BP 213
Need. . . Neediness. . . I need you. . . You are needy. . . I need others more than they need me. . .
The experience of needing is often received with mixed feelings by us humans. Some people believe that to need is to be weak. They assert that needing can leave you vulnerable (absolutely true). They believe that it is a foolish thing to need anyone because others will surely let you down (mostly true) or manipulate and use you (sometimes true) or simply inconvenience you (certainly true)—and many people do not like to be inconvenienced.
Yes, it can be unwise and even dangerous to need someone especially if it leads to shunning personal growth and developing childish dependence as the end goal. Certainly, needing in some situations can lead to a moratorium on growth.
But is it true that there are legitimate times when humans need someone so much that they are highly dependent on others? Yes, of course. Total dependence is true of infants, babies, and even toddlers. How about for adults? Is there ever a time when adults might need someone else to take care of them or be strong for them? Yes, some examples are when they are in the ICU in the hospital or when they are disabled by age, injury, or cognitive decline.
What about psychologically/emotionally? Are there occasions when adults might need to fully depend on another person even if they are physically strong and mentally intelligent but emotionally underdeveloped?
Some might say no but others might say yes. Let’s take a moment to consider emotional dependency in adults, specifically in the client-psychologist relationship.
In my experience as a mental health practitioner, clients don’t always need their psychologist, at least not very intensely. One reason is that some clients may not need to do the deeper journey that I refer to as “development of the self” work. Instead, they need brief “counseling” to resolve a specific problem or relational issue that does not run very deep into the cave system of their psyches or souls.
Also, some clients are not really looking to need (trust) their therapist. They are not interested in the therapeutic relationship but just expect to be pointed in the right direction so they can engage in self-driven growth. They are looking for tips about the right books to read or the correct techniques to develop or how to heal themselves without really needing another person. They may desire to need their psychologist as much as they need to trust their automobile mechanic: give me service at a reasonable price and fix the problem and I am good to go.
So, not “needing” the therapist may work just fine for some clients if their presenting issue is not too complex or if they are not seeking to need anyone in their lives or know how to need anyone.
But other clients come to see a psychologist because the trauma of their childhood or the emotional immaturity of their parents that did not look that unhealthy to people outside the family prevented them from developing a healthy self. These children were too consumed with survival or taking care of their caretakers or monitoring the unpredictability of those around them or being terrified and actively dissociating that they did not have the space, ability, safety, or modeling to grow a cohesive self.
These children did not have the luxury to trust, need, self-soothe, regulate emotions, plan wisely, and delay gratification. In short, they were not able to experience the development of a healthy self.
These “survivors” of childhood–unlike those who come to counseling to resolve more minor issues as alluded to above–don’t simply need books and tools and skills they can develop on their own. They need the presence of a mature, emotionally healthy individual who can step out of the world of his or her own needs to be present for the needs of an emotionally young person and to function as a mirror for them to know themselves. This person is “young” because the child never had a strong, listening, predictable, present caregiver to walk with them closely through the stages of self-development.
Survivors of childhood absolutely need the power and presence of relationship in therapy.
In the world of clinical psychology, some theorists have referred to this interaction between the therapist and young client as “reparenting.” I think the word is self-explanatory. Insurance companies run in fear (somewhat understandably) at therapy that involves longer term development of the self, much preferring short term therapeutic fixes that are not based in relationship but in self-help formulas.
(Know that I am not referring here to long term psychoanalytic work where the psychologist is a blank screen and relationally detached and almost distant from the client.)
Some counselors prefer not to do longer term therapy because they view all deeper connections in the therapeutic relationship as encouraging unhealthy dependence—or because they are not trained for such a journey and neither do they desire to do such deep and dangerous “spelunking” in the human psyche.
Most survivors of childhood are not aware of their deep need for the power and presence of relationship at the outset of the therapeutic journey (or they fear it or do not know how to do it) but will often recognize this need later when they realize that their self was not able to develop healthily in the minefield of childhood.
However, in the presence of an individual (a psychologist or even a very experienced pastor or a highly trained mentor) who is safe, predictable, celebrating, healthy in boundary setting, willing to gently but firmly challenge, and who actually cares for and loves others, clients discover a relational incubator where they can grow into adults (even as they go through periods of anger toward their psychologist or hate them for a season).
But then there is the matter of the psychologist in the whole dynamic of need. The professional must do one thing and not do another.
First, the psychologist must not need the client to meet his or her own needs. Therapists who do deeper work with a client must have done their own growth so that they do not retraumatize the client by acting as the needy or emotionally immature parent (even by needing to be needed). Second, the psychologist must be prepared to be highly present for the client who needs to grow a self in the presence of a mature listener.
These two characteristics in a psychologist are absolute necessities for the healing of a young client. (Just be aware that “young” is not a demeaning term. It is simply a statement of fact. Many of these young clients are highly intelligent, amazingly creative, and are the most interesting people I work with.)
Now for a brief personal anecdote regarding clients who are needy . . .
When I was in my doctoral program in clinical psychology, two of my professors asked me a single question that significantly shaped my future therapeutic career. I remember few things as clearly as these two questions from the five years in my post-grad program. One of these transformative questions was asked by my female clinical supervisor, Dr. Nancy Duval. During supervision one day, she simply asked me, “Will you allow your clients to need you?”
I had never thought about that possibility before, namely, a client needing me. Maybe it should have been obvious since psychologists are people trained to be there for others, but I had never taken the time to intentionally consider that. My mind was more focused on my role in “helping” people.
My supervisor’s question thirty years ago still crosses my mind at times. I think of it from both perspectives in the therapeutic relationship, namely, the client and the psychologist. A client who has experienced significant negative trauma and/or the absence of positive presence must learn how to need/trust the person who is healthily present for her in order to develop a self, and the psychologist must be prepared and willing to allow the client to need him even in a highly dependent way—for a season.
For thirty years, I had a picture on the wall of my office of a sailboat cutting through the azure, wavy waters of the ocean. If one looked closely at the picture, it was clear that there were two people on board the boat. I often directed clients’ attention to that sailboat explaining to them that the therapeutic journey was like that sailboat—the client is the owner of the boat but brings me on board as a navigator who will help them sail from one (unhealthy) side of the ocean to the other (healthy) side.
In other words, it was okay for them to need me deeply for a season if that was necessary for their development of a self. I was not just there to help load supplies onto their boat or give them a map and remain on shore. No, I was present to go with them on the journey when they required someone to be with them during tumultuous storms, dark nights, and even times when they felt lost, alone and wanting to die.
I could not be with these clients who lacked a stable self 24/7 or even, of course, in a perfect way, but I could be “good enough” to a degree that they would, over time, learn to trust me and feel a sense of being in that safe incubator of growth.
As a lover of Jesus who happens to be a psychologist, I believe that an integral ingredient of faithful presence with others is the ability and willingness to love clients/people with a deep compassion. If my clients were not convinced that I loved them, why would they choose to trust me as some detached professional who actually was like their automobile mechanic or perhaps a mechanic for their soul—someone who would diagnose the problem and fix them like a car?
Psychologist, counselor, pastor, mentor and parent, remember that you must be willing to engage your heart with your clients, patients, sheep, and children. Set good boundaries, of course, for their sake, but be willing to let others need you, not to fulfill your narcissistic need to be needed but to care for others created in God’s amazing image.
Know that when you allow others to need you, you are emulating the apostle Paul who said, “Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. . . . For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” ~ 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8, 11-12.
Above all, know that when you love others and let them need you, you are being like Jesus whose word says, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” ~ I John 3:16ff.
So, be a present servant like Paul and like Jesus. Be willing to laugh at inconvenience and embrace the messy ins and outs of someone depending on you for their development of a self who can trust, be vulnerable, not be alone, and, above all, love God, others and his or her own self.
You may save a heart on such a journey and maybe even a soul. Few things on the planet are more important than that.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” ~ John 15:12-13
