Several years ago, an acquaintance from my gym turned to me, mid-workout, and said, “hey, I’ve always wanted to ask a therapist something.  Are people just, like, really boring?”

I was flabbergasted – not only because the answer is that no, people are vastly interesting and contain multitudes, but also because I found the question insulting.  Essentially, “have you chosen, as your life’s work, to be bored and unfulfilled?”

But as audacious as this was, I get asked variations on it all the time – just with a less broad brush.  Friends will say, “I think I’m wasting my therapist’s time with my piddly, unimportant problems.”  Clients will remark, “I can’t believe I’m wasting your time and our session on such a stupid problem, other people have had it so much worse.”

But the thing is, the stuff that’s on your mind – that keeps you up at night, and is front and center enough to be the content of your therapy sessions – that stuff matters.

People’s stories aren’t boring to me.

Before I was a therapist, I was an armchair therapist.  I spent my youth being compelled by people’s stories.  I devoured memoirs, and enjoyed movies that involved watching people’s lives and relationships unfold.

But mostly, I looked for interesting people who wanted to tell me about their lives.  Often, these relationships were one-sided.  As a teenager, my AIM buddy list was overflowing with people who would wax poetic to me about how misunderstood they felt, and I loved being in a “helper” role.

The problem was that if I needed someone to talk to, these same people would suddenly disappear into an away message.  They had no interest in supporting me, or hearing about my feelings.  This was true through my adolescence and my early 20s.

But then, at the unfathomably young age of 24, I began seeing therapy clients in my graduate program internship.  Suddenly I had a clearly defined role: My job was to listen and provide support, and if I needed support for my own “stuff,” I was supposed to look elsewhere, perhaps starting with my own therapist.  Seeing clients met my “helper” need, it fed my hunger for stories, and it came with clearly defined boundaries.  I loved every moment of it.

But at the same time, something shifted in my personal relationships.  “I have clients now,” I curtly told a fair-weather friend who wasn’t interested in making time for me.  “If you’re not going to show up for me like I do for you, I don’t have space for this relationship anymore.”

In my personal life, I still seek out people who have stories to tell and challenges to overcome.  Most of the people I love are at least a little bit depressed, anxious, or nihilistic.  But the difference is that now I expect (and typically experience) reciprocity in these relationships.

That being said, I do occasionally get bored in session.

As an ADHDer, my focus can be a fickle thing, and I do sometimes feel my mind beginning to drift when I’m with a client.  When I was a newer therapist, I would fake my way through and beat myself up about this.

I don’t do that anymore.  It’s embarrassing to ask a question that’s already been answered, and really, does a “closed-mouth yawn” fool anyone?

Now, instead, I’ve learned to get curious about my own drifting mind.  I know that I find the clients on my caseload to be compelling, interesting people.  So if I can’t get myself to pay attention, I wonder what else might be going on.

Sometimes, it’s my own stuff, like:

  • Am I dysregulated about something happening in my own life?
  • Is the client’s narrative hitting too close to home? (And if so, can I put my own baggage on an imaginary bookshelf behind me to bring to my own therapy later, so that I can reengage?)
  • Do I have an implicit bias that might be getting in the way of my ability to engage that I need to examine on my own time?

But more often, it’s a call to action to ask the client some probing questions, like:

  • I notice we’re talking about the same thing, week after week, and I’m sensing that you might feel stuck. How can we look at this same topic differently to help you get unstuck?
  • Is this about avoidance?  Are you complaining about the traffic because you don’t want to discuss something harder that’s going on?
  • Do you feel ready to “graduate” from therapy? And if the answer is maybe, let’s revisit your goals list together.

In other words, it’s never about finding the person inane, or thinking to myself, “jeez, why are they talking about this?  Other people have it so much worse.”

Why I look at the clock

When I was a new therapist, I used to be so self-conscious about checking the time in the middle of a session.  It didn’t help that clients sometimes “caught” me and called me on it, always with the underlying assumption that I was chomping at the bit for the session to end.

But here’s the thing: If I’m checking the clock, it’s not because I’m bored or anxious to get rid of you.  In fact, it’s usually the opposite.  Here are some things I might be thinking when I glance at the clock:

  • What they’re saying brings up a question for me. Do I have time to “go there” today?
  • I hope we have time to finish the story they’re telling.
  • Do I have time to introduce this relevant psychology concept?
  • Should I ask this question, or assign them homework to think about it?
  • If I reflect this back to the client, will we have enough time to process it, or will I be leaving them on a really tough note?

If you think you’re boring your therapist, that’s grist for the mill.

One of the things that makes therapy effective is that the way you show up in your outside life will inevitably be how you show up in therapy.  Or, put differently, how you do anything is how you do everything.

If you are worried that your therapist thinks you’re boring, that’s probably not about your therapist.  (Unless it is – more on that in a moment.)

If you have a broken record in your head during your sessions, saying “why am I talking about this? They probably think I’m boring,” it may be about you.  Are you someone who’s afraid to take up space?  Who feels the need to emotionally caretake for the people around you all the time?  Who struggles with an overabundance of people-pleasing tendencies?

(And honestly, there’s no shame in any of that – I’m all of the above sometimes.)

It might feel awkward, but if you’re worried your therapist is bored, I recommend mentioning this to them.  The ensuing exploration of your feelings may well unearth other areas of your life that could use some TLC.

And if it turns out it is your therapist – if you try this and they brush it off, or if they seem disengaged, or disinterested, or regularly fall asleep in session (!!!)… or if they just seem to genuinely not value what you share in session – please find a different therapist.  Your stories and struggles matter, and you deserve to talk to someone who recognizes and validates that.