The Art of Therapeutic Swearing

Therapy can be ugly sometimes. It can be raw. It can be painful. It can be the best thing to happen in someone’s life, in terms of emotional relief and clarity. It can be the worst thing to happen in someone’s life, in terms of awareness of their traumas or their own behaviors impacting their happiness. A part of my job as a therapist is to be real with my clients, and sometimes that means I get to cuss like a sailor.
 
That’s right, my swear jar is overflowing, but there is a method to my madness in session.
​I swear.

Have you ever noticed when you use cuss words the most? It’s when you’re heated, filled with extreme emotions, and need to use verbal force to make your point. When we swear in-the-moment, we can feel catharsis and instant regret. Multiple feelings at the opposite ends of the spectrum: you feel like a champion, but you may also feel so low knowing your words have stung your opponent like a bee.
 
So, how can swearing be therapeutic, you ask?

I often work with clients who in some way have been told, either consciously or subconsciously, “Do not show your emotions.” This can happen in various forms during development: a parent telling their young child to go to their room if they want to “throw a fit” (i.e. express anger), being given a dirty look by a friend when you express how they hurt you, being told by a coach to “suck it up” when you are experiencing pain, etc. By the time clients reach my office, many are conditioned to ignore their emotions instead of acknowledging them and reacting in healthy ways. I have heard clients speak of their past emotional, physical, or sexual assailants with such indifference, you would think their perpetrator was just a stranger in the store. Other clients have told me forthright, “Well there’s nothing I can do about it,” as if the feelings from their traumas should be swept under a rug because they feel helpless.

I have a responsibility to my clients in these cases. A responsibility to help them understand that emotions are not the enemy; they are okay and they serve a purpose (whether it is to protect us in the future, to help us follow our instincts, to help us work through past traumas, etc.). Clients are given a safe space to air their grievances in session, no matter how ugly it may sound. No judgments are made about the tears shed or the amount of profanity that is used.

 “It sounds like you’ve been through hell Emotionally, and hell f***ing sucks. Go with that feeling."

If a client is processing a trauma with indifference, it may mean their fear of expressing emotions and the underlying causes must be addressed. Sometimes I even express intense emotion FOR my clients, giving them permission to use whatever language, tone, or volume to describe their trauma. This swearing in session may give a sense of catharsis, or emotional relief, without the negative experience of regret they may feel from losing their cool in real life.

I like to point out my clients’ ability to handle these difficult emotions in session and give them time to regroup before facing the world again. We can handle these emotions better than we think, and sometimes it takes a safe space to learn these emotion management skills. We can handle them, we can cope with them in healthy ways, we can share them, and we can grow from them.

For those of you reading this blog, I encourage you to share your feelings with someone supportive once daily. You will probably be surprised by their response—empathy, an open ear, and connection would be my guess. ​