The idea that psychotherapists might struggle as novelists is an interesting one. While both psychotherapists and novelists delve into human psychology and storytelling, their approaches and goals often differ fundamentally, which can indeed make fiction-writing challenging for therapists. Here are a few reasons why psychotherapists might find novel writing uniquely difficult:
1. Focus on Insight Over Plot: Psychotherapists are trained to focus on insight, understanding the root causes of behavior, and analyzing motivation, often leading to more static situations. In a novel, however, characters need to act, make mistakes, and drive the plot forward. Therapists may feel compelled to explain rather than show, which can bog down narrative flow.
2. Ethical Constraints on Imagination: Therapists are bound by ethical guidelines to avoid projecting or fantasizing about their clients’ lives. This professional discipline can sometimes inhibit the kind of unfiltered creativity required in novel-writing, where characters can be unrestrained by moral or ethical considerations.
3. Over-Focus on Realism: Psychotherapists deal with real people’s lives, which often lack the dramatic arcs, pacing, and climactic resolutions found in novels. This focus on real-world constraints can make their stories feel overly grounded, losing the heightened, imaginative qualities that make fiction captivating.
4. Desire for Resolution and Healing: In therapy, the goal is to help clients resolve issues, find healing, or come to a healthier self-understanding. Novelists, on the other hand, may leave characters unresolved, in morally ambiguous situations, or even broken. Therapists may find it challenging to create characters who don’t evolve positively or situations that remain unresolved.
5. Risk of Intellectualization: Therapists are trained to intellectualize emotions and analyze them in structured ways. This can sometimes lead to stories that feel overly cerebral, with characters who analyze their emotions rather than act on them. Readers, however, are more drawn to visceral, immediate emotions than abstract analysis.
6. Habit of Staying Neutral: In therapy, neutrality is a professional stance, allowing clients to project their own meanings without influence. In novel-writing, though, an author’s distinct voice, perspective, and biases enrich the story. Therapists might struggle to abandon neutrality and create biased, passionate characters or narratives with a clear point of view.
7. Lack of Comfort with Ambiguity and Darker Themes: Therapists often work to bring light to clients’ issues and foster a sense of hope. Writing a novel may require embracing ambiguity, leaving questions unanswered, or delving into darkness without resolution. Therapists might find it hard to leave readers (or characters) in discomfort or moral ambiguity.
Despite these challenges, therapists who are able to overcome these tendencies can bring a profound depth of psychological insight to their stories. Those who succeed often combine their empathy and understanding of human nature with the novelist’s flair for conflict, suspense, and ambiguity, creating works that are both psychologically insightful and narratively compelling.
