What Happens When Therapists Ignore Their Own Trauma

We often think of the therapist as the calm one in the room. The grounded one. The person holding space while someone else falls apart or unravels. But what happens when the person doing the holding carries wounds of their own, tucked away out of reach? What happens when that pain goes unseen or unhealed?

A therapist is still a person. And healing work, especially in a world shaped by racism, patriarchy, and disconnection, requires a capacity that is deeply personal. When unresolved trauma isn’t acknowledged, it doesn’t stay quiet forever. It begins to show up in ways we may not expect. It can influence how therapists connect with others, how they see themselves, and how sustainable their work feels.

The Invisible Weight Therapists Carry

There’s a quiet truth in the field of healing that deserves more light. Many therapists choose this work because they’ve been through something, grief, loss, injustice, or rupture, and want to support others facing similar pain. That lived experience can be a powerful guide, but it can also become heavy if it's left unprocessed. Many holistic, trauma-informed spaces now name how racism, intergenerational trauma, and the demands of high-pressure caregiving or leadership roles add to that invisible weight, and how therapists deserve support in tending to those layers too.

When trauma sits beneath the surface, it doesn't often shout. It lingers subtly in the background, creating a pressure to “hold it together” for others without checking in with one's own needs. A therapist might begin to feel like they must keep performing care without ever being on the receiving end of it. That can give way to:

• Emotional exhaustion, even after simple sessions

• Feeling detached from the deeper reason they chose this work

• Numbness or disconnection when trying to support others’ healing

It’s not a failure of skill or compassion. It’s often a sign that space hasn’t been made for their own healing.

How Unaddressed Trauma Affects Client Work

When a therapist’s trauma goes untended, it doesn’t stay compartmentalized. It finds its way into the room. Sometimes in how they respond to their clients’ pain, other times in boundaries that get too soft or too rigid.

There’s a quiet risk of over-identifying with people’s stories, especially when they mirror the therapist’s lived experience. That might lead to offering support more from urgency than presence. Or, on the flip side, a therapist might shut down emotionally to avoid touching that stored pain inside themselves.

Either way, holding space can begin to feel like strain instead of connection. And when empathy comes from a place that's already overfull or undernourished, it begins to feel thin. This can open the door to compassion fatigue, a burnout that feels uniquely personal because it touches not just tasks but identity.

Signs It's Time to Pause and Look Inward

Sometimes the signs are loud. Other times, they whisper. The body knows before the mind decides, and the heart often aches before words show up.

If you’re unsure whether it’s time to tend to your healing, here are some signals it might be time to slow down and listen:

• Chronic overgiving, where every session feels like something is being pulled from you

• Catching waves of resentment toward the work you once felt devoted to

• Struggling to receive support or avoiding vulnerability in your personal healing

• Feeling misaligned or sensing a quiet but constant “off” in your body

These aren’t problems to be fixed. They’re invitations. They point to a need for care that’s long been deferred, often in the name of helping others.

Making Space for the Therapist’s Healing Journey

Healing doesn’t have to happen alone or in silence. In fact, it rarely does. The therapist's own healing deserves time, space, and support just like anyone else’s.

That might mean making room for supervision that supports not only clinical questions but emotional and ancestral ones too. It could look like exploring somatic work to connect body and memory. Or it might involve returning to spiritual practices, honoring lineage, or finding rituals that remember what has been forgotten. For some, this kind of care looks like holistic support that brings together trauma-informed psychotherapy with somatic practices, mindfulness, spiritual insight, and energy-based work, so mind, body, and spirit are all invited into the healing process.

Honoring our own pain isn’t weakness. It’s truthful. And it creates space for a kind of wholeness that clinical skills alone can’t build. When trauma is named and held, it stops being the hidden driver of our work and becomes a remembered part of our story.

Reclaiming the Role of Healer Through Self-Tending

Tending to our own healing doesn’t make us less effective or less devoted to others. It roots us in truth. The more we care for ourselves, the deeper our capacity to care for others with clarity and presence.

When therapists prioritize their healing, something inside begins to shift. It's no longer about sustaining a role. It's about reconnecting to purpose. We remember why we began, and we begin again from a place that’s less about performance and more about presence.

This kind of care isn’t just for us, it’s part of something larger. It supports:

• Healthier and more boundaried relationships with clients

• A steady sense of purpose that’s not tied to productivity

• A deeper ripple effect toward collective healing and community care

Settlement begins on the inside. And sometimes, it starts with a question as simple as: what do I need right now that I haven’t been allowing? Reaching out for support can be as simple as having a grounded conversation about what has been coming up in your life, work, or business, and exploring whether therapy, coaching, clinical supervision, or mentorship feels like the next right step for your nervous system and your work.

Walking Forward with Tender Truth

When a therapist keeps their trauma unspoken, it doesn't just stay inside. It seeps into the work, the relationships, the body. Ignoring it comes at a high cost, one that's paid in disconnection and depletion.

But choosing to face that pain is not selfish. It’s sacred. It’s a way of remembering what real care looks like, and who deserves it, including the one offering the care.

Winter can be a teacher in this kind of slowing down. It’s quiet, inward, opening the way for honesty to arrive. If there’s something stirring in you, let this be a season where you finally turn toward it. Not to fix, but to listen. Not alone, but in connection.

Healing begins when you create space for yourself—the same kind of space you so often hold for others. If you’ve been feeling drained, misaligned, or ready to reconnect with the deeper reason you chose this work, this is your invitation to return to your own center. Explore ways to be supported in your healing journey at Cynthia Santiago-Borbon and reconnect with the purpose that first called you here.