A personal account of what personal therapy makes possible in the consulting room
Eight years ago, my daughter died by suicide. I have written publicly about her death, including on this website. It is not something I hide, nor something I have resolved. It is part of what I carry into the room.
As a relational counsellor, I use self-disclosure consciously when I believe it may serve the work. Some of my long-term clients know about my daughter’s death. Part of my responsibility is to remain aware, at any given moment, of how I am carrying it and how it may be present in the therapeutic relationship.
This article is about one occasion when carrying it became difficult, what happened next and why I believe the answer to “Do I really need personal therapy?” is, for most therapists, yes.
Something in the room
During one piece of clinical work, a client was speaking about a traumatic bereavement. They knew something of my own experience of loss because I had chosen to disclose it during our work. The disclosure formed part of the relationship we had built and had been useful in helping us explore their experience.
As the conversation progressed, I became aware of growing anxiety in my body. It was not thought-level anxiety—the kind that can be reasoned with—but something lower and more physical. I sensed that the account was moving towards graphic details about the death.
I asked them to pause for a moment.
I needed to regulate and understand what was happening in my nervous system. I explained that I was finding it difficult to receive some of the details and asked whether we could approach the material differently.
Together, we considered what they needed to express and how I could remain present without closing down the conversation. We found a way for them to speak about what mattered without focusing on details I couldn’t safely receive at that moment.
That was possible because trust had already developed between us. I named what was happening rather than trying to manage it covertly, and we negotiated how to proceed without asking the client to take responsibility for my feelings.
The boundary was necessary, but the encounter left something unfinished in me.
What the body was holding
In my personal therapy, we explored my nervous system’s response: the anxiety, the physical signal and my decision to pause the client’s account.
The connection led to my daughter’s death. As we followed it, I recognised something I had not consciously registered before: I had never spoken aloud about some of the most difficult circumstances surrounding how she was found.
Not to my therapist, my supervisor or anyone else.
I am not going to share those details here, but I want to describe what happened when I finally spoke about them in therapy.
I asked my therapist whether it was all right to go through what I remembered. She held the space while, with a great deal of shaking and trembling, I told her what had happened.
As the account came out of me, something began to shift in my body. By the time I had finished, it felt as though something in my nervous system had dissolved, or at least loosened its grip.
The memories had not disappeared, but the weight of carrying them alone had changed. What had remained silent for years had finally been witnessed.
My supervisor could not have done that work with me. Supervision holds the clinical work: I bring ethical questions, relational dynamics, and aspects of practice I cannot see clearly on my own.
But when something is lodged not only in my thinking but in my body, supervision is not always the right container. That work belongs in personal therapy.
What this makes possible
Afterwards, I recognised that I had more room to listen.
The boundary I had set in the clinical encounter was not wrong. Therapists must notice when their capacity is being compromised and respond responsibly. Remaining silent while becoming overwhelmed would not necessarily have served the client.
But processing my own material gave me greater freedom. I could make future clinical decisions with less interference from an unprocessed response and more attention to what the client needed.
If similar material arose again, I would have more capacity to remain present. I could make decisions about how to proceed collaboratively, without placing responsibility for my emotional wellbeing on the client.
This is what personal therapy makes possible.
It does not remove our responses. Therapists are human beings, and the work affects us. Personal therapy can, however, help us stay present with difficult material rather than being pulled under by it.
The difference between a nervous system that can remain with a client’s experience and one that cannot is not simply intelligence or clinical training. It also depends on how much we have attended to our own unprocessed material.
If we are carrying something without giving it a proper place to land, it may find expression in the consulting room. It can appear in what we cannot hear, what we avoid, what we redirect or what we subtly invite the client to protect us from.
Clients may feel that shift even when neither person can immediately name it.
A professional necessity, not a personal indulgence
Some therapists treat personal therapy as a requirement to complete during training, then quietly set it aside.
I understand the logic. Time is limited, therapy costs money, and once we are qualified, much of the external pressure disappears.
But the argument for continuing personal therapy is not about compliance. It is about the quality of what we offer in the room.
I have been practising for a number of years, and material still surfaces unexpectedly. I still have dreams that connect directly with my clinical work. I still need a space where I am the client and someone else holds the frame.
That is not a sign of inadequacy. It recognises that this work asks something of us and that professional development isn’t limited to acquiring knowledge or technique.
I do not go to therapy purely for my own benefit.
I go so that my history is less likely to restrict what another person can bring into the room. I go to understand my responses, respect my limits and return to the work with greater freedom.
I go to be better able to serve my clients.
If dreams have been part of what you’re carrying, my free dream exploration tool offers a place to start.
Related reading: If Therapy Didn’t Work Before, This Might Be Why
If this article has brought up difficult feelings
This article discusses suicide and suicide bereavement. If you’re struggling, please reach out.
Samaritans
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Call 116 123 · jo@samaritans.org
SOBS — Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide
Peer support from people who have been bereaved by suicide.
Call 0300 111 5065 · Monday to Friday, 9am–9pm
