Why I Do This Work - and Why I Know It From the Inside

Approaching my fifth decade of traversing this earth as a woman (a Black woman specifically) with three degrees, and a journey that has taken me through the private and voluntary sectors, NHS psychology services, higher education, and into private practice, there are a number of things that I have come to know.

Along the way I have held many professional roles: researcher, psychologist, manager, service lead, supervisor, mentor, lecturer, consultant. Moving through the corporate world into public service and beyond, has taught me something extraordinary, surprising, heartbreaking, and empowering at each stage. Every step an education in itself.

The things that I know are not from textbooks, though I have read many. I know them from the inside.

I know what it is to be a Black child raised in predominantly white areas. To face racism, xenophobia, ignorance, discrimination and prejudice (from children as well as adults). To have to work hard to hold on to the sense of a self that is ‘good’ and ‘deserving’ in a world that was telling your child and adolescent selves otherwise.

I know what it is to grow up in a family who (inevitably) struggled to always communicate effectively. And to spend one’s adulthood understanding relationship health and what good communication could be like, and could feel like, from the inside.

I know what it is to be educated, to move through higher education and employment, and to rarely see yourself reflected back. To hustle and wrestle with your identity as a Black person in white spaces and in a world that mirrors back images of your dissected (often sexualised) self, rather than the inherent value of your entirety.

I know the ways that in adolescence and early adulthood one’s self-image can become confused in a world that values a particular aesthetic. I know what it is to overcome low mood in the context of meeting obstacles and at points of transition, and to know anxiety (not as a concept, but as a felt experience) and to understand and quieten its signals.

I know what it is to find yourself in the corporate landscape feeling like a square peg in a round hole. To sit in rooms where you are the only Black person in sight, and to be regarded with a mixture of disdain, confusion, and perplexity about how you managed to get a seat at the table, as a woman and at ‘such a young age’. I know what it is to zone out on the tube on the way to and from an ill-fitting corporate role, knowing you have made a wrong turn, but not yet being sure how to pivot in another direction.

I know what it is to be chronically underestimated in a way that feels bittersweet. I know what it is to evoke shock or confusion when people read an Irish first name and a Scottish surname, perhaps hearing the voice first, and then meeting the full me - with all of my melanin - and to watch them mask surprise or an ever so subtle double take.

I know what it is to define success on other people’s terms. To do the ‘right’ thing rather than what truly works for you and your own emotional wellbeing. To follow the expected path, to live a life shaped by other people’s ideas of what it means to ‘do well’. And I know what it is to overstay in professional or personal relationships when, on some level, you can feel that they are not truly serving you. To know something is not working, and to stay anyway.

And I know the particular pressure placed on women to have it all. To tick every box, to carry everything and smile through it, to not buckle under the weight of one’s own expectations and everyone else’s simultaneously.

I know what it is to step off the treadmill. To step away from the mainstream gradually, over time. To say no, this is not working for me, to say I want something different, and to begin, slowly, to carve out a new path forward.

I know what it is to lose, let go of, and leave things behind - jobs, people, and places - and I know what it is to be left. To take a different path, carrying forward the love, memories, fondness, and the lessons learned.

I know what it is to rethink one’s role in the family of origin. To let go of a self-imposed sense of responsibility for things functioning in a certain way. To realise that we all get to choose. To embrace the lightness and enjoyment that pursuing shared interests within a new relational framework, can usher in.

I know what it is to give oneself permission to choose differently, differently than before, differently than expected. To decide that this decade, this era, can be a thrive era. A choosing era.

I know what it is for life to unfold in a hundred ways that you never expected. And to find yourself, on the other side of that unfolding, in special, loving, reciprocal, long-term relationships with people who really see and understand all the yous of you. To be surrounded by easy, hilarious, attuned, authentic company, in alignment with like-minded souls. To discover relationships with the things that give you genuine joy: for me, walking in nature, yoga, tending the garden, travel, creativity, depth conversations (and the self-discovery that comes from them), and exhaling with a smile in your own company.

There are a thousand things that I know from the inside, and, I am sure there are thousands more still to learn.

But most of all, I know what it is to experience therapy from the inside. To sit in the client’s chair. To scrutinise and explore one’s own approach to life, one’s relationships, and one’s goals. To come out the other side, forever altered.

I know that therapy works. I know that the right therapeutic relationship is paramount, above technique, above model, above everything else. I know that the ability to speak freely in a non-judgmental, caring, thoughtful, and reflective space, with a person who really sees you, can move mountains.

And I know that I am willing to bring all of that, my professional and personal experiences, alongside my in-depth psychology training, to help you find your own way forward.

I also know that things can be different from the way they may feel, for you, today.

If you are ready to commence your own therapy journey, and the idea of working with someone who ‘gets it’ appeals to you, you are welcome to be in touch.

Dr Erin Reid is a counselling psychologist offering online therapy to individuals, couples, adolescents, and families across the UK and internationally, and 'Walk and Talk' therapy in Northwest London green spaces. Visit drerinreid.com to find out more.