Know Nothing

Reflections on Therapy and Human Experience

Know Nothing

A woman with long, wavy hair wears a sleeveless rust-colored top, sitting outdoors near a potted plant with pink flowers.

Dr. Mona Kumar

Uncertainty is a most uncomfortable feeling for both clients and therapists alike. Clients want answers, and therapists want to provide. Both in and out of therapy, human beings are meaning-making organisms. We need the world to make sense, and when it doesn’t we feel lost and confused. So compulsive is this need that we will make sense of our experience using preexisting paradigms, even if inapplicable, rather than tolerate the discomfort of not knowing. The problem, however, is that when this dynamic gets reenacted in the therapeutic setting, we fail to serve the clients who come to us for help. In fact, by giving in to the pull to resolve confusion, we risk moving our clients further into it. After all, they already have a narrative, a story around which their identity is constructed, a set of organizing principles that inform their perception of the world around them. By moving too quickly to infer, elucidate, confirm, we often reinforce the very narratives that have become limiting and no longer applicable to their lives today. As therapists, we must approach the consultation hour with curiosity and openness. As tempting as it may be to believe that we know and understand, our clients are better served when we question first. By starting from a place of knowing nothing, so to speak, we give ourselves and our clients the opportunity to learn something they were not already aware of, to expand the parameters of their mental framework, and to make space for the entirety of their beings.

a photo of a wooden door on a house made of stone with a tree with a berry-like fruit. And a cat walking on the doorstep

Recent Posts

Judge A Book By Its Cover

Judge A Book By Its Cover

Each time we meet with a client, we are given a glimpse into their internal world. Like the pages of a book, each session reveals something new, expands on material that preceded it, or give us an intimation of what's to come. Unlike a book, however, we have no idea...

The Tissue

The Tissue

Therapy is a messy business. It is the exploration of dark alleys, the turning over of stones, the grappling with uncertainty. It is the discovery of what you always knew but didn't have the words to describe. The process of therapy asks us to make contact with more...

Real Conversations

Real Conversations

When do we stop being able to have real conversations? Ironically, I would submit, just as we are learning to speak. As we become able to verbalize our thoughts and feelings, we become aware of ourselves, aware that we exist separate from the world around us. We...

Get Started Today

This is just placeholder text. Don’t be alarmed, this is just here to fill up space since your finalized copy isn’t ready yet. Once we have your content finalized, we’ll replace this placeholder text with your real content.

Accessibility Toolbar