‘Who do you think you are?’: The Dilemma of Claiming Authority Among Early Career Therapists

First presented on 10^th April, 2020 at a lecture hosted by Hank Nunn Institute, Bangalore.

When I was initially presented with the opportunity to give a lecture, I was feeling quite anxious – What did I want to speak about? What could I speak about? Did I have the experience or the knowledge that might be of value to those present? While I was grappling with these questions, I was aware of the clear and familiar voice rumbling beneath the noise – Who do you think you are? So, with some hesitation, I decided to speak about precisely that.

Quite soon, I was confronted with similar anxieties – With what authority was I going to speak about the dilemma of claiming authority? This seemed more manageable, however, since I took on the position that I was going to share my experience and the challenges that I had faced and continue to face in the process of claiming authority in different roles. I also felt reassured thinking that each of you here might have faced and, perhaps, continue to face similar or different challenges in your process and that, given the opportunity, you’d be able to take the position I find myself in and speak about it in your own way. So, I began by claiming authority on my experience.

For quite some time, I was turning the topic in my head trying to figure out what I wanted to say, how I would say it and if, by speaking, I would do justice to how I feel. I do remember being quite concerned about my use of the word ‘claim’ because I felt it implied that something was being asserted without there being any proof of it. I could ‘claim’ this or that but is there a way to know that it is true. In time, I realized that this was quite close to my experience of claiming authority – Finding myself in positions where I was responsible but with an acute awareness of my own feeling of powerlessness. So, while it felt like it was something that I was expected to handle, I found myself alluding to another, someone else, as the one responsible, whether explicitly or in my mind.

Thinking about this, I was reminded of my time at home, growing up. I recall that the adults in the household had certain preoccupations and, sometimes, they overlapped. There seemed to be expectations which could not be negotiated or, as I later realized, explained. I was expected to be polite, eat on time, touch everyone’s feet and so on even if I didn’t, at times, feel very hungry, polite or reverent. I obliged for a long time and slowly grew resentful but every time I would question these expectations, the adults seemed to lose all sense and capacity to converse and become irritable, impatient, desperate. I started to feel like they didn’t quite know why they had these expectations to begin with but that they had been asked by someone (just as they were asking me) to oblige. This was quite a revelation for a young boy because it implied that there were people who were dictating the terms outside of home and that I’d been negotiating with the wrong lot all along. Who was in the position of power? Who really, truly had the last word? I remember watching my family pray and thinking that perhaps this was the answer. I became devoutly religious for a short time but that did not make any difference. They seemed committed to praying to a god that made little difference to how they conducted themselves as people. My experience of school was very similar – I was expected to obey instructions without question. I learned that very well but this feeling that those commanding weren’t sure of their position remained. It implied another, someone more powerful but this formidable entity was disembodied. So, when I rebelled, it was against everyone since I couldn’t quite locate who it was that was deciding these matters and no response from the actors felt satisfactory. I think this was when, in many different ways, this question was posed to my rebellion and incessant challenges – Who do you think you are? And it felt absolutely silencing because I didn’t quite know since thinking about anything outside of what was instructed was discouraged. So, I did have the right answers but rarely one that felt right.

Let me now skip ahead to the recent past, at a time when concerns around authority became more pertinent. Once I left college, I felt that I was expected to know. I had spent two years in training and I felt the need to justify that time through my practice. Once I began meeting patients, ‘knowing’ felt like a myth – People were grappling with questions and anxieties I hadn’t even considered. I would try to anchor distress to labels – Invoke the authority of the books I had been asked to study to understand what was to be dictated because that had been my experience – Of being told, being expected to obey and suffering consequences if I did not. The myth had been rooted in the curriculum, not in practice, experience or reflection. I remember feeling that I ought to know – It’s something that I still feel quite often even in the face of being completely lost and perplexed. It evoked a feeling of shame around curiosity, wishing to ask, wishing to know – Questions never felt satisfactory, they never felt like ‘interventions’. If I expected the patient to tell me what the matter was, what were they coming to me for? I felt redundant and like a sham. However, I wasn’t quite as willing to acknowledge this at the time since I had just graduated from a two-year course and was adamant that I ‘knew’ – ‘Knew’ what? Not very sure but something that helped me feel not as deflated. I was acquainted with clinical supervision at this time and I remember asking my supervisor to teach me how to supervise – At the time, I hadn’t realized that I was asking to be given something; to be taught how to claim authority assuming that there was something she had, something she was withholding, an answer, wisdom, knowledge that would ease this process but it was being kept from me. It felt absolutely necessary to believe that someone had the answers to the questions that I was grappling with and it felt important to have a body that encapsulated this authority that had, for so long, felt disembodied. I was quite disgruntled for a time thinking that there was something that was being kept from me and, if only, it would be given then I wouldn’t have to suffer the discomfort, even humiliation, of not knowing – This feeling prevailed across my interactions with supervisors and there were times I tried to provoke ‘it’ out of them. But it took me a long time to even consider that my sense of authority wasn’t theirs to give.

I think I was first clearly aware of my position of authority in the first group that I co-facilitated. I felt quite like how I thought the members felt; lost, anxious and hoping for someone to provide something to go on. I remember looking at my co-facilitator just as the other seemed to be; glancing in her direction, waiting for a set of instructions before I realized that the others’ eyes kept darting towards me too. It was a strange yet familiar feeling of being imbued with something that I didn’t believe I had. It felt that I had to act with a certain authority and so I did; I acted with the authority with which I had been familiar – anxiously commanding a position without much awareness of what it meant to others – but while it seemed to sometimes offer respite from the tension that I felt was shared in the group, it didn’t persist. It felt hollow. It was when I began facilitating a group on my own that I became acutely aware of the feeling that I was expected to lead and this expectation was to lead in a certain way, to be a particular kind of a leader. I can’t quite articulate it except the fact that I felt like I was always falling short of it and I suppose I still feel that way, often enough. However, this position of being a disappointing leader to so many, however terrifying, felt important – I was reminded of my first set of experiences in supervision and a vital one was of having a body that held the authority – One with which I could negotiate, argue, be upset, feel resentful towards and use in whatever way in which I felt such an authority ought to be used. The way I saw it, this acknowledgment of ‘failure’ also gave shape to an awareness of how people were interacting with figures of authority and responding to power. In my view, by doing this, I was exercising what I considered to be my authority in the group and at the same time falling short of what was expected of me by the members. I also recall times when my group would feel sympathetic towards me quite in the same that I had felt towards my parents – They believed I was very much being dictated by an external force (usually, the organization) to make certain decision about who comes, stays, goes, when I take breaks and so on. While this offered me some respite, I think it brought up a lot of anxieties in the group about having a ‘powerless leader’, a mere pawn who was controlled by this unknown entity and made it difficult for them to then direct their hostilities towards me.

Another time when I felt such expectations was when I was a coordinator for the organization – The role required me to be the channel of communication between new patients and the clinical team. I was the first point of contact for new patients looking to begin therapy with our organization – Helping them get acquainted with the intake process, filling out forms, informing the team and other such administrative responsibilities. However, very often, they would make certain demands or requests of me, send me complaints about their therapists, asked of me things that I did not consider to be within the purview of my role. This wasn’t unexpected but I initially found it confusing, in my position because it put me in touch with the similar feeling of being made to feel quite powerful while I was very aware of my limitations. I wondered if this expectation of me was, in part, the consequence of my function – I was the considered to be the gatekeeper and perhaps the one who decides by virtue of holding this boundary between patients and therapists, between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’. This function seemed to create an impression that I was somehow ‘in charge’ and carried the authority to give people what they needed or relieve them of what they found to be unpleasant.

There was a point at which I was presented with the opportunity to become a manager of a clinical unit – I was eager to take it up and didn’t really consider my ambivalence, which was quite apparent, to take on the role. It felt quite sudden because I moved rather quickly from being preoccupied with my clinical work to being responsible for the goings-on within the unit. I remember going over the job description several times trying to understand what was expected of me. I was aware of being ‘given’ a certain authority, that I was being endowed with something and wanted to understand what this entailed. It was a confusing space because it wasn’t ‘given’ to me by those in the unit but conferred on me by my position and I felt that I had to learn, rather quickly, how to wield it. I think this, for me, brought up an important distinction between authority that is elected and individuals who choose to put themselves in that position. I felt that the latter became difficult because I was aware of going into a group and claiming certain authority knowing that there were others who had been there longer, who perhaps knew more, who felt more strongly for their unit – And so, with what authority, was I to take up this position? I remember feeling quite competitive and rivalrous as though I had to quickly learn more, do more, be more, increase my capacity with an uneasy awareness that I might not have been one who was chosen had I not chosen this for myself.

I think one of the feelings that I have spoken about frequently today has been the anxiety of being in a position where one is expected to ‘know’ something with the awareness that one probably doesn’t. One of the ways in which I’ve attempted to deal with this anxiety has been by disregarding the fact of not knowing and instead believing that there was, in fact, something to ‘know’ and then devoting myself to finding out what this is – While this initially helped build an appetite for learning, it soon became evident and quite frustrating that no one seemed to have ‘the’ answer though I wasn’t quite sure what the question was in the first place. I seemed to be trying to solve something without an idea of what the issue at hand was. I remember a conversation with a close friend and colleague who was working in an institute and, for the better part of a year, had been feeling absolutely frustrated with the system wherein he felt that he was given an increasing amount of responsibility but his views and position were dismissed. He kept feeling smaller and angrier and, during one of our conversations, exclaimed that maybe he should get a PhD. He was certain the title of ‘Dr.’ would afford him a voice and a certain authority that could not be questioned. This is wider context within which we function – The law doesn’t recognize psychotherapy as a legitimate field of work. The authority to work with people has been ‘granted’ by one body leaving others, like myself, feeling like we’re playing at our jobs. While this is slowly changing, it has left many who are beginning to work in this transitory period to feel like imposters. I recall feeling disillusioned with the work I was doing and while I understand that sometimes that is the consequence of the work itself – bearing with uncertainty and ambiguity – I felt a part of it was a need for legitimacy. I considered, like my colleague and friend, doing an MPhil to learn something which I already seemed to be doing and doing reasonably well. Even now, as I pursue my training in group analysis, there is a part of me that is greedy for the title which I imagine would afford me the kind of voice and authority that my friend too wishes to have. It was during this confusing period that another colleague said something that was briefly reassuring – We’re only as good as our supervisors. I remember thinking about my small ‘fleet’ of supervisors and feeling kind of safe. Or was I? How was I to determine my supervisors’ legitimacy? Now you may, as I have on several occasions, venture to ascribe this paranoia to my personality. It seems reasonable to do so but I find it difficult to believe that I have the capacity or the motive to drive myself quite this mad entirely on my own without something formidable holding this anxiety very much in its place or if not sustaining it then certainly not mitigating it. If there is no ‘legitimacy’ that is granted by law, by governing bodies, it leaves practitioners, most of whom work individually, feeling unsupported, alone and neglected trying to justify their work and authority and determine their own position professionally and ethically. While this is an important and challenging endeavour, it’s quite an overwhelming task for a 20 something year old to undertake fresh out of college without any knowledge or information to help them think about how they ought to conduct themselves. These are often conversations I attempt to have with young therapists I work with and as often these reasons are dismissed as something that is the reality and so must be dealt with as it is. It feels untouchable and immovable. What follows is the pressure from other aspects and realities of life – of having to financially depend on one’s family, of not knowing if or how the future might be any different, of having to consider one’s own needs and anxieties while holding one’s patients’, of perhaps running out of reasons to continue this course of action, to name a few – leading, often, to feelings of hopelessness, resignation and a wish to give up or an ambivalence about working as a psychotherapist.

I think that one of the reasons that made the process of claiming authority difficult for me was the position I had taken of opposing authority in the forms that I had been familiar with them through my life. To me, authority demanded obedience, compliance – It did not allow for curiosity, questioning or difference. Having understood and taken in this representation of an oppressive authority, I felt quite certain that I did not want to subject people to what I had felt. In an attempt to do this, I disavowed my own authority (and often still continue to) but that had its own set of consequences. I intended to respect people’s space and their agency but I realized that my own identity, formed in opposition to authority, would have not been as it is if I didn’t have something or someone to push against. This friction is what, in part, gave shape to my ideas and capacity to think rather than simply obey.

When I begin to consider everything and everyone that has and continues to challenge me to claim my authority, some things really stay in mind. I have worked in a team from the time I completed college and I have felt it to be quite challenging. In particular, the structure of the organization where experience doesn’t necessarily mark seniority. In fact, for a long time I found it difficult to understand what was it that helped people to hold their authority – Was it their position? Their experience? Their expertise? Their age? – and I didn’t feel satisfied with the different hypotheses. For me, in fact, it became a little clearer when I put myself in that position by choosing to take responsibility for something and then figuring out how to best handle it. For me, it had to do with inculcating a sense of ownership and it would be quite arrogant to think that I did it on my own. Feeling like I was part of something, belonged to something, also evoked a feeling of being, in some way, responsible for how I and others felt being part of it. At times, it felt like an overwhelming but intense encounter with the state of affairs as they were with the question – What are we going to do about it? Usually followed by an uncomfortable resistance in the form of – Who do you think you are? It really helped to notice others and the ways in which they were dealing with their work, challenges, conflicts, meeting their needs and bearing with the frustrations and disappointments of not having all their needs met. It felt helpful and, sometimes, it felt terribly disorienting because it was difficult to know how to be in a space which wasn’t becoming what I had been familiar with or what I expected spaces to be – Infantilizing, oppressive, silencing, rigid – because I had, over the years, found my way around this – By obeying and resenting, to put it very simply. I remember several tussles with colleagues which felt more like a nudge towards making it into something I had known but how my grievances, complaints, even outbursts were responded to helped me to notice something different about the manner in which authority could be held and communicated. This understanding was really put to test when we had newer members join the organization and I became aware of being noticed for how I chose to be in different situations and that I was communicating something myself, that there was something to be ‘taught’ in being with one another. While it has certainly helped to have different people share similar anxieties, it has also felt quite potent when people have been in touch with different aspects of our shared reality as a group and communicated something of it within the group. This awareness that everyone seems to grasp something different of a given situation that I might not be in touch with at all carries a certain authority, in my view. An authority that can be articulated by that person’s experience. Just as I have done today.

Mohit Sharma
mohit@hanknunninstitute.org