It’s a Regular Wednesday
Jordan Redman, LPCC
Non-judgment. Compassion. Honesty. Belief.
Some clients can't say it out loud. It gets written down instead: an email, a text, a note passed over in session. They expect a reaction when it’s read, shock, maybe disapproval, something on my face that confirms what they said is the end of the world.
That reaction doesn't come, because it isn’t there to begin with. No flinch, no raised eyebrow, nothing being held back. It's a regular Wednesday. The reaction that does come, an acknowledgment that what got said is deeply painful. The pain is real. So is the shame, and the guilt. Whatever gets shared has probably already been sat with alone, more than once, before it ever reaches me. None of that changes how a client gets seen here. They're still a person, with the same human wants and needs as anyone else, including the need to belong.
That's the stance therapy runs on: non-judgment, compassion, honesty, and belief in the client. It shows up in a few specific ways.
Non-judgment starts with letting the client lead. The client is the expert on their own life. They live it every day. They know what's bothering them, and what they've already tried. They know their own reasons for what they do better than anyone else.
Compassion helps a client understand the standards they set for themself. Whether it's set by family, by the wider culture, or by internal rules built over a lifetime, living up to those aren’t always possible. There's no single correct way to live a life. A client carrying guilt over a friendship that ended years ago, or a decision that didn't turn out the way it should have, typically isn’t dealing with something unusual. Most people are carrying something similar. Regretting an old decision is often a sign of growth, not a character flaw. Standards can be useful; they point toward the life someone wants to build. Punishing yourself for falling short of one doesn't build anything. It gets in the way.
Honesty asks clients to accept that a feeling and a fact aren’t always the same thing. Examining the evidence for a thought. Looking at a situation from another angle. Asking how the same situation would look if it were happening to a friend instead. These are ways of stepping outside a feeling long enough to see it clearly. That question, how this would look if a friend described it, tends to surface a different answer than the one running on repeat internally. Feelings are real, and they're also persuasive. Left unchecked, a feeling will argue for its own version of reality. Staying grounded doesn't mean ignoring the feeling. It means getting a clear enough view to tell the feeling apart from the facts.
That same honesty requires recognizing patterns in one part of someone's life and naming where it might be showing up somewhere else too. Not as a fact being handed down, but as a question worth sitting with. That can look like pointing out that the same hesitation showing up at work and in a relationship at home. It gets named out loud, then set down. What happens with it from there is up to the client.
Belief starts with the understanding that clients have the ability to change themselves and their lives. Often, I can see how close they are before they can see it themselves. A client in the middle of it is in the trenches, moving forward one difficult day at a time. From the sideline, the finish line is closer than it looks. A few more weeks, maybe less. That gap, between where a client thinks they are and where they've actually gotten to, is one of the more satisfying things to see close.
Therapy is a vulnerable process. It asks for trust, for a willingness to look at difficult realities, and for the effort to build something better anyway. Booking a first session doesn't require having the words worked out ahead of time. It requires showing up as is. Needing help, and asking for it, doesn't take anything away from what gets accomplished afterward. The work still belongs to the person doing it. The effort is theirs. So is the progress that comes from it.
