In my work as a therapist, when I think of safety, I notice how quickly the word starts to shift.
What feels safe for one person can feel unfamiliar, or even threatening, to another. There is so much written about trauma and safety that I find myself wanting to respond, in my own way.
The themes of safety and fear are central to my work as a trauma therapist with male survivors of sexual abuse.
As a female therapist, I’ve noticed how differently safety and fear can sometimes land in the room compared to my previous work with mostly female survivors.
The absence of safety often shows itself in subtle ways.
Looking over your shoulder before you speak
Holding your breath for an extra second
A silence masked with a smile
Leaving the party too soon
As a Gestalt therapist, my starting point is always what safety looks like for the person, or the people, I’m with. What is their starting point?
If someone is in an abusive relationship, or still living in a place where they are reminded of their trauma day in, day out, their capacity to engage with wider concerns may be limited.
Someone who has never felt safe in their family or system may also struggle to feel safe in a group or as part of a community, especially when that community is not their own.
So for all of my clients, safety is different.
For some, it is shaped through relationships.
For others, their social and cultural position may mean they have never known the feeling of safety at all.
This can be particularly present for neurodivergent people, where the effort to adapt in order to feel safe can become part of everyday life. I wrote more about this in a previous post, “When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit…”.
So how can we create safety when we are together?
What I return to is the relational nature of the work. This is something I value deeply in Gestalt therapy, where attention is placed on what is happening in the moment, between us.
That furtive look over the shoulder.
That intermittent laughter every time a certain topic comes up.
Fear is an embodied experience. Whether or not it is accessible to my clients in the moment, I often notice sensations in my own body that make me wonder what might be happening for them.
Naming this can sometimes be enough to create a small opening for something new to emerge.
One client realised that, as a man, he had not recognised feeling unsafe in his relationship because he did not feel physically threatened.
Another noticed that what he is able to experiment with safely in therapy is almost entirely absent from his life outside, so he retreats into what he later described as his ‘silo’.
I am reminded of the value of curiosity about ourselves and others, and of how, as ideal as it may be, we often aim for empathy rather than understanding, as we do not start from the same baseline.
Owning that difference, naming the power imbalance, and whatever feelings may be present for each of us, could be a place to begin.
Being aware of our privilege and staying with the discomfort it may bring.
Paying attention to our feelings without trying to explain or move away from another’s experience.
Making ourselves available for true dialogue, the kind where we are not already preparing an answer before the other has finished speaking.
This is not always straightforward, especially when our sense of safety has been shaped by conditional responses from others. I explored some of this in an earlier reflection, “I’m Right Here! But Don’t Look at Me…”.
What is experienced as safe or unsafe is also shaped by culture, context and history, something that cannot be separated from these.
Therapy gives me hope that, as therapists and as humans, we can stay with these uncomfortable feelings as they unfold, and be met differently through curiosity and dialogue.
I am left reflecting on the ever-changing nature of safety and fear, as I notice both in myself when I think about how this may land and what it might evoke in those who read it.
These feelings have come and gone at different points in the writing of this post, depending on what was coming closer to the surface and my relationship to it.
As I come to the end of this post, I am left with a sense of hope.
That the elements that make Gestalt what it is today are the very same that can help us navigate safety and fear, both within ourselves and with others.
Next time, I’ll be exploring what happens to safety in groups, and why belonging is often more complex than we imagine.
If this reflection resonated with you, you’re very welcome to share what it brought up for you, or to get in touch.
Marta Carbajo Gutiérrez is a UKCP-accredited Gestalt psychotherapist working with individuals and groups in London and online. You can find out more about her way of thinking on her substack at Kintsugi Mind.