When Someone Lets Themselves Be Affected, and Then Chooses Not To Live There
Some professional shifts only become clear after they’ve already happened. At the time, there is sometimes a sense of strain, repetition, or a growing sense that something no longer fits that slowly accumulates.
This reflection comes from one of those shifts.
Different shoes carry us into different terrain.
Being affected is not the same as staying
In therapeutic work, we often speak about being affected by clients, by material, by the emotional field in the room. Being affected matters. It’s the point at which work becomes real and meaningful rather than feeling somewhat procedural, because it signals contact, engagement, and the willingness to be moved by what is in the room.
But being affected does not automatically lead to integration, or even doing something with the material.
I’ve come to see that for some people, being affected is followed by a decision to stabilise rather than stay with it. That can mean clarifying roles, narrowing focus, or returning to familiar structures. That choice is not wrong. In many cases it is protective and necessary.
What matters is recognising when two people assume they are moving in the same direction, only to discover that the point of contact leads them elsewhere.
The sentence that captures this for me…..
Someone can let themselves be affected, and still choose not to live there.
Different responses to difficulty
Over time, I’ve noticed that when work becomes destabilising, people tend to organise themselves in different ways.
Some stay close to the uncertainty long enough for something internal to reorganise. Others restore order by tightening boundaries, refining remit, or leaning more heavily on external authority.
Neither response is inherently problematic. They reflect different ways of managing risk, responsibility, and exposure.
Difficulty arises when this difference remains unspoken and instead is carried relationally or where there may be an assumption that they are walking toward the same destination, only to discover that clarity sends them in opposite directions.
Outgrowing a container
In my own development, I remained in a supervisory container longer than was useful because I was reorganising internally and did not yet have a clearer place to stand.
Over time, the gap between the work I was doing and the holding available to it became harder to ignore. When the divergence finally became explicit and was acknowledged, the ending was neither dramatic nor adversarial. It was relational, honest and most definitely overdue.
What became clear was that the work I was now engaged in, particularly with fragile and high-intensity clients, required a different kind of tolerance and support, because a ceiling had been reached.
Worn shoes and pristine shoes
An image has stayed with me.
Some shoes become worn because they are taken into difficult terrain. Others remain pristine because they are worn selectively, on ground that leaves fewer marks.
Both are real. They simply reflect different choices about where someone is willing to walk.
In therapeutic work, staying in certain terrain will leave marks. Choosing not to stay there preserves something else. The problems arise only when we expect everyone to inhabit the same ground.
What this shifted in my practice
Letting go of the expectation of shared integration has clarified a great deal.
I feel less pulled to explain myself or to bring others with me when their systems organise differently. I’m clearer about the kind of professional containers my work now requires.
Clinically, this has sharpened my stance, which of course, has had a direct impact on how I work with fragility and repetition.
Closing
This reflection is simply about differentiation.
Some people organise their work around preservation. Others organise around exposure. Both are coherent positions.
Both are intelligible. Only one is mine.
And once that becomes clear, a surprising amount of energy is released, which doesn’t collapse into argument or resentment, but straight back into the work itself.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are... but many will choose to remain who they can safely be.”
