From Structure to Softness: Two Therapists, One Journey
June 30, 2025
How one therapist helped me build the scaffolding, and another helped me finally step inside.
I’ve been reflecting lately on how different therapists can offer us very different things—and how sometimes, the ones who help us most don’t walk with us the whole way.
My first therapist, John, gave me structure. He saw that I was intellectually sharp, and he met me there—offering CBT, REBT, and plenty of frameworks to make sense of my pain. And it helped. It gave me a way to survive when I was trying to hold together a life that didn’t feel safe. John helped me stabilize, understand, and start to trust myself again.
But now, with a different therapist, something new is happening. Something I didn’t even realize I’d been longing for.
She met me emotionally.
At first, we struggled. I told her I didn’t feel connected to her. I thought maybe I was just projecting—playing out old dynamics, pushing people away, avoiding vulnerability. But then she said something that changed everything:
“I feel thrown off by our work too.”
She didn’t retreat into theory or deflect the discomfort. She stayed in it. And when I told her I needed attunement, she opened up. Slowly, we began to connect—not just intellectually, but emotionally. And something inside me began to soften.
It’s been one of the most healing experiences of my life.
And here’s where the grief comes in.
Because now I can see what I didn’t get before—not because John didn’t care, but maybe because that kind of emotional attunement wasn’t in his range. He gave me what he could. And maybe that was enough for the first part of the journey.
He built the scaffolding.
But she helped me step inside.
And while I’m grateful for both, I also feel a quiet sadness. Because I spent a long time thinking maybe I just couldn’t be reached. That maybe I was too intellectual, too defended, too damaged to ever be met emotionally.
And now I know that wasn’t true.
Therapy, like healing, often moves in layers. Sometimes one person walks with us through the first half of the forest. And someone else meets us for the second.
Neither path is more valid. But some go deeper.
And I think I’m finally going there.