"Do I look pale?" A therapist's life-changing journey

Abstract

The subject of therapists facing an illness or living with a health condition that impacts their practice hasn’t been addressed much. In my research I confirmed what I have been noticing in my practice as a systemic therapist: the relational space within myself, my thoughts, emotions, memories and embodied reactions, interconnects with the relational space between client and therapist. My inner voices, what I experience, feel and think (Rober, 2010) affect the way I connect to my clients. This means that when I am fully present with my various selves in the therapy room, more of the client is in there too. Therefore, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I chose to disclose my illness to my clients. In this paper, I discuss my experience with cancer, the way it had an impact on my practice and how I found a way to include the relational space within myself facing an illness in the therapy room. The story that is included in the paper is a story from within practice that appears in my doctoral thesis (Karamatsouki, 2020).