Managing Therapist Post-Election Despair in Session

I consider myself a liberal Democrat, living in a blue pocket of a red state. As a licensed MFT (Marriage and Family Therapist), I also identify as female, white, middle class, and heterosexual. Like many Americans, I stayed up all night to watch the presidential election result come in. My grief and devastation, along with my fears and anxieties about the future, made sleep elusive. After a mere two hours, it was time to get up, resume my role as therapist, and try to figure out how to work with clients on their concerns about this. I had spent weeks working with clients on election anxiety. But this day was different: it is unusual to be experiencing something so distressing that your clients may also be simultaneously experiencing.


Typically, I manage my self-of-the-therapist by practicing self-care and working on it outside of a clinical setting. But, on this day, I was going to have to find a way to work with clients on concerns I had barely begun to process myself. Should I even go see clients when feeling such sadness and despair? What could I possibly say to alleviate anxieties they might have about deportation, eliminating the education system, reproductive rights, etc.? How would I respond to real concerns that they could lose their healthcare or Medicare under this new administration, thereby losing access to their therapy services? How could I reframe people’s concerns, when I could not think of anything positive about the future? I had rarely felt less like going into work.

9:00 AM. Couple therapy session, mid 30s, White heterosexual couple, liberal Democrats. Both expressed their anger, frustration, and powerlessness about the results. They described their frantic research to determine if they should move their family to another country. I began the session listening, validating, and empathizing. However, our discussion soon shifted to all the ways that the election discussion between them paralleled other dynamics we have been addressing in therapy.  

How did his high anxiety and spiraling thought process relate to her role of staying strong, presenting the calm facts to the children, and managing his anxiety? What messages do they want to give to their children about their election response? What would need to happen for them to take his idea of moving internationally and make that a reality? What is their biggest fear? We ended the session with the couple pondering how they might take their powerlessness and turn it into activism by volunteering to help turn the electorate around in two years.

10:00 AM. Couple therapy session, mid 40s, heterosexual Latino couple, she identifies as Democrat, he identifies as Republican. They began the session with their intense argument about the results. She described him as smug and being a “sore winner;” he described her as bitter and naïve for thinking the outcome would be anything else. Using Gottman’s ideas of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, we explored how their interactions with each other reflected these problematic patterns. How did these character attributions relate to their negative affect? How did they display defensiveness, contempt, and criticism? How was their interaction about the election different than their other interactions? How could we shift this discussion on value differences to a more respectful one? How do they manage their perceived differences in values?

11:00 AM. Individual therapy session, male, White, Jewish, mid 60s, presenting problem of anxiety. He entered therapy agitated and began to pace the floor. Due to the nice weather, I suggested that maybe we do something different today and take a walk in the park. He agreed. We walked and explored his anxiety: What would happen with Israel? What if he loses his Medicare and senior benefits? How would he cope with this level of uncertainty? What if his young daughter had an unwanted pregnancy? He ended the session with his own suggestion of avoiding any more election coverage and how taking a break from social media would probably help him the most right now.   

12:00 PM. Individual therapy session, African American female, early 50s, presenting problem of grief. She focused on her anger towards voters and her fear that the results were a result of racism and sexism. She expressed concern for her transgender son and what changes might affect him. What would her deceased mother have said to help ease her fears? What other losses do these results bring up for her? What personal experiences has she had with racism and sexism that this is evoking for her?  

1:00 PM. Individual therapy session, early 20s, White man, unsure party affiliation, presenting problem of depression. This was the only session of the day where the election was not discussed, and we had a session much like previous ones. It could have occurred on any other day.

2:00 PM. Couple therapy session, early 50s, White, Jewish, Republican. They began the session talking about how happy they were about the election results and their shared optimism for what the future holds. They described how they bonded over their relief that Israel policy would likely be beneficial. Using Solution Focused Therapy, I focused on these moments of exceptions: what was different about their shared experience last night? How could we expand upon what was working between them last night? When else have they been able to connect like that?

3:00 PM. Individual session, African American female, late 20s, Independent, presenting problem of co-parenting challenges with her ex-husband. She shared how disappointed she was in the results and was struggling to make sense of them. For the first time today, a client asked me directly, “What was your response to these results? Make it make sense for me!” What do I self-disclose and how much? What could I say that is genuine, brief, and helpful to our relationship? I paused and said, “Yes, I was very disappointed also. The way that I make sense of it is that I think that most people want similar basic things: to be financially stable/not stressed about money and want the best for the people they love.

“People in this election took different paths to what and who they think will give them and their family the best outcome on these measures. It is easy to look at this and see all the ways that the path they chose might not actually do that for them. We can’t control what happens from here, so my personal challenge is to figure out how to cope with it and manage my own fears around what could happen.” She was satisfied with my response, and the session moved on.

***

4:00 PM. I am exhausted. I complete my notes and head home. Today was a difficult day, but I am proud that I was able to self-disclose appropriately, take election talk that could be viewed as “venting” and weave it into therapeutic work, and find a way to work effectively with a topic that I am still processing. I am confident that this will not be the last time I face such a challenge.   

Questions for Thought and Discussion

In what ways do you resonate with the author?

How have you addressed election/political/emotionally laden issues like politics with clients?

To what extent would you have self-disclosed as did the author? Differently or at all?  


File under: Couples Therapy, Musings and Reflections