bring this up with you while creating safety and being a corrective relational experience,
Does your cancellation mean more than a schedule clash, are you finding sessions anxiety-provoking or are you feeling your needs are not met or are you feeling too much emotional exposure from our last session,
Whether we are relating to you in a way that is reinforcing old relational wounds
What is the dynamic or feelings that are being created in sessions for both clients and ourselves, and how is that therapeutically important to understand and then how best to approach that conversation,
Your strengths and beauty,
and so on.
In sum, many effective therapists carry enormous, unseen weight:
- Reading subtle non-verbal cues that may reflect your emotional and physiological state
- Adjusting pace based on perceived comfort
- Managing silence while gently offering insight
- Rephrasing questions to feel safer
- Holding back interpretations out of respect for the client’s readiness
- Balancing structure, direction, and containment
All while internally wondering: “Am I helping? Is this landing? Is this what they need? Did I cause any harm?” in addition to the other ethical and professional obligations we have with note-writing, record-keeping, scheduling management, and communication with third parties.
For Therapists: Rupture, Misattunement, and the Pain of Misunderstanding We Hold
Even the most thoughtful therapists miss the mark. Sometimes a reflection doesn’t land, we used the wrong words, we rushed it, we slowed it down too much…We were trying to help, but felt we weren’t helpful.
For clients with relational trauma, these moments can feel like micro-ruptures. And for therapists who care and attune deeply, these moments can lead to self-doubt and over-functioning. We try to compensate for a client’s guardedness. We overfill the space when we fear they’ll leave. We offer insight too early. We reframe too quickly. We try to “get it right”. OR, we withdraw, we feel unable and uncertain about how to help. We feel too hesitant to provide challenges or reflections for fear of losing the client’s trust.
This is where the emotional labour becomes invisible even to ourselves. And it’s also where the risk of burnout, disconnection, and self-doubt grows.
One of the hardest things for therapists is when a client leaves therapy silently, or offers vague feedback (“It just wasn’t helpful”, “I didn’t feel a connection”). And sometimes, clients share their feedback online or with others, which can affect the professional reputation of a therapist.
And sure, sometimes that’s true. A client is also entitled to talk about their experiences.
But other times, what they’re reacting to may be the discomfort of being challenged. Or the way their own guardedness made emotional contact feel foreign. Or the absence of quick fixes. Or their own irregular attendance and undercommunication. All while not knowing the extent of what was being held for them, how much thought and care went into each session, each pause, each silence — not out of disinterest, but out of attunement from their therapist.
This isn’t a call for clients to “appreciate” therapists more. It’s an invitation to understand that therapy doesn’t always feel the way you expect — especially when your nervous system has been wired for protection and vigilance.
Yet, therapists are bound by confidentiality. We don’t get to explain our side of the story. We don’t get to say, “Here’s what I saw. Here’s why I held back. Here’s what I was trying to do. Here’s how much I cared”. We don’t get to clarify, explain, or offer context. We don’t get to defend our efforts or say, “You were hard to reach, and I tried so hard anyway.”
We just have to let it go.
And that ache — of being misperceived, of carrying the weight alone — lives quietly in so many of us.
That asymmetry can feel unfair.
Of Course, Psychologists Can Hurt Clients Too
It’s also true that therapists get it wrong, sometimes profoundly. This is more often talked about and rightly so. Some clients leave therapy feeling invalidated, pathologised, or worse. Many never return, and carry that harm silently. They leave with shame, confusion, or stories they’ve never told again out of fear of further harm. I acknowledge this reality with the deepest empathy for clients and the highest hope that psychologists will continue to be held accountable to practise at the required ethical and professional standards.
My blog post is not intended to deny real harm. It is to humanise both roles. To name that vulnerability lives on both sides of the couch.
For Clients: The Double Bind of Emotional Exposure
For clients,
Many of us long to be deeply known — to be seen, understood, and felt by another. But for those who grew up in emotionally restricted environments, or where they had to manage everything including their own emotions, they may worry about the vulnerability that comes with connection. They may struggle to let go of control in the therapy space.
Emotional exposure can feel like vulnerability, and for some, it registers as danger. If, growing up, your emotional needs were ignored, criticised, or led to rupture, then even the gentlest reflections in adulthood can feel intrusive. You might find yourself in a double bind:
Wanting connection, yet fearing what it might require of you so pushing back against being understood or known.
Wishing to be seen, but only in ways that feel perfectly safe or precisely accurate.
Longing to be helped, but feeling uneasy when someone gets too close.
Minimisation of emotional needs paired with subtle resentment when they’re unmet
Discomfort when seen too clearly — even if insight is accurate
This isn’t resistance. It’s protection. It’s the nervous system doing its job to keep you safe in a world where emotions were once unsafe.
In therapy, this can look like clients who are warm, polite, even insightful — but feeling uneasy when the focus returns to early relationships or unprocessed grief. Clients might say, "I'm not sure,” or brush off an accurate observation with a polite “uh…not really. Maybe…”
And on the therapist's end? It can feel like working really hard to "get it right." Therapists may sense:
A need for precision in words and telling a story
Hesitation when deepening emotionally
Subtle corrections or efforts to steer the session from client
They are doing more of the emotional work than the client or trying to convince the client
And of course, rather than pathologising it, it helps for therapist to get curious: “What are they protecting? What are they afraid will happen if they stop being in control?”
But no matter how much safety is set up and how gently a question is asked, a therapist isn’t able to do this shared work along.
Toward Shared Responsibility
Therapy works best when both people participate actively.
The therapist offers containment, safety, insight, pacing.
The client offers attendance, openness, feedback, risk.
Shared responsibility doesn’t mean clients need to be “easy to work with.” It means recognising that therapy is co-conducted.
It means:
Clients showing up honestly, even when it’s hard
Clients showing up for regular appointments to allow for the containment and momentum needed for meaningful work towards the goals and all the challenges they bring into the therapy room
Therapists naming their experience in the room when the dynamic feels heavy
Both parties making space for rupture, repair, and feedback
And both parties being clear and honest about expectations and terms of engagement
It means letting go of the fantasy that therapy should always feel good, or that the responsibility is one-sided. Instead, making room for the parts that feel uncertain and showing up with openness and accountability.
Final Words
For psychologists,
You’re not weak for feeling bruised when a client leaves. You’re not incompetent because someone didn’t stay.
You’re allowed to grieve when you feel misunderstood. You’re allowed to say, even silently: "I tried so hard. I wish you knew."
You don’t have to carry it all. Remember, readiness is not your gift to give, even though you can scaffold, mirror, invite, attune.
Client’s readiness for the work, their own internalised shame, their discomfort with emotional exposure, and their idealised or biased view of what therapy “should” feel like can all factor into their engagement.
For clients,
You’re not wrong for taking your time. For protecting your heart. For needing the pace to be just right.
You’ve been through a lot and you’re braving a lot to come into therapy for that deep work.
You deserve safety, attunement, nurturance. You deserve to be seen, given space, and supported.
But therapy isn’t something done *to* you. It’s done *with* you.
If you want it to work, you need to show up. And when you do, the room can hold more than you think.
