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The Trauma Teacher
The Fixer Trap: Why Our Clients Don’t Need Us to Fix Them
[MUSIC] Welcome to The Trauma Teacher, the podcast dedicated to transforming therapists into masterful healers with confidence, creativity, and clarity. I'm Janice Holland, and I'm here to guide you through the journey of becoming the therapist to always envision, helping you step into your full potential and make a profound impact on your clients lives. Each week we'll explore political strategies, share inspiring stories, and dive deep into the tools and mindsets you need to elevate your practice and create lasting change for both you and your clients. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, The Trauma Teacher is your go-to resource for overcoming challenges, embracing your unique healing artistry and thriving in your career without sacrificing your well-being. So you're ready to become the confident, creative healer you were meant to be. You're in the right place, let's get started. [MUSIC] Hello, hello, welcome back. Today we are talking about something I know many of us as healers struggle with, and I'm calling it the Fixer Trap. It's this urge to swoop in and save our clients from their pain. To feel like we need to fix them so they can feel better and so we can feel like we've done our job. So it's really, really tempting to think about the people that we're serving, and the people coming in as somebody who needs help, who needs fixing, who needs to correct the way they're seeing things or the way they're doing things, and to make a plan, okay, I see when we're talking with them, when I'm sitting in front of my clients, it's really easy for us to be like, okay, I see exactly how they're struggling or what they're struggling with, and I see the way out, and I'm gonna fix this and show them how to fix this. But it's just really such a dangerous approach to take with our clients, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about why that is as we go through this episode, because here's the truth. The impulse to fix isn't just, it's not really about our clients at all. It's more about us, and it's a trauma response within us. It comes from the rescuer role we've played most of our lives, often as a way to cope with our own experiences. So today I'm gonna unpack this and look at the signs that we're playing the fixer role and talk about how to shift into a healthier, more empowered way of working with our clients, all right? So like I said, this is coming from a need, the need to fix someone is coming from a trauma response within us and how, and it's how we have learned to create a sense of validation, importance, worthiness, and how we operate around the world. So many of us became therapists, before we became therapists, we played this role in our own lives. So for a lot of us growing up, you probably felt responsible for the emotions of the other people in your home, and we responded that responsibility in different ways. Some people just, you know, go to their room and hide and just let the other people in the home be, because they don't want to be bothered, they don't want to be left alone. For other people, maybe the adults in your home needed you to be the listening ear, needed you to be the companion that they didn't have. And so you were somebody who was always very present and available. The point is, as we learned, as rescuers to take responsibility for the emotional temperature of the home and know how to do what we need to do to make sure everybody feels comfortable, everybody feels safe, nobody's triggered, nobody's upset. And typically that's at the expense of our own needs and our own, you know, so we just learned to stay quiet, we learned to not have needs, we learned to be, but we became very, very good at reading the needs of other people, and anticipating the needs of other people, and anticipating and reading all of the energy, you know, between the lines, however you want to phrase it, like nobody had to say directly what they were thinking of feeling we just know, and then we know what to do in order to keep the atmosphere around us emotionally stable. So it's, I mean, honestly being a therapist is like such a natural segue or such a natural, it's, we can just flow into that so easily because obviously in the therapeutic setting, we're not really meant to show up with our needs, with our wants, with, and so it just, it's just a perfect career for somebody who has learned how to suppress their own needs ignore their own needs, be very aware of the needs of others. So in some ways, that's a gift that we've developed, you know, I always talk about how trauma we develop superpowers because of the things we've experienced, and so one of the superpowers many of us has is our ability to very accurately and quickly read the temperature and the mood and the needs of the people around us. So that is a superpower that we have, but if we haven't healed the dark side of that, if we haven't healed the part of us who takes responsibility for what we're able to read and see, then we repeat patterns that are very painful for both you and the people that you're serving. So we're going to talk about that today about this, this need to fix or this viewing people as, as beings who need fixing and who rescuing and who need us to save them and who need us to create plans for them to, you know, they're coming to us and so we need to create these, these plans for how they need to be fixed. And so this is a really unconscious, very subtle energy that we often come forward with and come to session with, but it can be really dangerous because like I said, it can keep them stuck in the place of not being able to identify for themselves, what their needs are and what their wants are and to be able to articulate that well. And it creates a dependency on needing people outside of them, and it also continues a painful pattern within us of taking responsibility for other people's mental, emotional states for other people's needs and it's, it will lead to burnout and exhaustion on your part as a therapist, and then just you're not able to be as effective at really helping people transform in the way that we want them to because there will always be this like dependent layer within them of needing somebody to help them in ways that they can actually help themselves. All right. So I'm going to start by talking about some science that you might be approaching your work as a fixer. So the first one I came up with is that you feel personally responsible for your clients progress. Like if they're not improving, you take it as a sign that you are failing. If a client, you know, let's say they come in, you have that initial intake session. You get everything down. You create a plan for how you're going to move forward with them. They start their sessions and then they stop coming or they have a setback, you know, and they're not able to continue in the path that you had both agreed upon, that you had both laid out, but you take responsibility for that. You take responsibility for their lack of progress or that they have a setback or, um, and you are checking up on them, calling them or just generally feeling like you're failing as a practitioner because your clients are not following the plan that you both had agreed upon. One little red flag that you are approaching your work as a fixer rather than the supportive person that we'll talk about in a little bit with a more healthy approach looks like. Another is you experienced anxiety or frustration when your clients don't take your advice. So maybe you feel really impatient when clients don't follow your guidance exactly or don't progress as quickly as you'd like. Sort of like what I was saying in the first one, you know, we create a diagnosis and treatment plan. We lay out how we see they can get out of the situation they're in, whether they're feeling trapped in a relationship or they're struggling with an addiction or, you know, have a general sense of low self-esteem, you know, whatever it is, they're coming to work with you on. Um, again, you have this really good ability to understand quickly what's going on, what their needs are, what their barriers and blocks are. And if they are not able to follow your advice or the plan that you see how they need to move forward and progress in the way that you feel that they should be able to progress, you feel anxiety or frustration about that. That is more about you. That's about us approaching our work with our clients as people who need to be fixed rather than partnering with them. Okay. So number three, you constantly think about your clients outside of session. So it's one thing to reflect on your work. Of course, we need to reflect on our work. Of course, we need to have some, you know, I always encourage like peer collaboration and connecting with peers, sharing case studies, that kind of thing. But it's another thing to obsess over how to solve their problems during your downtime. So if you find that during your downtime is where you're driving in the car, when you're out and about watching your kids soccer game, whatever, if you are obsessing over thinking about your clients, what's going on with them, how can you help them get out of this and why can't they see it this way, sending them podcasts or sending that, you know, just trying to send them more information between sessions, then this is a sign that you are looking at your taking responsibility for their problems, you're taking responsibility for them and you're wanting to fix them. All right. Number four, you have a hard time setting boundaries. So maybe you feel like you need to be available 24/7. You're answering emails or calls between sessions. They need you. You have that feeling like they need me, they can't get through this on, you know, I need to help them. I need to schedule this for them or make sure they're doing this or I'm going to be the person that they can rely on between session because they're so depressed, they can't function. So I'll be the one who can help them get out of bed in the morning or whatever it is. Like if you're having a hard time setting boundaries that they get the scheduled time that they have with you and you're going to be highly present and available during the time that they have scheduled with you. But outside of that time, they are responsible for themselves. If that's really hard for you, if it's hard for you to manage the boundaries and those lines, then you are approaching your work as a fixer. All right. And the fifth one is you measure your success by the fixes you provide. So you feel like a successful, a successful session is one where you've given them clear solutions or made significant progress on their behalf. So if, you know, and that's according to you, by the way, like if you feel like, okay, we we got really far in this session, we were able to really break down some limiting beliefs and they were able to really connect with their feelings or whatever it is that you feel like it creates and is a successful session like that is that's how you're measuring your level of success is by how many of these fixes you can provide for them. So if you have been nodding along with any of these, then you are not alone. And again, this is, I think a bit more of on a spectrum because I can look at each of these and go, Oh gosh, I did do that with this client or wow, I got really close to that with this client. So this, again, this isn't like you do this or you don't do this. I hope that you are vulnerable enough with yourself or self aware enough where you can identify like, yeah, these are really tempting thing, you know, and there are some clients who just hit closer to home than others. Maybe you can identify with them in yourself in them or you can identify somebody you care about and love. Maybe they have some similar traits and attributes. And so with those clients, particularly, we really connect with even more and we want to take responsibility for making sure that they get what they want and they get what they need. So if you're nodding along with this, then, you know, it's just a sign that this is okay, this is something that we need to stop and be aware of. We need to have be having conversations with each other as healers, therapist coaches so that we can, because the more aware we are and the more we can talk about it and take shame away from it, the more empowered we are to stay out of this role, to not evolve into this space with clients so that they can truly receive the transformation that we know we want them to have and that they're capable of having if we will stay out of the way, right? So if we will step back. So here are some ways that I've come up with, like for us to stay out of that place and stay out of that role is the first is just trust the client's process. Healing isn't linear. It's essential to remember that clients are on their own journey and it's not our responsibility to accelerate it. It's not our responsibility to question it or where they're at in it. Just trust that they're capable of moving through their healing at the pace that's right for them. So if it's a client who has historically really struggled to take responsibility for themselves, then they may flounder around for a while and it may be really messy and they may want to spend some time blaming you for what is or isn't happening or spend some time blaming other people in their life for what is or isn't happening. It's still not our responsibility to take responsibility for that, like we're just there. We're present. We're providing the tools and resources that we have available to them, but we're letting them be as messy in their own journey as they want our need to be. And it's not up to us to try and expedite that process or sometimes even point it out. Just allow it to be what it is and then do our own inner work when our anxiety shows up or when our self-doubt shows up of whether or not we're good at what we're doing or are they happy with what I'm providing them or that's about our own insecurity. That's about our own anxiety when that pops up. That's when we have to do the work outside of session to ensure that we are really taking care of ourselves, that we are connecting with peers and continuing to invest and creating a strong sense of self outside of who we are as practitioners, which kind of leads into number two redefining your role instead of seeing yourself as the one who needs to fix problems. Be yourself as a guide, your job is to help your clients access their own inner resources not to solve their problems for them. So we all have the resources within ourselves. We all have a guiding light within us and different people refer to that guiding light in different ways, whether it's God or the Holy Spirit or the universe or whatever you want to call it, it's fine, but everyone has it within themselves. So helping them access that guiding inner, you know, that inner guidance within them so that they can be self sourced and find that within themselves and allowing themselves to get to come to the resolution of the problem through that through our guidance and stepping back and just allowing that process to be what it needs to be for them. Like I said, for some, they're really ready and the process is quite fast, but for others, it's more, it's not so clear, it's not so linear, but trusting the process within themselves allows them in the long run to be a really strong, powerful human being and you become an incredibly safe space for somebody to just find themselves and find their process. Even though I think initially for a lot of people, it can be really frustrating because they want somebody else to have the answers. They want somebody else to just tell them what to do, that's generally how our society works. Right? Is we are good at creating rules and systems and cultures and whatever, like systems for people to know what to do and how to do it. And so they want to come to us and say, just tell me what to do and how to do it. And if we're not really careful, we can do that because it's quite satisfying. It's clear. It's linear. It feels like we've done a good job. They feel like they have gotten what they pay for and what they need because somebody's told them exactly what to do. We feel really validated because we're able to tell people what to do and everybody, it's like a win-win. It's just this initial win-win for everybody, but what we know is long term. They are still creating a dependence on other people and we are, we are burning out. We're getting overwhelmed because we're having to be the one that people rely on. And we're not really helping them. You know, we're repeating a pattern of rescuing, affixing, which is a role we play and not us being who we genuinely are, which is somebody who just coaches and challenges when we need to, but allows them to be the creator of their own life. All right. The next one, number three, set clear boundaries for you and for them. So boundaries aren't just for clients, they're for us to and respect our need for rest and recovery. So we're going to set firm limits on our availability and remind ourselves that being consistently on call isn't good. Again, it doesn't allow them to fumble around and struggle with trusting themselves and finding the resources within themselves to solve their problems and it creates this dependence. And again, it's based on insecurity within us. It's based on a lack of inadequacy or feeling inadequate. It's based on feeling unworthy. So if I can have somebody need me, then that can really soothe and satisfy my own inadequacies that can soothe and satisfy my feelings of unworthiness. But it's a temporary satisfaction. It's like an addiction, honestly, it's like a hit. So it's like doing a line, honestly, it's the same thing. It feels really good in that moment. But then when that moment passes, we still have this pervasive sense of emptiness within us because we're just playing a role of we're not really being our genuine self. And then we're also burning out and getting overwhelmed and we're not able to be really present for the people that we love and who are in our life because we're so focused on meeting the needs of all those people who really need us. And then, you know, the family feels neglected, the family feels frustrated. It's just a system long term that creates more pain because it's not the way we're really meant to operate, right? Number four, shift from outcome oriented to process oriented. This is a big one. So focusing less on outcomes or goals you've set for the client and more on the therapeutic process. Sometimes just being present and holding space is far more powerful than any solution or advice we can offer. Now this can feel a little tricky because for those of you who are licensed, we do have to create a diagnosis and treatment plan. We do have to have goals that we're working on in therapy as part of the psychotherapeutic process. So I'm not saying don't meet, it's important to set goals with our clients for sure. Even if you're not licensed in having to go through the formal psychotherapeutic process, of course you want to have goals that you're working on with your clients. But if we're focused on just creating an outcome and deciding if our worthiness or our value as a practitioner is only based on how many are able to reach their goal rather than really allowing the process to be the most empowering part of the journey, which it is. The process of, let's say they want a goal of having self-confidence. First of all, that's pretty vague and it's like what does that exactly mean? We need to define that but then the journey of someone coming home to themselves and finding themselves and discovering more about who they are and what they're capable of. That's such a beautiful journey and so sacred, honestly, for us to get to be a part of that. Someone else's journey in that way and witness the unfolding and offer the tools and resources and coaching and challenging and guidance to allow somebody, for somebody to allow themselves to be in a position where they really transform and unfold in that way. Honestly, it's a sacred process and for me, I feel so honored to get to watch and witness that for so many people and I honor that but I know that the process is where the sacredness is, the process is where the, oh, I can't come, I can't find the word, it's just so intimate and it's for them with themselves and if I'm just focused on the goal, then I miss the sacredness of that journey and that process and I know it's going to be messy and I know that there's going to be times where a client is triggered by somebody in their life or triggered by an event that happened or triggered by me or triggered by the process itself of it not happening in the timeline and the way they want it to happen and if I'm just determining my worth as a therapist by how quickly they can get there, then I miss the beauty of the process of the unfolding that it is and being able to communicate with my clients in a way to help them find the sacred beauty of that process as well, it's just so empowering for them and if they can relax into that and let go of their own anxieties about the outcome that they need and learn to love themselves through the process, like that is a lifelong gift that we can give them or that we can witness with them, alright, and then practicing self-awareness, number five is just practice self-awareness, keeping yourself in check, asking yourself am I trying to fix this person, what am I feeling right now, is this about them or am I responding to my own needs to feel valuable, to feel worthy, to feel significant? That awareness is what will stop us from reacting from our own trauma responses and staying really present with a client, having regular times when you meet with peers to do peer supervision or talk through, you know, just keeping your, and honestly, as much, I think all that's important, but the number one thing for me is investing in my life, like making sure that I'm investing in the people that I love, my partner, my children, that I'm going out with my friends, that I'm, you know, I have regular things scheduled for me to connect with people, for me to enjoy my life, for me, you know, looking for things in the city all the time that are happening with its museums or shows coming into town or whatever it is you like and whatever it is you love really taking the time to invest in those things allows us to keep our place and who we are and our sense of self and check and all systems loaded, so to speak, so that when you show up with a client, you're able to really just be present with them, focus on their process for that moment. They get to be as messy as they need to be or want to be. They get to be as challenging as they want to be. They get to decide that I'm a piece of crap as a therapist or as a coach, like they get to have all their thoughts and opinions and none of it's personal to me because I have a personal life. I'm personally fulfilled in and of myself and then I'm able to use my gifting in a really powerful way, my ability to read and understand people's emotions where they're at, help them identify what's the things that are going on unconsciously under the surface, help bring that to the surface, bring clarity for them. I'm really gifted and good at all of that just because of who I am but I don't need to rely on that part of myself to create meaning and safety for myself because I create meaning and safety for myself completely outside of my role as a therapist. All right, so if we're not seeing our clients as people who need to be fixed, how should we see them? I like to think of it this way, your clients are whole human beings who are temporarily disconnected from parts of themselves. They are not broken. They don't need rescuing. What they need is support and reconnecting to their own inner strengths and wisdom. I'm going to say that again because it's so powerful. Our clients are whole human beings who are temporarily disconnected from parts of themselves but they are not broken. They don't need rescuing. What they need is support and reconnecting to their own inner strength and wisdom. And when we view our clients this way, the dynamic changes, we're no longer the savior. We become partners in their healing journey. Our role is to hold space for their process, guide them towards self-awareness and trust in their innate ability to heal themselves. This perspective not only lifts the burden of being the fixer off your shoulder but it also empowers your clients in a way that is far more effective and sustainable long-term for them. So letting go of the fixer role is not easy, especially if it's something that you've done most of your life, especially if it's just an unconscious way of being, like I said, because we're so good at it and because it is like a gifting, a lot of times we feel like it is who we are. This is just who I am, but it's really not. It's something that you have developed and become really good at because you had to. So it is a superpower. It is a part of you. It is something that you can now use for the greater good but there's so much more to who you are than that and sometimes it's uncomfortable to invest in really discovering who we are outside of that role because that role is satisfying a brokenness within us. It's satisfying a trauma within us. That role is a trauma response that needs to be healed. So that means we have to do the grief work of why that part of us had to develop in the first place, like that's a whole thing, right? But once you do that grief work and you're able to really satisfy and connect with that broken part of yourself that needs to be seen and wants to be seen if worthy and whole and complete and validated and gets to express emotion and express a sense of self and it's seen by others and validated once we've done that work and we're able to do that. We still have the superpower we get to keep, but we just get to use it in a really powerful effective way, not out of brokenness, but out of the restorative part, the restored part of us that's really now coming from a much more grounded, centered, powerful place. All right, so I hope you found this helpful. I hope that it has encouraged you to really connect with understanding where you might still be falling into the role of a fixer for the people that you are serving and taking care of and really challenged you in new ways to take care of yourself and not play that role for your clients so that you don't keep them stuck but it really helped them feel empowered. So before we wrap up, I want to take a moment to tell you about my program, the Art of Healing Trauma. What we talked about, the fixer trap, the desire to rescue, the need to feel responsible for our clients' outcomes is something that so many of us struggle with, like I said, and it's a natural part of the journey that we can heal and move beyond. This is something that we do definitely address in the Art of Healing Trauma along with so many other things. It is designed to help you step out of the fixer role and into what I call the Artistry of Healing. That's why I've called this the Art of Healing Trauma. When we move beyond seeing ourselves as problem solvers, then we can step into a more empowered role as a true healing artist. It is another layer of us stepping out of survivor and into creator of our own lives. So therapists who can create a safe, transformative space for clients to reconnect with their inner resources and trust their own process and experience profound healing, like that is you really stepping into who you are as an artist, an artist of healing. So this is a 12-week program. I do offer Trauma Model Certification through the Ross Institute, so you do get to add that to your credentials, but it is so much more than just a certification in trauma and understanding how to, you know, like my goal is for you to have the research-based foundational really solid tools and resources to know and understand trauma and how to transmute pain and how to really connect with people and help them heal in a really effective, powerful research-based solid way and combine that with who you are as an artist and coming alive as an artist and where are the places that you are still operating in survivor mode. Let's transmute that and get you to a creator so that you can really, really step into the artistry of healing and helping people. So like I said, it's a 12-week program. It's so powerful, it's changing therapist lives and it's just, it's my life's work and I love doing it so I'm gonna help you shift and develop your intuitive skills, know how to set sustainable boundaries and build a lasting confidence within yourself so that you can really build a practice that's thriving and a personal life that's thriving. So if this at all interests you, I would love for you to check it out and join us. The link is in the show notes for you to receive more information about the artistry and trauma and get into a little certified. Alright, that's all I have for today. Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you on the next one. Have a great day. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]