When a therapist catches despair

Abstract

Despair has been a neglected and taboo subject in our field. This is a story about the therapist's own despair, and our reluctance to own and talk about it. Hope and despair are a therapist's constant companions. The price we pay for our optimism, our hope for the future, our belief in our own powers to help others, is that we must also live with the limits, disappointment and failures of our best efforts. We must maintain optimism even as we recognise the depths of our own discouragement with some clients who don't improve no matter how hard we work. What impact can we really have on people who are wracked with intractable, chronic problems and who will never really recover from traumas, illness or disorders from which they suffer? Some have problems so longstanding, so chronic and unremitting, so severe, that whatever we do seems like nothing but a token gesture. Yet hope and optimism can only be rekindled if therapists are given permission to admit the despair they experience on a daily level. In some ways, despair is an asset that heightens our ability to truly understand a client's experience. It also means that we live with such uncertainty and ambiguity about the nature of our work and its actual impact. (editor abstract)