The test shows two lines. That stands for: two heartbeats in my body – my own and a galloping beat of the future. I’m pregnant. In the middle of the last part of my training to become a psychotherapist, I am pregnant.
I know straight away: I want to be a mother. But I also know with certainty: I want to become a therapist. The next morning, as I sit opposite Mrs. H., who beams with joy and tells me about her vacation in Spain in the fall, sadness spreads through me. I won’t hear about this trip again. It’s the first of many bittersweet moments over the next three months as I sit with a secret in front of my patients and feel guilty. They don’t yet know that our work together will end for a few months or even forever.
The final training phase is dryly called “practical training” and refers to the exciting time in which we supervise our own cases from start to finish for the first time. We learn how wonderful it is to be able to accompany someone on the path of change and when it is time to end a process. Now I’m also learning what it’s like to interrupt a therapeutic relationship when it doesn’t make sense for the patient in question.
Between joy and overwhelm
Shortly before I can no longer hide my little pot belly, I announce my pregnancy – along with the remaining four months of therapy and the offer to help find a new therapist. I’m surprised at how happy some patients are for me. But some also feel left behind or overwhelmed. Some people know immediately whether they want to switch to another therapist, others hesitate for weeks. A new level of focus is taking hold in all processes. We keep talking about which topics are particularly important now.
My belly is growing – and my patients can see it every week. Suddenly they hold the door open for me. Every now and then they ask how I’m doing before I can ask them the same question. “Is this good?” I often doubt. “It’s human,” a friend of mine once replied simply.
Functioning despite physical and emotional states of emergency
Suddenly I feel fragile in the face of all the uncertainties that the little being inside me brings. The therapeutic sessions in the final stage of training are on a fee basis – so if we are sick or on vacation, we have no income. What was previously a matter of theoretical knowledge and planning now becomes a source of constant worry. There are no fixed maternity protection regulations for self-employed people and therefore no maternity benefit. If I were put on bed rest due to a shortened cervix, for example, I would have to apply for social assistance. So I can endure the leaden fatigue and nausea of the first few weeks as well as the excessive emotions of the second trimester. I haven’t canceled a single session since I became pregnant.
Never again in your life will your body change hormonally as quickly as during pregnancy and after birth. I notice the changes clearly – when I forget to stamp on forms or write “Good evening” in a text message to my patient in broad daylight. Even during the most exciting conversations, sometimes a little kick between the ribs reminds me that I am not just responsible for my patients. I’m two now, and number two reacts to the world differently than I do. For example, I don’t have a favorite patient, but my baby does. When he speaks, it becomes active. But I also feel subtle emotional undercurrents in the conversation and am more alert to the needs of the person I’m talking to. I feel a caring growing within me that is much more fundamental and much warmer than before. I am changing as a person, as a mother – and as a therapist. It’s unusual, but it also opens up perspectives that make my work richer.
I am now in the thirty-second week. My stomach is huge. My anticipation too. Almost every conversation now is a farewell – forever or temporarily. Some patients switch to other therapists. Others will wait for me. Despite all the vulnerability and fragility that life brings, I feel that we are well taken care of. For my patients. For me. And for the baby.
Tabea Farnbacher was born in Hanover in 1996. She works as a psychologist and psychotherapist in training in a psychiatric clinic in the Ruhr area. Since 2016 she has also been working as a stage poet and lyricist. Farnbacher has received several awards for her writing, including the Federal Prize “Meetings of Young Authors”. In this column she writes about her experiences and development as a young therapist.
Transparency note: There is no therapist without patients – that’s why this column tells about people in psychiatry. Since the protection of those treated is the top priority, the case studies are heavily modified in terms of their socio-demographic and biographical data and appear at intervals of time. The reported encounters retain their emotional core.
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