what should a therapist wear?
(there are definitely wrong answers, but there's no right answer!)
Whenever I start to feel like a brand-new social worker, all I need to do is remind myself that when I was hired out of grad school, almost all of the denim in my closet was in the form of skinny jeans. Imposter syndrome, slightly alleviated by the slow-moving but incontrovertible shift towards wide-leg pants of the late 2010s!
During both of my grad school internships, I largely constrained myself to a palette of browns and beiges and blacks. Which is fine if you’re into that! In my case, I owned plenty of colorful clothing, but I didn’t want to call attention to myself for fear that I would just emphasize my inexperience. I wanted to be as unnoticeable as possible, while still feeling as though a quiet part of my personality was preserved somewhere in my outfit (yes, it’s just a black dress with a turtleneck, but at least the dress is suede, etc.)
When I graduated with my master’s in 2018 and got a job as a school social worker, I had disposable income for maybe the first time in my life. I was still thrifting and buying secondhand, but I pulled back from Madewell and the like and had a brief but intense dalliance with the brand Elizabeth Suzann. I still felt like I looked young and wanted to be taken more seriously, and her simple but well-crafted linen garments in neutral colors felt like a shortcut to being seen as an adult. I still think the craftsmanship of her clothing is excellent, and I admire how deeply vulnerable and transparent she has been about how she runs her business, but the constraints of that particular style of clothing felt like an incomplete representation of my full self. (The final straw may have been when I dressed as Strega Nona for Halloween, and was able to source the entire outfit from my everyday wardrobe.)
As I got older and began to feel more rooted in the school community, I became more comfortable wearing clothing that felt like the full me. It is liberating to walk the halls of a middle school and not care what anyone thinks about your appearance! I believe that in some ways, dressing as your full self creates space for students by showing that you aren’t afraid to look different or “weird”—seeing an adult you admire with that confidence goes a long way if you don’t feel like you belong. Come on, you say, joyfully wearing a jumpsuit or menswear or sneakers with a dress does not a trailblazer make! But in a way, in the right setting—maybe not until years later—it does.
Much of my work also involved talking to parents, and in those interactions, I wanted to convey respect and experience while still remaining relatable. I wanted my outfit to say that I took my job seriously, but didn’t take myself too seriously. What this ended up looking like was not a uniform exactly, but a template of sorts: the top to bottom equivalent of a mullet, if you will (business on the top: blazer and silk button down; party on the bottom: sneakers and jeans.) And it worked, when you could see my whole body.
As I was in-person the entire time I worked at this school (we were only fully WFH March-June 2020), I’ve only recently had to adjust to the workwear shift that everyone else was talking about years ago: how to dress for work when you’re only on Zoom. I want to strike a balance between acting as a blank slate for a client but also providing enough self-disclosure via my surroundings and appearance that new clients feel comfortable/feel like they have a sense of what kind of person I am.
I still find myself at a bit of a loss re: how to telegraph my full self through portrait view from the shoulders up. I tried wearing my glasses more frequently (though now that I have bangs, glasses feel trickier), I’m wearing watches and necklaces more than I have in years. Below is what I normally look like during a session (minus the phone in front of my face, lol.) You can also see the evidence of amplified accessorizing here—the necklace, the watch (PLEASE ignore the chipped nail polish YES I know I have a problem.)
I’ve turned to decorating my surroundings as another mode of expressing style and taste (something I’ve always also been interested in, but now in a more urgent and focused manner.) The walls in this room are painted one of my favorite colors—a somewhat trendy sage green, but one that I think will age well. There’s a bookshelf behind me, even if you can’t really see it, and I keep all of my favorite novels there rather than on the big shelf in the living room. (I think those novels say a lot more about me than any of the nonfiction books I own.)
There are three framed pieces of art behind me—two are paintings by my friend Kristin (more about her here!), one that was a gift, and one that I asked to purchase immediately after seeing it on her Instagram. The third is a photograph by an old family friend, Bryan Thomas, who created a beautiful series of photographs along the Florida coast in areas that have and will be irrevocably affected by climate change. This was the photograph I asked to use on the cover of my book. I hope that all of those choices are a nod to my style in a way that makes up for not being able to see my pants or my shoes!
When I’m out and about, I often think about running into clients, which has already happened, more than once, and with more than one client. There’s a fair amount of clinical literature out there about how to approach those situations both in the moment and afterward, but it feels different when it’s someone you’ve never seen in person before. There’s more of me to feel exposed (literally) when someone has never even been able to verify how tall I am, or that I’m even wearing pants! (I always am, don’t worry.)
In some ways, I think it’s the kid version of running into your teacher at the grocery store—wait, they don’t live in my classroom? (I had that same feeling of delight and panic when I passed by my own therapist on a busy street, who didn’t even see me.) So if a client encounters me for the first time IRL while I’m wearing a Taco Bell crop top—great. We’ll have something to talk about.
How does your job shape what you wear? What does your therapist wear?
<3 E
I’m a school-based speech pathologist and have worked in early intervention, preschool, and elementary schools. This is my tenth year, and I feel like initially many of my clothes were more formal than they are now. I’m guessing I thought people would take me more seriously if I had a button down from Express and pants from Banana Republic.
I try to buy clothes that are durable and stylish, but I also have moments of panic wondering if something I wear might be accidentally damaged by a student. One of my autistic kindergarten students was so excited while he was writing his multiplication tables that he kept going off the white board and wrote facts on a new cream sweater. Lesson learned.
I do home visits now in the birth - 3 program, and I avoid hoop earrings (too afraid tiny hands will tug on them and rip them out of my earlobes). I keep my vintage Gucci purse at home, because I don’t want to bring something into someone’s home that would be perceived as showy and could potentially create distance between us.
I really enjoyed the one year I worked in a middle school, in spite of the fidget spinners and smell of Axe body spray. That was seven years ago, so students dressed differently than. I’m 34 and Abercrombie was what kids coveted when I was in middle school. 12-year-old me would have been too self-conscious to wear a sweatshirt and biker shorts to school.
I’ve worked with two therapists I really liked and couldn’t tell you what they wore. I would probably say they had an Eileen Fisher goes to the art fair vibe.
i, too, had a dalliance with elizabeth suzann - it was definitely a moment! there are 2 or so pieces i've held onto that i'll never let go of, but what i've come to learn is that one designer's aesthetic will never fully encapsulate me. it can be tempting to look for that in a brand community nonetheless - i see it with tibi too!