When I talk about lived experience and how it benefits the counselling practice, I want to be clear from the start that there is no such thing as “the same experience.” This is true even though I myself come to the therapeutic relationship with what I consider a deeply plural lived experience. I am an AuDHD, gender non-conforming individual whose roots span Germany and Egypt, enriched by a decade of cross-cultural marriage with my Brazilian partner. My younger years involved navigating spaces that society frequently stigmatises or misunderstands, including sex work, active addiction, and the journey of recovery.
When a client touches any of these areas, I do not assume for a single moment that I understand what their particular experience is like. I often ask clarifying questions. The difference, however, lies in the kind of clarifying questions asked.
I am acutely conscious that a therapeutic space can easily feel like the therapist is using the client as an educator, without actually moving the therapy forward. In my own experience as a client, this can feel like over-explaining while simultaneously getting the sense that the therapist is not truly entering the experience, but has instead become a tourist. There are so many ways that this can feel more damaging than creating the safe container that therapy is meant to be.
The Traps of Therapeutic Tourism
This damage often involves the type of questions where a therapist asks their client to map out the logistical or operational mechanics of their world simply because they don’t know how it works. A therapist does not need to know the blueprint of an office or the exact structure of a corporate meeting in detail to grasp the emotional reality of AuDHD overwhelm, or to understand how sensory overload can lead to profound isolation.
When I was still in training, I encountered clinical frameworks where a practitioner openly stated: ‘Your client is using Grindr… there is a death wish clearly in play.’ This perfectly exemplifies why it can be so tiring to have to over-explain in order to dismantle outdated, moralistic prejudices. How can we be expected to talk about psychological well-being when faced with this type of attitude?
Looking back at it now, this particular practitioner – who was, in their view, highly experienced – lacked the basic cultural competency to look at non-heteronormative or alternative behaviors without pathologising them or labeling them as a “deficit.”
Someone with ADHD knows the immense invisible effort it takes just to leave the house in the morning: ensuring the lights are switched off, the right clothes are being worn, the laptop is packed in the bag for work, and the keys are actually in hand to lock the door. I know how much reassurance I sometimes need on my commute just to ensure everything has been ticked off my mental list. Ignorance of these everyday realities can easily turn the therapy room into an interrogation room, rather than providing a safe space to playfully explore or confront experiences and feelings.
Defying the Traditional Script
When I discuss this with peers who lack lived experience and come from a more traditional training background, I am often reminded of a classic rule I was taught: “If you are too similar to the client, you will lose your objectivity; this is a surefire way toward colluding* with your client.”
*Francesca Inskipp notes in her foundational texts on counseling supervision, collusion occurs when a therapist loses their objective stance and unconsciously feeds into the client’s defense mechanisms, resulting in a static relationship where neither person challenges the underlying patterns.
Because of this rigid fear, I have faced panicked warnings that because I am AuDHD, queer, or cross-cultural, I will automatically assume the client’s experience matches mine exactly. There was even an incident where peers assumed I could not see the difference between a lesbian client of mine and myself, without them knowing a single detail about our work.
No, no, NO!
Having lived experience doesn’t mean I assume or do in fact know the exact script of my client’s life. It simply means I already know at least some of the language. I don’t need my client to spend twenty minutes explaining what a “mask,” a “crash,” or “Grindr” is. It doesn’t mean I have every term catalogued, it means when a client introduces an experience, a concept or acronym I haven’t encountered before, the burden isn’t on them to educate a defensive clinician. Because the foundational baseline is already there, we can completely bypass the translation phase and drop straight into the core of their unique, individual experience.
Somehow it is acceptable in the therapy world, that a client asks for a ‘female therapist’ or a ‘black therapist’ but when it comes to clients from minorities relating to gender, sexuality and neurodivergence, some very weird, double-standard-seeming alarm bells appear to be flashing up.
My personal history means I don’t need my clients to clean up their stories or translate their complexities for me. I live on the spectrum of human difference, and that is exactly the baseline where I meet the people who sit across from me.