A Note from Peggy on Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron has influenced my work from the start.

Pema is an American Tibetan Buddhist. I was drawn to this quote of hers as my experience as a client seeking clinical expertise oftentimes felt as if it were a relationship between the wounded and the healed.

I started therapy in my teens and by my early twenties, I knew I wanted to be a therapist, not so much inspired by the clinicians I sought help and support with, but to offer therapy between equals. Upon my completion of my master’s degree, I remember one of my professors who listened to my required hours of taped sessions, saying to me, “Now that you have this degree, go out there and conduct therapy the way your heart has led you to, don’t let what you’ve learned get in the way of what you know intuitively.” I was deeply touched by that as I went to school during a time that the “blank slate” therapist was a thing!

We were taught not to let on how we were feeling or what we were thinking as we listened to a client. The clinicians I sought out for guidance and support apparently learned the same. It didn’t help me; in fact, it made me feel more shame. I couldn’t work with people that way. I wanted the client to see my humanness, and to know that everyone struggles, and that suffering is part of all our lives.

I felt a deep connection with many of my clients and believe they benefited by my curiosity and willingness to say, “I don’t know.”

Sometimes people just need someone to sit in the darkness with them, especially someone who is willing to acknowledge that they too, have sat in the darkness.