\u201cIn India, there\u2019s a mindset of \u2018I am experienced, I already know everything\u2019,\u201d shares 32-year-old psychotherapist Rhea Gandhi, whose oldest client so far has been 78. \u201cBecause age is associated with knowledge to a great extent, many older therapists don\u2019t update themselves on the newer forms of therapy or lifestyles, so there is a disconnect in some ways from how much psychotherapy has progressed as a profession. But experience is an active form of learning, not a passive consequence of ageing.\u201d The mark of a successful relationship, she adds, is the capacity to build equality in the relationship. \u201cOur Indian mindset about age and knowing better doesn\u2019t help a dynamic. As therapists, we have many theories and understand the science of what\u2019s happening. But how it lives in a person, how it manifests and what it feels like to be in that person\u2019s body\u2014that is something the client always has more experience with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, many Indians who seek help assume that therapists are unquestionable authorities who will hand them all the answers. 32-year-old psychotherapist Dishaa Desai admits that even the best therapist-client relationships have an inherent power imbalance but believes that a good therapist is honest about their limitations. Younger therapists are dealing with the same problems that their clients come to them with\u2014whether that\u2019s an unpredictable job market, the relentlessly bleak news cycle or even climate grief. An older therapist might dismiss the anxiety caused by the very real threat of a sudden lay-off, for instance, especially if they haven\u2019t been able to update their skillset to address the psychosocial distress caused by our current late-capitalist corporatocracies. A younger therapist, on the other hand, may be more compassionate towards the idea that these larger issues aren\u2019t tackled with deep breathing exercises. \u201cThat honesty in saying \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019 or \u2018I am not going to have all the answers all the time\u2019\u2014people do feel a sense of belonging with that,\u201d Desai explains. \u201cThey don\u2019t feel as lonely, like they are the only ones struggling with not knowing how to deal with a particular concern. It helps the client be more compassionate with themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
60-year-old Leena*, who has been seeing a 30-something somatic therapist, points out that people often consult medical doctors far younger than themselves, so why should they have an age bias when it comes to mental health professionals? \u201cA doctor doesn\u2019t have to have broken his own leg to know what a fracture is,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I was in my late forties, I would have hesitated to see a therapist who was younger than me, but then I saw a younger nutritionist, and she was so good.\u201d Connection is key, she adds, but so is training and upskilling. \u201cToday, I would recommend younger people hands down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIn India, there\u2019s a mindset of \u2018I am experienced, I already know everything\u2019,\u201d shares 32-year-old psychotherapist Rhea Gandhi,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[20984,97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-47372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-educate-me","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}