Losing Certainty and Finding Voice: One Therapist's Reflections on Doing Therapy in the Last Third of Life

Abstract

In this autobiographical and personal paper, the author addresses her development of voice and confidence in a relational model of healing over a period of 35 years. Departing from the “objective” and impersonal journal style typically privileged in peer-reviewed journals, this article places the development of relationship at the center of therapeutic change. It honors the question “who tells the story and who does the telling serve?” Thus a retrospective, anecdotal, personal introduction to this author, developing this theory (Relational-Cultural Theory) is at the core. In the course of reading it, the author hopes that younger practitioners will find validation and/or inspiration to listen themselves and others into creative voice. That is another facet of working in clinical settings in the latter years: to encourage new voices, new practices, and to engender hope in the abiding resilience of the human spirit.

KEYWORDS:

• aging
• growth in connection
• psychotherapy
• relational hope
• relational neurobiology
• relational-cultural theory