The Compassionate Witness

I believe that counseling (or any therapeutic intervention) should be intentional. Having a treatment plan in place is, after all, required by the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council for Licensed Professional Counselors. I tell my clients that it is never their job to have “material” for the session. It is not their job to come up with things to talk about. I seek to be a good steward of the time and resources of my clients. Our treatment plan, guided by thorough assessment, helps me as the professional be intentional and focused on the needs of the individual seeking support.

However, it is easy to get sidetracked focusing on clinical interventions, theories, and even “fixes”. I am a recovering perfectionist. I aim to do my job well. And sometimes in my effort to be enough I lose focus on the individual who is suffering. My first job is always to see the client. The vulnerable and brave individual who had the courage to show up.

I once attended an advanced complex trauma training with Roger Solomon. He asked if there were any clinicians in the room who had clients who felt like they were barely surviving week to week, where clinical progress seemed minimal at best. Most of us raised our hand. He suggested perhaps we were their one safe space, the bright spot in their week. Perhaps if we focus on being safe, we will offer something different than what they have experienced before. Perhaps we can take the pressure off and let that be enough.

And it so happens that this is in line with treatment planning. The first stage of treating complex trauma is to establish safety. In fact, Stephan Porges, the father of Polyvagal theory, points out that “safety is the intervention.” Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, proposes that feelings safe inside one’s body is the “single most important issue” for traumatized individuals. Van der Kolk also states that “being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.” Other healing tasks like trauma processing cannot take place without safety.

“Safety is the intervention”

Dr. Stephen Porges

Creating safety may include directive interventions like grounding, but most often safety is related to the felt presence of another. The term Compassionate Witness comes to mind. When we bear witness to another’s suffering with empathy and steadfastness, we create safety. For me personally, this meant learning to listen without words in my head. Take a minute to evaluate if you do this. When another seeks out your support, do you listen without words? Or do you plan your response? In order to really see people is to experience them without a need to “have the right answer.”

This can be especially difficult when the individual we are witnessing feels powerless. We may want to offer solutions or even rescue them from suffering. And maybe this is appropriate sometimes. In fact, not doing so may cause us to feel powerless as well. And when no clear solution is available, like in the case of grief or trauma, we may avoid interaction or try to change the subject. It can feel like too much and this can also lead to powerlessness. I have found that whenever I feel powerless with a person it is usually because they feel this exact way.

Being the compassionate witness is to grieve with the other. It is to look pain in the eye and imply “this is not too much for me. I can sit in this with you.” In Nora McInery’s TED talk on grief titled “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it,” she shares that after losing a loved one others will look around, find someone with a similar experience, and push you toward them so as to “not get your sad on other people”.

Trauma, grief, and suffering are messy and isolating. We know from resilience research that the support of another person matters. It matters a lot. So, our willingness to observe, sit with, and witness without pushing for a solution or for the individual to “be better” matters a lot.

A great example of this is seen in Disney’s Inside Out. The character Bing Bong loses his wagon. Joy works hard to change his feelings of grief, distract him, and pushes him to move on. Sadness however, sits and listens. She validates his suffering. To love someone is to fully see them, to give them your full attention with no strings attached. No heroes needed.

Do you feel seen? Do you have people in your life capable of witnessing you? Do you feel safe in your suffering? Do you practice compassionate witnessing for others? You deserve care and you deserve to be seen. Take care of you.