by Claire Greenwood, MA

THE SHADOW OF IDEALIZATION 

I was a writer before I was a therapist. Before I knew the alphabet, I would staple pieces of blank paper together and draw stories or narrate the stories to my parents. I published two memoirs before the age of thirty. When I made the decision to train to be a therapist, I knew that I would have to contend with patients being able to access my personal writing. And I’ve already had patients who have read my books, or who have found me through my writing. 

Being a therapist and being a writer invite projection in a similar way, but I’ve found that people have much stronger projections to me as a writer than to me as a therapist. As a writer, I show mastery, creativity, and a passion that is nearly lifelong. People assume things about me as a writer. They assume I seek fame; they assume I am confident. I’m not the most successful writer, but my words have a certain power. 

But much of me stays hidden as an author. What people don’t see is a lot of insecurity, time alone crying and doubting myself, passivity, and hopelessness. Even when I am writing about emotionally trying experiences, or the lowest moments in my life (which I often do), people project a kind of resilience and strength onto me. It’s an odd paradox; by writing about my vulnerabilities, people view me as invulnerable. 

As a therapist and a writer, what this means is that people come into treatment often assuming I am a certain version of myself. Transference happens all the time in therapy, but the “author version” of myself adds a particularly strong transference to the mix. I’ve also noticed that when I’m working with patients who have read my writing, more is hidden and obscured. I don’t get to be weak. I don’t get to be hopeless. It’s the patients who are weak and hopeless, and I am on the pedestal. 

What I have yet to figure out as a therapist is, what does this idealization transference mean to my patients? What is its function? Because it also has a dark side. Patients who idealize me and my writing can turn quickly. They will also feel intense and angry disappointment when the treatment doesn’t meet their expectations (and it inevitably won’t). Terminations with people who’ve read my writing have been especially fraught and bitter. 

But I’m not going to stop writing. I love the interplay of excavating deeper parts of myself and sharing them with others. But there’s another, simpler reason. Something that is perhaps hidden in all of this is the need for money, to make a living. Therapy and writing are jobs. At the end of the day, therapists and writers are trying to feed themselves and their families. If that’s unsavory or disappointing to you, it speaks to the projection at hand. Reality can be a bummer, but that’s where we live, at least most of the time.