The Gap Between Us: What Makes Therapy a Privilege

When therapists say “the work is a privilege”, what do we really mean?

Speaking personally, I mean that it’s an honour. An honour that someone has chosen to sit with me, sometimes at great personal risk, and share a part of their inner world. It’s not just about stories or symptoms — it’s about the texture of a person’s lived experience. The word admiration also comes to mind. The more I come to know and understand you, the more I admire your complexity, your resilience, your courage. This for me connects with Carl Rogers’ idea of unconditional positive regard — not just accepting someone, but holding them in esteem.

Working as a local practitioner, I find myself increasingly aware of the patchwork of human lives playing out around me. Different homes, different walks, different stories — like stars scattered across a galaxy. A galaxy of humanity.

Each person I meet opens a new window into that galaxy. Through our sessions, I gain fleeting glimpses into different professions, belief systems, family structures, cultural heritages, and worldviews. The landscape becomes more animated. We are not isolated units. We are woven together in a vast, interconnected tapestry.

Therapy is its own kind of intimacy. It’s not the intimacy of sharing facts, but the intimacy of inner worlds. For fifty minutes, I am invited to inhabit your world — and then later, in my own quiet reflections, I continue to walk alongside you. We’re both learning, both ageing, both facing the impermanence of it all. There’s a kind of lovingness in being fellow travellers.

By the end of the day, I’m often exhausted — emotionally, mentally, bodily. And yet, beneath that tiredness, I usually feel a kind of glow. A warmth in my heart for the uniqueness of each person I’ve spent time with. I feel gratitude — not in a socially acceptable 'therapist-speak' kind of way, but in a way that is deeply and genuinely felt. That’s what I mean when I say this work is a privilege.

I bring an outsider’s perspective, a confidentiality you can trust, training in reflection and awareness, and a knowledge of some of the patterns and universals that unite us. I also bring a mirror — an honest, non-defensive reflection of how I experience us, in the room. This can lead to clarification of emotional and relational patterns, greater self-awareness in the moment, and ultimately the capacity for more creative, intentional responses out there in the world.

Some of the themes we often encounter together include:

• The pain of alienation and the deep need for connection

• Experience avoidance and the meanings and challenge of exposure

• The hard-won wisdom of knowing what we can and cannot control

• Letting go of self-judgement: your thoughts and feelings are not crimes

• Navigating power dynamics — noticing when we lean in, or lean away

• Differentiation: learning what’s mine, and what belongs to others

• Finding words for our inner lives — learning to name needs, express selfhood

• Facing the impermanence of life, and of a life lived in chapters

Perhaps most foundational of all is the theme of connection. I don’t see alienation and connection as binary states. Rather, I think we all carry a sense of the incompleteness of our connectedness. Sometimes it’s vague — boredom, restlessness, dissatisfaction. Sometimes it’s sharper — loneliness, grief, failure. We feel, consciously or not, that something is missing. A gap needs to be closed.

Therapy offers a space to bring this sense of ‘gapness’ into the light. Together we can begin to understand its shape — and from there, begin to imagine how it might be closed, even just a little. For me, part of the privilege of this work is witnessing those moments: when the gap begins to narrow, when new forms of connection are found, when the world becomes lighter again.

So yes, this work is a privilege. Because I get to sit with you in that unfolding process, where the feelings and ideas you've been turning over start to come into view. And sometimes, in that shared space, something crystallises — a gem of understanding, a deepening of truth — something real and meaningful that you can take with you into the world.