Reflections…

One of the consequences of becoming a therapist is that you become very good at understanding people.

At first, this seems entirely positive, but then at one point you realise that you have started loosing the focus on trusting your own gut intuition.

We get so good at learning to look beneath behaviour rather than react to it. We become very skilled at being curious about what lies underneath anger, defensiveness, withdrawal, criticism, or control. We learn to see the frightened child beneath the harsh words, the protective strategy beneath the difficult behaviour, the wound beneath the symptom.

Over time, this way of seeing becomes second nature to us.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful thing as it allows us to hold complexity.

It helps us move beyond simplistic judgements about ourselves and others. It invites compassion where there might once have been blame. It allows us to recognise that people are often doing the best they can with the resources available to them.

This capacity to understand is one of the great gifts of therapeutic consciousness.

And yet every gift carries a shadow.

The shadow emerges when ‘understanding becomes a substitute for discernment.’

When we begin to explain instead of seeing.

When curiosity replaces clarity.

When empathy quietly overrides our own knowing.

As therapists, we spend years learning how experiences shape people. We understand attachment wounds, trauma responses, nervous system adaptations, protective strategies, and unconscious patterns. We know that difficult behaviour rarely appears in a vacuum.

• The controlling person may be frightened.

• The critical person may be deeply ashamed.

• The avoidant person may be protecting an old wound.

• The angry person may be carrying years of hurt.

Often, these things are true.

But there is an important distinction that can become blurred.

Understanding why someone behaves as they do is NOT the same as deciding whether that behaviour belongs in your life.

Somewhere along the way, many of us become so skilled at understanding that we lose contact with our capacity to judge.

Not judge in the sense of condemnation.

Judge in the sense of discernment.

The ability to recognise what is actually happening. The ability to acknowledge patterns. The ability to say, “This behaviour is not healthy for me.”

The ability to choose.

I suspect many therapists stay in situations with people inside and outside of the therapy room longer than they need to because they can see so many sides of the story.

• We understand the person’s childhood.

• We understand their fears.

• We understand their limitations.

• We understand the circumstances that shaped them.

And because we understand, we continue to give the benefit of the doubt.

Then another chance. And another. And another.

Understanding can become a subtle way of postponing reality.

The turning point, for me, came through recognising the difference between two statements:

“I understand why you do this.” and “I do not want this in my life.”

These statements are not opposites.

In fact, they can coexist.

One does not cancel the other.

• I can understand why someone lies and still choose not to trust them.

• I can understand why someone becomes controlling and still choose distance.

• I can understand why someone repeatedly crosses boundaries and still decide that the relationship no longer works for me.

Compassion does not require participation.

Insight does not require proximity.

Understanding does not remove consequence.

The Stoics understood this well.

Marcus Aurelius encouraged compassion for human frailty, but he did not advocate endless tolerance of harmful behaviour. He recognised that wisdom requires us to see things as they are, not as we wish them to be.

Reality remains reality, regardless of how much we understand its causes.

There is a similar thread running through the writings of St. Teresa of Avila.

Despite her profound compassion, she was remarkably practical. Again and again, she advised her nuns not to confuse spiritual aspiration with reality. She encouraged them to see clearly, to be honest about what was actually happening, and to avoid being carried away by wishful thinking.

Love, for Teresa, was not sentimentality.

Love was reality met honestly.

Perhaps this is where therapeutic consciousness must mature.

Not into less compassion, but into wiser compassion.

• A compassion that is capable of seeing wounds without becoming blind to behaviour.

• A compassion that remains open-hearted without abandoning discernment.

• A compassion that honours both understanding and truth.

Because there comes a point when no further explanation is needed.

• No deeper insight.

• No additional perspective.

• No more understanding.

There comes a point when what is required is a decision.

Perhaps maturity is not the abandonment of compassion.

Perhaps maturity is compassion that has learned how to see clearly.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition has long taught that a bird requires two wings in order to fly.

Wisdom and compassion.

Compassion allows us to recognise suffering, to understand the wounds beneath behaviour, and to meet ourselves and others with kindness.

Wisdom brings discernment. It allows us to see clearly, recognise patterns, acknowledge reality, and make choices that honour truth.

Without compassion, wisdom can become cold.

Without wisdom, compassion can become blind.

Perhaps this is the deeper invitation for therapists, healers, and all those drawn to understanding others.

Not to abandon compassion, but to balance it with discernment.

To understand the wound without excusing the behaviour.

To keep the heart open whilst seeing clearly.

To recognise that maturity is not choosing between wisdom and compassion, but allowing both wings to develop equally.

Only then can we truly fly.