Where Therapy Group Means Group of Therapists

Carolyn Baustian had one of those days recently that makes a therapist want to put up a sign saying, “Temporarily out of service due to emotional overload. Please come back tomorrow.”

One client after another was in the throes of a major crisis: incest, rape, death, divorce. By the time Baustian took her lunch break, she felt “dazed and drained.”

Fortunately, she knew where to turn.

Once a week, Baustian and up to nine other women--all therapists--take time out in the middle of the workday to give each other the kind of nurturing they offer those who come to them for professional counseling.

They gather in Baustian’s cozy Huntington Beach office at noon with brown-bag or fast-food lunches, kick their shoes off and spend two hours in spontaneous, intimate conversation that gives them respite from their emotionally demanding--and often exhausting--work as family therapists.

“I get some of the overload off, so I can go back to work refreshed,” Baustian said.

It’s also a place where people who spend most of their time listening to others talk about their problems get a chance to discuss their own. In the 10 years since the support group was formed, the therapists have shared personal crises and tragedies as well as achievements and milestones.

“We’ve rejoiced together, played together and cried together,” said Reggie Front, a Huntington Beach therapist.

They’ve celebrated weddings, birthdays, graduations and other special occasions.

They’ve nursed each other through everything from colds to cancer.

They’ve mourned after losing loved ones who were victims of terminal illness, suicide and murder.

And they’ve bolstered each other during many other family crises involving such traumas as heart attacks, job layoffs, auto accidents, major surgery, domestic violence, marital infidelity and rape.

No matter how serious the crises they are facing in their own lives, they usually manage to keep working--and to keep coming to the weekly support group sessions.

During a recent lunch, six counselors who had invited a reporter to sit in pointed out that work is often as therapeutic as their support group meetings when they are in the midst of a personal crisis.

“When I’m having problems in my own life, I find doing therapy is very calming,” said Laurie Moncrief, a Huntington Beach family counselor. “A kind of serenity comes over me. It’s about losing your self-consciousness. I become engaged with my clients’ issues.”

The support group also has a calming effect on therapists who are often called on to help others when they are in need themselves. At the weekly meetings, they take turns focusing on each other’s problems, letting the talk drift wherever the needs are greatest. Because they’ve been together for so long, they have the sense of safety that they try to create in the support groups they lead for clients.

“It takes years to create the kind of trust we have with each other,” Front said, noting that they protect that atmosphere by rarely allowing guests at their meetings.

Front said the group has given her an outlet for grief and helped her cope with loneliness since her husband, Henri, died of cancer two years ago.

“I can’t share my feelings of loneliness with everybody,” she said. “This group has helped me deal with them just by being there, and by suggesting I reach out and do more. You have to give to the world, so the world can give to you.”

Moncrief noted that the therapists don’t try to solve each other’s problems in their support group meetings: “We don’t all rush in to take Reggie out when she’s lonely. We just accept it and sympathize. We recognize that these emotions are part of our lives and they don’t have to be fixed. They need to be experienced and shared.”

Moncrief said the group helped her deal with loneliness, too, during the long period of single life before her recent wedding.

“They encouraged me to go out and try new things and meet people when I was feeling alone and blue. And there were times when they gave me a kick because I was complaining that nothing was happening in my life,” she said.

“I remember you deciding you weren’t going to wait for a man to enter your life before you did something with your house,” Baustian interjected.

It helped, Moncrief said, to have a cheering section behind her when she took that step toward independence.

These therapists don’t see any professional liability in acknowledging their own vulnerabilities in front of colleagues--or clients.

On the contrary, the support group members agreed, it can be helpful to clients to let them see that therapists struggle with the same problems they do.

“Clients often feel that they’re different, that there’s something wrong with them. They feel very alone in their pain,” Moncrief explained. “If a therapist can indicate that what they’re going through is a very human experience and their reaction is a very understandable one shared by others, the person feels less isolated and less frightened.”

Front said clients tend to be more open to self-examination when therapists admit that they are going through crises themselves.

“I always find that people deal with things at a deeper level if they know you’re having trouble with your health or dealing with a death,” she said. “They often focus on those subjects in their life, too.”

The support group is a place where the therapists can discuss their clients’ difficulties as well as their own--without violating confidentiality. They talk about the issues that come up in therapy in general terms, often using the latest psychology books as a basis for discussion.

They respect the differences in their approaches to therapy, which often lead to lively discussions about questions such as whether it’s necessary for a person to confront or forgive someone who has caused them pain before they can heal.

“We try to get ideas--and criticism--from our associates,” Baustian noted.

“People get better therapy as a result of this group,” Front added.

For the therapists, participating in this support group is a way of practicing what they preach.

They often recommend that their clients join support groups because, said psychologist Andrea Covert of Mission Viejo, “You can see your own problem better when somebody else is talking about it.”

Front pointed out that many of her clients are disconnected from relatives and need a group that can offer the kind of support extended families once provided.

A crucial part of that support is nurturing, which in the therapists’ group often comes in a form as simple as a reassuring hug.

Baustian sees the freedom to express anger as one of the most important ways the group nurtures her.

“Anger is a difficult emotion for women,” she said. “They’re supposed to be all-giving, all-loving, all-perfect human beings all the time. So when I get angry, I don’t feel good about myself.

“It’s very nurturing to come here when I’m feeling very angry about something going on in my life and just spill it all out and have others say they’ve felt the same way. When I have my feelings accepted by others, I stop condemning myself--and I don’t feel as angry.”

Moncrief said some clients resist the idea of participating in a support group because they’ve bought the myth that “the rugged individualist is the well-functioning person.”

The therapists in Moncrief’s support group have learned to ask for what they need when they get together, and they try to teach their clients to do the same.

“I consider it a step toward health and a sign of health when people are able to reach out to others,” she said. “We have to reverse this thinking that you’re supposed to take care of it all alone.”