The Myth of "the Perfect Therapist"

Dear Fellow Music Therapists,

I've been inspired to write due to yet another post on one of my social media feeds. This comment was about supervising folks who display personality traits different from our own, and it started me thinking about "the Perfect Therapist."

You know the one. That therapist who is running a business, juggling home responsibilities, presenting at every single conference, looks like he/she is in control of all parts of his/her life, and who makes the rest of us feel like we are wanna-bes. I know many of those types of folks and have been that type of person for others (I know that), but I've also realized that there is no such thing as "the Perfect Therapist."

I think we all have expectations for ourselves that we do not live up to. At least, I know that I have these expectations for myself. When I was a new therapist, I kept hearing about the wonderful things that one peer in particular was doing - she was building a music therapy business out of nothing - contract music therapy was still a pretty new thing in those days, and she was excellent at convincing folks to pay her what she wanted to do music therapy. I, on the other hand, was stuck in a succession of "almost music therapy" jobs - not blazing any new trails in my area. I felt like a failure that I was employed but not being as spectacular as my peer!

Turns out, she felt like a failure because she didn't have a full-time job as an "almost music therapist." We didn't realize this fact until several years later. She didn't find a full-time job for many years, and she really wanted one! We both fell into the chasm of "the Perfect Therapist," and it wasn't us!

There is no such thing as "the Perfect Therapist."

I often fall victim to what I call "Perfect, Pretty Pinterest World" (PPPW). Do you? It's where I spend hours on Pinterest looking at pretty things and pictures and start to judge myself based on what I "should" be doing rather than what I am doing. I find my idea of "the Perfect Therapist" to be very similar to my PPPW. It is something that is not based in reality and tends to lead me into thinking that I "should" be doing things that are not really all that important to me or to my clients. Rather than celebrating the fact that I have a job where I work for someone and treat clients within that job, I feel that I "should" be trying to get music therapy contracts. Instead of thinking that what I have to offer the world of music therapy is valuable, I start to push myself to be like So-and-so in the music therapy world. Instead of valuing what I know and what I do, I find myself comparing what I do to what others do, and I always find what I do to be somewhat lacking in style and substance. This is the fallacy of "the Perfect Therapist."


A bit of this attitude isn't bad, but when it starts to take over, I find that we have difficulty realizing that our way has as much value as any other way of doing music therapy...or life...or whatever. If I am constantly comparing myself to my music therapy colleague, I miss the value in my way of doing therapy. The healthiest attitude is a balanced attitude about me and my way of doing music therapy and looking to others for ideas on how to strengthen me - on how to enrich what I already do for the benefit of those who come to me for therapy.

Here's the deal...

Comparing our lives to the lives of others is a dangerous path. We have to trust that we are on the paths that are the best for us, or that we need to find our way through the world to what we want. My path was not the same as my classmate - and that was the way it needed to be for both of us! She learned lessons that she needed, and I learned lessons that I needed.

I will never be perfect.

I am getting a bit more comfortable with that thought, but it takes constant mindful consideration and the ability to acknowledge that I am not going to be everything to everyone.

The "perfect therapist" is not out there. We all have our strengths and our focus areas, and we are all moving along our own paths.