Why Therapists Find It Hard To Ask For Support

Last week, a therapist told me her nervous system felt like it had been in a blender for months. Running the business, seeing clients, overthinking every decision, second guessing herself at every turn.

And I recognised it instantly. Not just because I hear it a lot but because it’s the answer most of us would give, if we ever gave the honest one. Instead, when someone asks how we are, we say “oh, you know, busy.” So why do we do that?

Partly it's the role. We spend all day being the one person people can say anything to. Listening, supporting and helping people through the hardest moments of their lives.

Partly it's the voice. I should be able to handle this. I’m a therapist, shouldn't I already know what to do?

And partly, perhaps mostly, it's because asking for support feels like exposure. Our whole professional identity is built on being the steady one in the room. Saying "actually, I need some help with this" doesn't just feel vulnerable. It feels like it threatens the very thing we are.

And underneath all of that, there's often something much older. For many therapists, this didn't begin with the profession. It began long before we ever trained. We became the one who read the room. The one who noticed other people's moods and worked out that life went more smoothly when we paid attention to everyone else first. That's where much of our attunement comes from, and it's part of what makes us good at this work. But it often came with an unspoken rule: I look after. I don't get looked after.

So we don't ask. We get productive instead.

We enrol on another course. We learn another modality. We read another book. We tell ourselves that if we just know a little more, we'll finally feel confident enough. We tweak the website. We rethink the niche. We build things with real care and then never put them in front of anyone. Every one of those things feels productive. It even looks productive. But none of it touches the thing that's actually driving it.

As therapists, we have a socially acceptable hiding place. Nobody questions someone in this field doing more training. It looks like dedication. It even feels like dedication. Which makes it the perfect hiding place for anxiety, self-doubt and the fear that somehow we're not enough.

"But I have supervision."

So do I. Supervision matters. But supervision supports the therapist you are. Your work, your ethics, your development.

Personal support supports the person who is the therapist. The one starting another course. The one editing the website at 11pm. The one doing another rebrand. The one having a crisis of confidence.

None of this means we are bad therapists. It means the patterns we help clients with every week don't politely exempt us. They just seem different somehow, usually because they arrive with a certificate at the end.

Recognising the pattern is the beginning. But recognising it rarely changes it. Understanding why we do something isn't the same as changing what we do.

That's why I created RESOLVE™. A programme for therapists and helping professionals who want to work on the things that quietly get in their own way, so they can show up with greater confidence, authority and ease both in their work and in themselves.

So for now, just try this. The next time someone asks how you are, notice the version you give them.

We're human too. And letting ourselves be supported isn't separate from being good at this work.

It's part of it.