Yes, Even Therapists can Invalidate: Finding the Right Therapist
Day 11: The Language We Use
Just like every other provider you might encounter on this pregnancy loss journey, therapists can invalidate your experience as well.
Here are actual things I have heard from therapists:
Just do IVF, and you’ll be fine. I did IVF.
Have you ever considered adoption?
You’ve had two miscarriages already. You can deal with a third one.
Are you sure it isn’t your husband’s fault that you can’t stay pregnant?
Yes, there are some bad therapists out there.
Therapists, like everyone else, are people. We have our own thoughts, worries, feelings, symptoms, anxieties, emotions, and life events. Therapists, without even having to disclose, have experienced pain just like their clients. It is in this understanding of the human condition that we can feel empathy from our therapists.
But, it is important to find a therapist who specializes in pregnancy loss, in an effort to minimize invalidation and bad practice. Therapists who specialize in pregnancy loss receive unique and special training in order to work with you.
The First 10 Days
Part of why we focus solely on targeting our own thoughts and beliefs in the first week of this program is to help recognize the type of support we need. Prior to the first week of this program, you might not have realized you needed a specialized therapist because you might have been downplaying your own emotions regarding your pregnancy loss. If you started out thinking, “it’s just a miscarriage, I shouldn’t be this upset,” then you won’t prioritize these thoughts and feelings, and you might not connect with a therapist who can support pregnancy loss. In fact, you might even connect with a therapist who shares that cognitive distortion.
Working with a therapist who is trained in supporting pregnancy loss is crucial. Before I knew there were therapists who specialized in pregnancy loss, I found a therapist with openings who lived near my apartment. It seemed like a good fit. Until, she said, “At least you know you can get pregnant! Everything is working fine down there.”
But it wasn’t working fine. Because this was my second miscarriage.
I often left sessions feeling ashamed. As a therapist, I knew I would leave some sessions feeling sad. Therapy isn’t about making you constantly happy all the time (because that can be invalidating!), but one thing you should not feel when you leave a therapy session is shame. My shame hit an all-time high when I began exploring my fear around trying to conceive again, and my therapist responded with, “Why are you so afraid to try again? You should just go for it!” As a therapist, I’m surprised that I didn’t leave this therapist sooner – but part of me thought she was right. I was not yet validating my own experience of loss and pain, and because I was speaking so poorly to myself, I allowed others to speak poorly to me as well.
This is why we focus on changing our own inner monologue first. If we don’t change the way we speak to ourselves, we accept the invalidating ways in which others speak to us.
Finding the Right Therapist
Once I discovered my current therapist, my world changed, literally. She knew how to speak to me, how to work with me, and how to honor my grief. She was trained and certified in working with perinatal mental health and pregnancy loss. My shame around pregnancy loss dissipated. I still felt sad, but my sadness was honored and held. Not dismissed.
I was no longer leaving my therapy sessions feeling shameful of my emotional experience. You should never leave a therapy session feeling more shame, beating yourself up, or minimizing your pain. There’s a big difference between minimizing your pain, and gaining distance from your pain. Overtime, as you reflect on your pregnancy loss, the proximity of the pain feels less intense. That doesn’t mean our pregnancy loss doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t mean I look back on my time immediately after my pregnancy loss and believe I was overreacting. Rather, it just means it isn’t playing as big of a role in our daily lives.
Like medical doctors and their motives how we spoke yesterday, I don’t believe that therapists are speaking with malicious intent. I believe that therapists want nothing more than to be supportive and helpful, and have the best intentions in the world. But, in the same way that I wouldn’t see an allergist for a broken leg, I wouldn’t see a therapist who didn’t specialize in pregnancy loss.
Today’s Considerations
Are you in need of a therapist?
What are some boundaries that have prevented you from finding a therapist?
How can a therapist support you in rewriting the ways in which we speak to ourselves?
To find a therapist trained in supporting you after a pregnancy loss, visit Postpartum Support International: https://psidirectory.com/.
PSI is the board that trains and certifies mental health professionals to work specifically with the perinatal period, including pregnancy loss.