10 Years In. A Brief Memoir.

Today I woke up and realized that January marked my 10-year anniversary of when I first stepped into a therapy office, not to receive, as I had been doing for a year prior, but to start the first day of my practicum as a grad student.

Ten years ago, shaking, I drove my Jeep Liberty up I-75 in Dallas, winding my way around 635 and landing in a group therapy session at a sweeping office building. One of the group members in a sturdy business suit looked at me and said, “Ah, fresh meat.” 

A few months after that, sitting at a stately dinner table in her beautiful historic home, a 60-year-old client cried when I told her that I was 23. She said that she must be in a really bad spot if a 23 year old girl had to help her through her bipolar disorder. I understood. I would have cried too. I probably did.

Before I had my first ever individual client, my supervisor gave me one hard look and said, “You should try to look older before you meet her.” They also poured water on my head during a group practicum student meeting. They were also furious (and somehow surprised) when I told them that I didn’t want them as my supervisor while I was getting my hours. It’s true that our bodies grow up but sometimes our brains don’t.

Despite all of this, my practicum was truly a great experience. I had my hands in so many complex and complicated cases. Because those cases were so complex, I had access to so many providers and perspectives. Practicum Christine knew virtually nothing and was painfully aware of it. I asked questions. I read. I spilled shredded paper in the back room and had to clean it up with my bare hands. I was hazed by one colleague in particular. But what my practicum site lacked in environmental warmth and maybe even basic training, I made up for it in knowledge and experience. I cut my teeth faster, sharper, and better than I did sitting in a classroom.

Cut to March of 2021. Skipping over details— job changes, a move, COVID, major life events— I’m driving, shaking, to my brand new office in Fort Worth about to see my first client in my newly established private practice. It was a tiny, skinny, white room without a window but lots of charm, and no AC for the summer of ‘21-horrible timing for my first trimester of pregnancy. And yet,  it was the most beautiful office I’d ever seen. It was beautiful because it was mine. 

It was beautiful and I was terrified. While I trusted myself more and knew tons more than I did in January of 2015, there was still so much to know and understand about the human experience. There still is. At 10 years,  I’m considered an “expert.” I have ten thousand hours behind me, several certifications, several license renewals, upgrades, books, conferences, podcasts, an office with consistent AC, and best of all, actual clients behind me, and I still have so much more to learn. I want to learn. And I spend a lot of my time learning. Despite—and because of—all the work I’ve done. 

Because of all this learning, I’m reminded that it’s not actually knowledge that helps people. Although it’s helpful, and yes, people come because I am an expert and I have knowledge that I spent years gaining, really why people come is that they know that I care, and they know that I can understand. 

Lori Gottlieb in Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, writes that the research shows it’s not the modality your therapist practices that changes you— it’s if whether you trust them. The Bible says you can have all the good ingredients— knowledge, power, money, resources, to give to people, but if you don’t love them, all of those things are worthless. A clanging gong leading to nowhere. 

Ten years in, I think of that girl. The one who drove, shaking, to her first office, told to look older. The one called “fresh meat.” The “ intern.” The one who got trash stuffed in her purse by that one colleague who liked to feel superior. The one who told herself she knew nothing. 

I remember why she drove to that first practicum site, shaking. She wanted to help. To understand. To gently reveal to others that they are loved. That they are worthy of receiving love. That they are worthy of being transformed by it. 

Ten years in, I believe— more than ever— in the importance of knowledge. Skills. Modalities. Theories. I know them well. I also know that nothing will change a person’s life if it does not come from a place of deep care and compassion. 

That girl, ten years ago, who told herself she had nothing, but was going to love people where they are regardless of knowledge, was so right. She intuitively knew the heart of therapy better than any burned out, exhausted, and overworked therapist, distant from their own lived experiences. 

I respect Practicum Christine. She’s the real deal. She’s tender. She’s kind. She’s hopeful. She’s still in there— hungry to learn, grow, and to remember the core of it all is love.