Am I a therapist? A coach? A healer?
For many years, I struggled with what to call myself. Therapist, Coach, Healer, were just words that pointed to the thing itself. My soul whispered, “it doesn’t matter what you call it, just be a good one.” I didn’t always listen to my soul.
Other parts of me believed it did matter what I called myself. I had to wrap what I did in the “right” package so that people could understand my services. I identified as “therapist” first. Two graduate programs, thousands of supervised hours, paperwork and more paperwork, treatment plans, dealing with insurance companies, legal/ ethical licensing exams, exams on theory, exams with multiple right answers, exams that have nothing to do with being a good therapist, more paperwork, rewriting paperwork, continuing education units, board updates, supervision, corrupt systems, and- of course- more paperwork.
All of this gave me certain letters next to my name- MA, LCAT, ATR-BC, AMFT. It also gave me a very specific skillset as a therapist/coach/healer (rooted in a western psychology model). My inner therapist felt proud of the alphabet soup next to her name. She understood that it offered me certain opportunities, a certain level of respect, and a certain level of trust in my field.
Although obtaining alphabet soup fed my ego, it didn’t necessarily feel “right.” There was something stirring within me, an inner knowing, a place of ALIVEness that told me to notice just how much energy I was expending on getting/maintaining credentials that had absolutely nothing to do with helping clients. If anything, all of this extra work was taking energy away from clients. Anyone with credentials will tell you- jumping through bureaucratic hoops are an intrinsic part of the licensing process that has very little to do with being a skilled clinician. Everyone does it because we all agree that it means something if we do.
My Soul told me, “you could be putting that energy towards prepping for sessions, towards learning about personal growth approaches that interest you, towards doing something fun, towards enjoying your life.” But I was so strongly identified as “therapist” it was hard to let it go. “Therapist” meant that people who were suffering from depression, from anxiety, from attachment trauma could find me. “Therapist” meant that these people would trust that I could help them. And so I told myself it was a necessary evil to do what I wanted to do.
Most credentialed folks “power through", get their credentials, and then find more freedom after the fact. That was my initial intent. However, I’m not a live-in-one-place-and-stay-there-for-the-rest-of-your-life kind of person. And the rigid structure of being a “licensed professional” doesn’t allow for much movement. I’ll spare you the story of what happened when I moved from New York to Los Angeles- needless to say I jumped through a lot of hoops to get more alphabet soup for the thing I already had license to do in another state.
You want to hear something funny? I live in Israel now.
By the time I moved to Israel my Soul was more firm with me than she had ever been before. She told me, “Listen honey bunny, that’s enough hoop jumping. Life is too short to waste your energy on the nonsense. Just stop.”
“But…”
“I said stop. Being a therapist comes with too much weight. Do you want every little thing you do in your practice to have to go through an intensive bureaucratic process? Wouldn’t you rather be free?”
I wanted that freedom so badly.
My soul encouraged me, “There are people with fancy letters who are good, there are people with fancy letters who are mediocre. There are coaches who are incredible, there are coaches who are whatever. It’s not about the title. The title is just vocabulary. It’s about the person doing the work. it doesn’t matter what you call it, just be a good one.”
My Soul also reminded me that I called my practice “The Wild and Authentic Path” for a reason. Living the wild and authentic path means releasing the voices and values of family and culture in order to live in accordance to one’s inner knowing. If my inner knowing said, “don’t be a therapist anymore,” and I was committed to living the wild and authentic path (not the societally impressive path) so I had to listen.
The moment I decided to call myself “integrative coach” something within my body unclenched. It felt like an exhale. I was finally free.
As a coach, I could work with clients all over the globe (not just in one or two states). As a coach, I was free to evolve my practice in a direction that felt natural, rather than rigidly adhering to outdated models of operating.
My practice, for the first time in years, was pure. It was no longer tainted by the nonsense.