By Dr. Michelle Hintz, Psy.D.,
Each October, Mental Illness Awareness Week reminds us that awareness is only the first step. True healing begins in the quiet moments — in the spaces between words — where understanding is born. For those of us who work in the mental health field, listening is not a passive act. It’s a form of attunement. A therapist doesn’t just hear a client’s story; we absorb the cadence, the pauses, the tremor in the voice that signals fear, hope, or the moment truth begins to surface. We learn to listen beneath the narrative, to the energy that shapes it.
There is a kind of sacred labor that happens behind the closed doors of a therapy room — the emotional holding, the silent witnessing, the careful containment of another person’s pain. What clients rarely see is what happens afterward: the reflective note-writing, the quiet drive home, the moment when a clinician sits in stillness to process what was absorbed. At Cadenza, that holding extends beyond the session itself — into team consultations, clinical supervision, and the gentle ways we care for each other as healers. The emotional labor is real, but so is the privilege of being trusted with someone’s truth.
At the heart of this work is the belief that listening heals — not because it fixes what is broken, but because it communicates something profound: you matter. When we listen without judgment, we invite regulation. When we reflect without rescuing, we foster strength. And when we sit with someone’s story — even when it’s messy, incomplete, or contradictory — we model what it means to stay present to the full spectrum of being human. The art of listening is not just about hearing what is said; it’s about perceiving what has never been given permission to be spoken.
As both a psychologist and a music therapist, I often think of listening like music: every silence has meaning. A rest in a composition isn’t empty — it’s what gives shape to the melody. Similarly, silence in therapy can hold deep emotion — grief, realization, or the space where healing quietly begins. Therapists learn to hold that silence with reverence, not rush to fill it. In that stillness, something shifts — not just in the client, but within us as clinicians too.
This week, I want to honor the listeners — the clinicians, RBTs, therapists, and staff who show up every day not only to help others heal but to hold their own humanity in the process. It takes courage to sit in the storm with someone else and still return the next day, ready to listen again. It takes heart to witness pain and remain open. And it takes faith to believe, even when progress feels slow, that every moment of listening makes a difference.
We also honor the clients — the courageous ones — who risk being seen, who let us witness their truth, and who remind us every day why this work matters.
Awareness opens the door. Understanding keeps it open. And when we meet each other in that space — therapist and client, colleague and colleague, human and human — something extraordinary happens. Awareness turns into healing.
