Why it Matters... As a Client
If you’re a psychoanalytic clinician, you might say that people tend to project their emotional process onto their surroundings. I agree. But I also suggest that “surroundings” have the power to inform an individual’s emotional process and projections.
I’ve sat in more than a few therapist’s offices. I can really relate to the struggle that is apparently universal for my people (psychotherapists): We truly aren’t taught that office design matters, nor do we usually have the resources (money, confidence, etc.) to create a thoughtful and effective environment. Design and environmental influence as therapeutic interventions are typically ignored or undervalued in our professional educations. In theoretical practice, there are trace examples like Gestalt’s “empty chair technique,” or the switching of chairs and places in Minuchin’s Structural interventions, or the ever-vulnerable movement of the therapist’s chair towards the client during an emotional conjecture in Emotionally Focused Therapy. But in practice, the chairs we use are often gifted or barely affordable. The lighting is whatever we can manipulate to combat the relentless florescent bulbs. The art on the walls and the knickknacks on the shelves are sometimes placed without intention or awareness given to their potential instrumentation in the therapeutic process.
As a client, I stare at things. I think hard or I distract, fixating on a frame or a pillow or the clutter or the dust. As a client, I have memories of a throw blanket bringing me welcomed comfort. In another office, I remember really appreciating the little pad and pencil placed on a side table next to me, which I projected to mean that my therapist trusted in my commitment to growth- should anything important like a book title or a recent article in Psychology Today be mentioned that I may want to remember for further research. I rarely followed up on the things I wrote down, but it felt good knowing that my therapist thought I might be smart/curious/wanting to grow. That’s one of my needs as a human and client.
As clients, we just want help. We don’t choose a provider by the look or feel of their practice setting. I am a client to speak up and admit that I have been surprised by how the smallest expressions of effort and intention in the environment turned out to be critical players in my process of healing.
