Why I’m in School To Become a Child Therapist

A permanent resident of that fertile, forgiving, nuanced gray area.

I’m getting a master’s degree in Early Childhood and Family Counseling. Essentially, I’ll be licensed to treat anyone who seeks therapy, but specialized to see children and families. Since my orientation last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’m doing this.

Shortly after first seeing a therapist as a teenager, I toiled with the idea of becoming one. It struck me as an interesting job, in which my proclivity toward self-development would serve me well. This desire followed me through college, and I naively thought I kind of was like a therapist because I loved to give advice, and considered my advice very good. I figured I might as well get licensed.

Then, a year after college, I was accepted to another university’s marriage and family therapy program and denied my admission. I wasn’t quite sure why I hadn’t accepted, but subsequently found myself indignantly in the camp of “I definitely don’t want to become a therapist.” I proceeded to overturn rocks along career paths I could possibly be interested in. Instead of finding every perk of the therapy industry, which I had wholeheartedly done prior, I sought out criticism of the industry. I wanted to be sure that I’d made the right decision in denying acceptance; thus, I found reasons for disparaging common therapeutic practices to convince myself I shouldn’t be involved in any of it. Basically, I crept closer toward whatever the opposite side of “therapy is amazing” is.

In retrospect, I see my behavior as immature in a normal kind of way; also, as a crucial part of my intellectual development. I needed the time to build the internal fortitude to form my own opinions among the chorus of many; to try on other ideas; to grow in my ability to sense what is actually honest. I needed to grow up a little.

Is it true of you, too, to go from one extreme to another? Is this an internal mechanism to protect our fragile egos from believing we made a mistake, or from the judgments of others? I don’t think I made a mistake by denying acceptance to Northwestern’s Marriage and Family therapy program—though if I’d taken it, I’d be finished with school and already a year into becoming fully licensed. (I’d also be $100,000 in debt, but probably presently making more money?) The decision I made freed me up to follow my constantly doubted intuition back to Northern California, then 10 hours south to San Diego, then to stumble into finding the program I’m beginning later today—one of few such specialized programs around. I’m grateful and ready to be here.

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I struggle with wanting to know exactly what I want and feel totally confident about what I end up choosing. I want to hold the right beliefs and the right ideas. I want to be so totally satisfied in my career and believe strongly in the mission of that career. I just want to do everything right, a longing I consistently tamp down in favor of “loving the messiness.” (It sometimes works.) Do we all want to be right all the time—is this just a trait of humanity at large?

Despite this unattainable desire to do and think everything right, as I gather more years of life I continuously fall into the camp of the fertile, forgiving, nuanced gray area. Over and over, I am smacked with the understanding that there will always be little bits of truth scattered from one pole to the other, rather than collected in a single spot. There will always be maybes and sometimes’ amid yeses and nos.

And so, I do indeed find myself entering graduate school firmly in the fertile and forgiving nuanced gray. I don’t expect to agree with everything I’m taught, and I don’t expect to be totally thrilled about what I’m learning or doing. I do expect my previously held views to be challenged, and to incur some discomfort.

I am excited to jump into this flawed, evolving field of child and family counseling. I’m thrilled, actually. In the couple of years since not going to graduate school, I’ve sidled my way back to genuinely wanting to be a therapist and accepting all that it entails. Now, I feel mentally strong enough to have my opinions teased out of my brain and cast aside; to weather being wrong in a more mature way. I’m also strong enough not to discount my own thoughts and opinions in favor of a professor’s different perspective: I know how to take information in without immediately adopting it as gospel. I value my own contributions as well. I’m constantly honing my discerning open mind, a mind that stays open to differing viewpoints but does not lose the function of its bullshit detector.¹

There are flaws in the therapeutic industry just as there are anywhere else. That said, it is a career with the potential to do great work and is dearly necessary. I am wearing neither idealistically- nor cynically-tinted glasses as I go forth.

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When I applied for this program last year, I’m not sure that I could have told anyone why I was doing it. My answer would probably have been: “I feel like I want to and I’d be good at it?”

Now, my answer is a bit different, more formed. I do still think I’ll be a good child and family therapist, but I have so much to do before I can become one. I’m doing this because I deeply care about how children are treated and raised, and because I love to work with both children and parents.

I’m here to learn from people who can teach me, and to stay open to learning from everyone I encounter. I’m here because I want to be able to share information that people need to hear; to help them remember that they are innately resilient, and can figure things out and deal with what life has for them.

I want to remind people that they are not defined by their diagnoses, and to show parents that they are absolutely capable of raising their child well. I don’t wish to impose my own beliefs or morals, or tout trite messages of recovery in the name of “helping”—I want to bear witness to the brutal truth of the people I get to work with, and offer something honest and useful in return. Like Ram Dass said, I want to be “an environment where people can come up for air if they wanted to.” That’s the kind of therapist I aspire toward becoming.

I wonder how my answers will change when I graduate in two years.

So, while I have some apprehension about going forth into higher education, it is quelled by the possibilities it opens up and the thrill of studying something I’m interested in. I’m prepared to be humbled out of my own righteousness, probably many times over.

I guess I’m learning that the answers to our burning questions about what to do with our lives always come on their own timeline. We ought to stay open to that timeline, and try not to worry too much about it. In retrospect, things make a little more sense than when you’re in the flames of the unknown. We might as well surrender to the process. We can only be here now, after all.

Do I sound like a good therapist yet?

Maggie

1. I wrote The Discerning Open Mind last January. In essence: “The discerning open mind knows what is worth considering or thinking about. It is interested in treating people ethically, and dedicated to sourcing accurate information. The discerning open mind is willing to hear alternative viewpoints, but does not lose the function of its bullshit detector.”