What We as Trauma Therapists Get Wrong and How to Talk to Us About Our Mistakes

Your trauma therapist makes mistakes. Trust us, we dislike this more than you do.  Sometimes make decisions that aren’t the right fit for you. Or we say the wrong thing. Or we miss something really important to you. No matter how hard we may be trying, we do end up making mistakes. 

Let's explore 5 mistakes that can happen, and how you can address them with your trauma therapists so that they can be resolved as quickly as possible.

(And no, this isn’t a full list! If theres one you want to see, leave a comment and we can do a Part 2 addressing other mistakes!)

NOTE: The mistakes we’re going to explore are ones that are repairable, not ones that are so big that you should end therapy with that person. If you ever feel demeaned, disrespected or bullied in therapy, those are signs that you may want to find a new therapist. Only consider our “possible ways to talk about it” if the relationship feels respectful and healthy!  

General Thoughts on Telling Your Trauma Therapist About a Mistake

Before we dive in to the mistakes, here are some general thoughts to recall any time you’re telling your therapist about a mistake they made: 

• Your therapist genuinely WANTS to know if they’ve made a mistake. Sometimes we know we’ve made a mistake, but we may not be able to figure out what it was. Sometimes we are unaware of this mistake but we might be able to tell something feels off. We legitimately stay up, trying to figure out what happened so that we can repair the rupture in the relationship.  Our job is to serve you and we want to do that to the best of our ability! By telling us about a mistake, we can work with you to repair the harm and build a stronger relationship. 

• Learning to tell someone they made a mistake is such an important skill to have. And who better to practice it with than someone who is literally trained in it? By telling your therapist, you get practice sharing your experience with someone who is committed to helping repair any harm they have caused. 

• You are welcome to tell your therapist directly about the mistake, but this is sometimes overwhelming for people. If that feels too hard, know that you can always email your therapist between sessions. If you choose this option, your therapist will likely give a brief response to the email and then talk to you about it more in-depth the next time you see them.

• You don’t have to be  totally sure if your therapist made a mistake. Maybe your past leads you to question what is and isn’t okay. Maybe you cant recall exactly what happened, you just know something feels off. Regardless of why, remember that if it doesn’t sit right with you, then it deserves addressing. Bring it up regardless and the two of you can work through it together.

• There is an inherent power differential in the counselling room. The therapist holds power and this can make it really hard to bring something up. There may be fear of things becoming weird and awkward after you bring it up, or that the relationship gets worse. Try to remember that all the research shows that talking about ruptures in a relationship makes the relationship stronger, not weaker. The moment of the conversation will be tough, but the end result will be worth it.  

• A final thing to remember: there is no “right” way to bring up a mistake. Stutter, cry, talk in circles, avoid eye contact; we welcome it all. Whatever allows you to express your experience is wanted and welcome in the counselling space. 

Mistake #1: Saying the Wrong Thing

This mistake is of course going to vary a lot, but your therapist may make a mistake like calling your brother by the wrong name. Or accidentally invalidating you with what they said. Or maybe its slipping up and using your old pronouns as they adjust to the new ones with you. 

While we of course do our best not to, every therapist can recall a time when they said the wrong thing and later we cringe as we remember it.

Possible ways to talk about it: 

Therapy is such a great place to practice telling someone they hurt you because your therapist is literally TRAINED in helping you work through that hurt. 

If you catch it in the moment, you could try saying something like “oh you got X wrong, it’s actually Y and that mistake makes me feel ____”. 

If you don’t say something in the moment, you could either email your therapist and let them know, or you could say it at the beginning of your next session. You could try something like “last session you said _____ when it’s really _____ and that’s been bothering me because it makes me feel ____”

For both of these sentences, you could finish the “makes me feel _____” with an emotion like unheard, forgotten, hurt, etc or with what it means. For example, "it makes me feel like I don't matter to you" or "it makes me feel like I’m just a number to you." or "it makes me feel like I’m not good enough for you to remember."

Mistake #2: Missing Something Super Important 

Can you imagine sharing something that feels really big, vulnerable or meaningful to your therapist and we miss it? We go on as though it wasn’t huge? This happens sometimes! As much as we are trying to pick up on the things that matter most to you, a variety of factors can lead to us missing it. Sometimes it’s because we were really focused on something you just said and dint register the big thing. Sometimes it’s that it gets slipped in to conversation almost as an aside and we didn’t realize the impact. 

Possible ways to talk about it:

There are couple ways you could bring this up, depending how comfortable you are with being very direct.

If you want to be direct, you could say "When I told you about _____, you didn't seem to understand how important that was to me and I feel _____".

If you are a little less comfortable being direct, you could say "I mentioned _____ previously and we glossed over it. I'd like to spend some more time talking about that today." This allows you to name you wanted more time there without having to be too direct.

Mistake #3: Overestimating How Much Insight Alone Helps

Different people come to therapy with different levels of insight. Some folks come understanding how their trauma shows up in their daily life, where it really stems from and what helps them. These people have taken a lot of time for self-discovery and are very insightful. Other people use therapy as the place to begin this work. They may not be aware they have trauma, how things connect or the impacts in their life.

Because of this huge variety of insight, your therapist may focus more on insight when what you need is actually deeper processing. This might be happening for you if you feel like therapy ends up being a place where you just share what you’ve already discovered. Our mistake came come in not recognizing where you are at in your healing journey and starting at the very beginning rather than meeting you where you are at. 

Possible ways to talk about it: 

If you happen to know from the beginning of therapy that you have a lot of insight and need support more with the processing side of things, consider saying this from the get-go so you can potentially circumvent this issue. This could sound something like "I have a lot of insight in to my trauma and I'm looking for a therapist who can help me process, rather than build more awareness. Is this something you can provide?"

If you're already working with someone when you realize it's no longer meeting your needs, you may consider saying something like "I feel like we've done a lot of good working helping me build awareness and insight. I'm wanting to shift our focus now to processing work."

Mistake #4: Assuming You Always Know What You Need

We want to empower you and help you get what YOU want and need out of therapy. But sometimes we go a little too far, assuming that you know what you need. We may be asking what you think of you need, or how you want to handle it. This can feel like a lot of pressure for you, when you don’t know but now you feel like you’re supposed to! 

Possible ways to talk about it: 

If you need us to offer ideas because you’re not sure what you need, just say that! “Hmm I don’t think I really know what I need. Would you be able to offer some ideas?”

If this feels like an on-going problem, rather than a one-off, addressing the pattern can be helpful. “I often feel a sense of pressure that I’m supposed to know what I need and I really don’t. Can we take a different approach?” This can help your therapist focus back on your needs and goals.  

Mistake #5: Forgetting To Ask What you Want

In any therapy session, there are so many directions and ways we could go.

What topic do we focus on? What intervention do we use? Is today a coping strategy type of day or a processing day?  Just like a road trip, many different routes may get you to the same place, but you likely have a preferred way to get there.

As trauma therapists, we do our best to ask what you would prefer but sometimes we forget and end up guiding you down a particular path. You may sometimes find that the session is focused on something you didn’t want to spend time on. Or maybe you’re doing processing work in your not-preferred way. 

This is one mistake that we make sometimes. And when this happens, it’s important (and sometimes scary!!) to let us know so that we can make sure you are getting what you want out of your time! 

Possible ways to talk about it:

If you come to therapy with a specific idea of where you want to go, try telling your therapist this right at the beginning of session. If your therapist is okay with it, you could also email it before session so that they can bring it up in session. 

If you’re in session when you realize you’re headed in the wrong direction, you could consider naming it directly, saying something like “I feel like we’re not spending time where I’d like to focus today. Can we talk about ______ instead?” If that feels too overwhelming, you could try saying “Can we bounce topics and talk about _____ instead?” Remember that your therapist really does want to focus on what YOU want to focus on, but we sometimes get that wrong. So hearing you want to go in a different direction is really helpful for us! 

Final Thoughts: Therapy Is a Relationship—Mistakes Happen

Mistakes happen in every relationship we have. Therapy is no different. A skilled trauma therapist recognizes this as the nature of the work and wants to work through the mistakes with you. And if they don’t? Well that’s important information to have too! 

It may be hard, scary, uncomfortable or even a bit awkward. And that’s okay! You deserve to get the most out of your therapy and by sharing what isn’t working, your therapist can adjust and can help. You’ve got this! 

If you’re looking for a trauma therapist in Kamloops or in BC who really wants to hear about their mistakes and work with you to repair the relationship, book yourself a session today!