The Paradoxical Experience of Support: Receiving and Providing

Are we as able to receive support for ourselves as we are to provide it for others?When reflecting on support, the first thing that came to mind was that it is much easier for me to give support than it is to receive it. I know how to clear space, listen, attune, and provide authentic connection to, for, and with others. I embrace that providing support in Gestalt therapy is not always comfortable or socially pleasing. It can sometimes require examining the more difficult aspects of existence, while providing enough presence and affirmation to “go there” and handle vulnerable and often avoided material. I love this aspect of the work: applying Laura Perl’s guideline to provide as much support as necessary and as little as possible. I can feel myself leaning into curiosity and a desire to discover clients’ unique and individual process so that they can bolster their own awareness, agency, and self-support. As an experienced Gestalt practitioner, providing balanced support has become relatively easy and consistently gratifying for me.Yet I have always struggled, not only with asking for support for myself, but even with recognizing that I could reach out at all. Even when grappling with something incredibly hard or cumbersome, it does not occur to me that I have plenty of people who would likely say “Yes” to helping me. When this is pointed out to me, I often feel sheepish and potentially ashamed of having not recognized the valuable resources I have available to me. Duh. I have a wonderful village of people who would gladly support me if I had just thought to ask. I am not totally hopeless: I have plenty of self-support and can do things, like adjust the number of people I accept on my caseload and schedule enough breaks to help prevent burnout. I can attend to my sleep, exercise, and nutrition needs to care for my body. I have learned to say “No” on occasion when asked to take on another task when I do not have time or interest to do so. The aspect of support I still really struggle with is asking for, and allowing others to, care for me.I write about this topic, specifically, because I know it is a shared affliction from which many of us therapist types suffer. We organize our lives around supporting others, and yet many of us struggle with self-support or accepting care from others. I am aware of the origin of this process in my life, and how it was perpetuated throughout my childhood and adolescence until it became a fixed and unexamined “truth.” It is a stubborn introject, and only with some awareness, often in the form of those sheepish and ashamed feelings, that I discover I can make different choices. Cluing in my loved ones about this process has also helped them and me. They no longer think I do not need or value them because I did not include or recruit them. I am given a little extra external support to build my awareness and thus notice I truly have more choices here and now than I did back there and then.