Therapy is Like an Epic Quest…Are You a Healer or an Oracle?
Written by Manny Cantu, LPC-A, Licensed Therapist
Photo by Christina Deravedisian on Unsplash
When I was getting my counseling degree, there were two distinct categories of students I encountered and I quickly turned spotting them into an artform. These two “types” of aspiring would-be therapists represent a very clear divide in how people approach this career. Is one better than the other? I certainly have my biases, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Since we’re talking archetypes, I’d like to tell this story in the tradition of an ancient Greek epic. Our clients are the “Heroes” on a journey to solve an unsolvable riddle: their own mental health. They’ve taken potions, battled monsters, and found themselves in the Underworld a time or two. The plot has taken a twist and our Hero is in a strange land called Therapy. Here, they encounter the “Healers,” who offer guidance and intuitive magic, while the “Oracles” hold court with their mysterious wisdom. But who are these people?
H is for “Healers”: Humble and Humanistic
The first group of counselors I call the Healers. These are the sensitive empaths, the people who tell you “All of my friends come to me for advice.” They likely listen to dream-pop and indie film soundtracks (guilty), daydream in class (or dissociate dreamily), and are very open about surviving their own struggles. Their “why” is very simple: they see a need for healing this world and want to be a part of that emotional bandage. Why else are we on this Earth? If you ask a Healer, it’s to help others empower themselves. Helpers are too humble to take all the credit.
O is for Oracle: the Omniscient Overseers
Then there are the other folks, and I will call them the Oracles. They have this “wisdom” that was granted to them by outside forces, and view people as science experiments to be figured out with formulas. And don’t get me wrong, interventions and technical knowledge are integral, but the Oracles can lack holistic warmth. They think they know it all, and luckily for you…they’re here to share their endless wisdom with you. They’re on this Earth to show everyone else how to live right, because they’ve apparently cracked the code. They’ve probably never been to therapy themselves, and if they have, they would never dare to admit it to a client.
Healers and Oracles and Everything In-Between
Have you decided if you’re a Healer or an Oracle yet? Maybe you’ve decided you’re actually a woodland sprite playing a flute in a flowery meadow. That is totally valid. However, I’m trying to make a point here. Back to our hero’s story…
Truth be told, the best kind of counselor is probably a balance of the two. You’ve likely deciphered which camp I tend to gravitate towards. I will admit I identify more closely with the Healers, and I’ll give you some personal history to explain why. I worked in marketing for ten years before I chose this path, and it wasn’t until I turned 30 and after three years of therapy. I had been that lost person sitting on the couch, ripping my heart out to a stranger. Speaking my deepest truths, the “old me” burned away and I found my knowledge in the ashes.
I was so moved by my experience in therapy and the way it helped me heal that I wanted to create that for others. And I knew I had an advantage some folks wouldn’t…I had lived with a mental health disorder and sought help for it. I understood being a skeptic and having an epiphany when your therapist asked just the right question. Therapy could see me wholly, as an entire person full of identities and fears, not just a list of symptoms and codes.
Erasing Stigma Starts With Us as Providers…and as Humans
All of this is to say, I think anyone wanting to become a counselor should be a client at least once in their lives. I understand that good counselors exist who don’t identify as someone with a mental illness. I’m sure they’ve been through their own struggles, and perhaps they’ve been directly impacted by mental illness in a profound enough way to make them choose this job.
But it does make me wonder what the catalyst was. What made this person think that being a counselor was their calling if they’ve never seen one in action? Perhaps I’m a little jealous that there are counselors out there who were simply so sure of their knowledge of the world and human behavior, they knew they would crush telling others how to heal.
Moving Forward with Compassion
The Hero has consulted the Oracle now, and spent an hour with the Healer. He or she is continuing on their quest, equipped with knowledge they didn’t have before. There are so many ways to view counseling and what it does for people. There are myriad ways to theorize why and how people heal, and we can only benefit from diverse viewpoints. In the end, I…as your humble narrator… hope that the moral this adventure taught you is that compassion must be at the core of all counseling. Just like the legends and heroes who dot the constellations in the sky, we all have something to offer our clients as individuals. We have to admit our humanity first, however, to truly connect with the humanity in others.
