Shira Fruchter helps people access their past — and use it to move forward

Shira Fruchter: a therapist who is passionate about empowering people to look inward and improve their relationships, using the language of IFS.

Always Curious

I’ve always been curious about people. Sometimes I wonder if my parents’ divorce when I was 12 caused me to be more attuned to others’ emotions — or maybe my fascination is just inborn. Either way, I always knew that I’d become a therapist. My desire to love and connect with the people around me only increased as the years passed.

As a 22-year-old newlywed and the proud possessor of a master’s degree in social work, I flew to Eretz Yisrael, anxious to live my dream. My early clients were seminary girls who generally fell into the low self-esteem/social anxiety/rebellious categories. Armed with my shiny new methodologies and trusty college textbooks, I was eager to help them. My clients seemed satisfied, but I felt uneasy. Was I helping them? Why did I feel like I wasn’t doing enough?

On Top of the Mountain

Esther* was a typical client. A rebellious, angry teen, she marched into my office bursting with rage against her roommate.

“How does that make you feel?” I asked, validating her powerful emotions. “Let’s try to discover the root of your anger. Where did you learn that this is the way to deal with tough situations?”

After digging into her past and discovering that Esther’s childhood was dominated by her explosive father, I felt stuck. The haphazard process of figuring out the ‘‘why” of a client’s behavior didn’t lead to a “this-is-what-we-should-do” epiphany. My therapy felt wishy-washy. I felt helpless. More and more, I began to feel lost.

Even more troubling, I felt that everything I’d learned in school emphasized the therapist dispensing advice from her lofty perch atop the mountain of wisdom. There was a patronizing attitude toward clients and ridiculous unspoken rules about therapist behavior.

In certain modalities of therapy, if a client asks, “How old are you?” a therapist should reply, “What does that mean to you?”

Over ten years of frustration, I slowly realized that I wanted a clear map of how to meet my clients’ goals, and to learn an approach to therapy that positioned people as the experts on healing themselves. I didn’t want to be the wise sage; I wanted to be a humble guide and facilitator on the journey of therapy.