22/05/2025
Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well and enjoying the sunshine at last. If you have been considering therapy but have been putting it off, I wanted to share with you some reflections about common fantasies clients have about what happens in the therapy room and how I approach it and use it for the benefit of the patient from a therapeutic lens. I hope that if you feel usure, may this words feel helpful and brings you reassurement about starting this transformative and liberating journey in the hands of a caring and competent professional.
Whether you are in therapy or not, what kind of client do you think you would be/are being now? how can gaining awareness of your fantasies can help you move forward and understand yourself better?
You can find more information about my practice at www.ulyssespsychotherapy.com, and on FB and Instagram.
Best wishes!
What Clients/Patients Bring Into the Therapy Room:
Understanding the Hidden Layers of Needs
When we welcome someone into therapy for the first time, we are welcoming their whole beings. People don’t just bring their challenges: they bring a lifetime of hopes, dreams, fears, and unconscious expectations, and those need to be treated with care, respect and not judgement. As a therapist, being able to see these underlying dynamics is crucial to building a safe space and fostering real change. It also provides crucial information as to what parts of the client/patient needs to be healed and understood, even beyond words.
Here's what I've observed so far and what I've learnt from careful observation and reflection, and how it helps my patients heal—sometimes communicated openly, sometimes silently:
1. hoping for a Miracle
Some people may arrive with an unspoken fantasy: "This time, someone will take my pain away." They may expect direct answers, advice, or hold the fantasy that the therapist holds a magic key to their suffering. This urgency often conveys fear and closes the opportunity of sitting with uncertainty. When as therapists we don’t provide quick fixes, to this, some clients may feel frustrated or even betrayed. But providing advice would only make the client feel disempowered and more dependent on an "omnipotent" therapist, and less free to choose their own unique path. Therapy isn’t about removing pain or giving advice—it’s about making space to hold it, contain it, understand it, and grow beyond it, gaining awareness lightly, gracefully and most importantly accommpanied , maybe for the first time.
2. The Need to Unload
Some people unload their emotions, sharing intensely in the first session, then disappear. This isn’t "oversharing"—it’s an unconscious attempt to evacuate distress, handing it over to the therapist like a too-heavy load. But if they leave it all in the room they miss the opportunity of reflection and growth, some may fear returning, having the fantasy that they’ll be judged or forced to reclaim what they’ve discarded. Real healing begins when they can sit with their emotions, and feel like they have someone to carry it with, untill they become able to hold it themselves and reflect on their own, little by little, at their own pace.
3. Longing to Be Truly Seen
At the core of every one of us is the desire to be loved—fully, with our positives and our flaws. Some people may inadvertedly test this in the therapy room: "If you really knew me, would you still care?" Some may disclose only their "good" side, fearing rejection if their anger, shame, or needs emerge. Others might unconsciously expect the therapist to disapprove to them—because in their fantasies, confirming their worst fears can feel safer than holding hope for acceptance. When the "Why" of this dynamics is understood, felt and thought about, acceptance comes, mainly and most importantly, from themselves, then change is possible.
4. The Fear of Blame
Guilt is a powerful deflector. A parent might insist, "The school is the problem!" A partner may blame their spouse entirely for the marriage’s collapse. And of course, there can be reality on this observations, however, there is also you and your unconcious choices involved and your interpretations of the facts. This is self-protection. Admitting your own role in your suffering can be difficult but it can be so liberating in rescuing your power back. Beneath the defensiveness is a kernel of hope: If I can find the root cause, I can make different choices for myself.
5. The unconScious Expectation of Punishment
For some, therapy feels like a sentence. People who’ve internalized shame may unconsciously seek punishment in their fantasies—arriving late, "forgetting" sessions, having the fantasy that the therapist is angry at them... It’s as if they were saying, "See? I’m as bad as I thought." For the therapist, instead of acting out the person's shame by being angry, carefully understanding the shame behind these fantasies and acting outs compassionately and together with your client/patient, helps to gain greater awareness, break this cycle, heal and separate accountability from unhelpful self-condemnation, that grows into self acceptance and responsability.
6. The FEAR of Abandonment
Once a client is able to develop trust, their vulnerability can make them feel exposed. A therapist’s vacation, a rescheduled session, or even a neutral tone can trigger old ingrained fears: "Am I too much? Not enough? Will you give up on me like others have?" These reactions are echoes of past wounds, replaying in real time in the therapeutic relationship. They need to be acknowledged, understood and reflected on, so that slowly you can feel more capable of carrying them yourself, and not feel powerless and bound to other's approval in the here and now, so you can be yourself more freely and with less fear.
The Work Begins With Awareness
As therapists, we don’t just listen to words, neither we judge, —we listen for the unspoken fears beneath them, to understand their true meaning. Our role isn’t to fulfill every expectation (we can’t), but to witness them without judgment, to receive, contain and reflect them back to you in a translated manner thats more digestible, to help you bear with what you feel like its too much, and—slowly—own it to rewrite your story beyond it.
To my fellow therapists: How do you navigate these unspoken needs in your practice?
To those considering therapy: What fears or hopes do you think you bring into the therapy room? and how useful do you find is it to share them with your therapist?
Ulysses Psychotherapy | English and Spanish Speaking Therapy in Madrid and Online Globally for individual and group people.
