Matt Snyder: On Becoming and Being a Therapist (Part 2)
Matt is back with us to discuss how his experiences as a therapist have shaped his relationships and how his upbringing has influenced his therapeutic approach. He also gives some closing thoughts.
“Helping people slow down and live more fulfilling lives is really special work. I get teary just thinking about it.” – Matt Snyder
We’re back today with Matt Snyder, LICSW (MA), LCSW (NC). As mentioned in Part 1 of his interview, Matt is a private practice therapist licensed in Massachusetts and North Carolina. This is Part 2 of 2 of Matt’s interview.
In today’s portion of the interview, Matt talks to us about how being a therapist has influenced his personal relationships and how his formative personal experiences have influenced his approach to therapy. He also gave us some thoughtful career advice and closing thoughts on how being a therapist has changed him as a person.
You can find Matt on Psychology Today, Alma, LinkedIn, or his website.
How being a therapist has influenced Matt’s relationships
Sean McQuillan: Welcome back, Matt.
Matt Snyder: Really excited to pick things up where we left off.
Sean: We talked offline about how you’re married. How has being a therapist changed your views on romantic relationships? (Not only your own, but also generally.)
Matt: Good question. It's hard for me to differentiate what has been influenced by my own work in therapy versus my perspective as a therapist.
To start, I identify as heterosexual and have had primarily female-identifying friends; I’d say those relationships have been most impacted (though all my relationships have to some degree). Social work as a profession is like 90% female-identifying, so I’ve learned a lot about my blind spots arising from my privilege and identities – none of which were super obvious to me before grad school.
I work with a lot of female-identifying clients in my practice and seeing the day-to-day impact of systemic gender structures (and their various intersectionalities) has made me look at my blind spots even more. Just hearing stories of things that happen on dates, things that happen in relationships, the impacts of toxic forms of masculinity – these all leave big impressions on me and make me reflect a lot on my own relationships, both past and present.
I think hearing other people’s experiences has helped me better conceptualize things, which (I hope) has made me a more considerate and compassionate partner. I also tend to personalize things less frequently because I know so many other deep forces are at play.
More generally, I’d say being a therapist has just made me appreciate romantic relationships even more. All relationships are difficult and require work. So when there’s a mutual investment in them, it’s a really magical thing to see and experience.
Sean: Definitely – so it sounds like your continued learning about gender and masculinity has had a pretty big influence on how you understand romantic relationships.
Matt: Absolutely.
Sean: And back to something you mentioned earlier. I also remember when I first learned that social work was around 90% female-identifying. I don’t know why, but I was pretty surprised it was that skewed. But I now know that the gender balance across mental health professions (like counseling, social work, and clinical psychology) has significantly shifted over the past few decades.
(Stepping out of the interview for a second – It looks like men actually make up closer to 20% of the workforce in mental health professions, but to Matt’s point, many graduate schools only admit 10-15% men. As male mental health professionals exit the workforce and aren’t replaced at the same rate, the share of men overall continues to drop. The figure below is from the linked report above.)
Sean: Okay, back to relationships. How do you think being a therapist has influenced your friendships?
Matt: Pretty similarly to how it’s influenced my views on romantic relationships.
Over the years, my friends and colleagues have challenged me in ways that have allowed me to change my perspective on things. I think my new (and evolving) understanding helps me empathize more effectively, understand what kind of space I occupy, and clarify what I’m bringing to the dynamic. Each of these has had a huge impact on my life and relationships.
I know I’ve spoken a lot about the impacts on my relationships with the women in my life, but I should also add that being a therapist has made me more authentic and vulnerable in my male friendships, as well.
Sean: Yeah, it makes sense that your growth from being challenged has rippled to all corners of your life.
Matt: It really has. I feel so appreciative of everyone I’ve encountered in my work, particularly the folks with identities different than mine.
There are a million ways that I could avoid challenging my privilege given my own identities; that would be super easy. Being in environments that constantly challenged me was uncomfortable for sure, but I also couldn't imagine sitting with clients without having been challenged in those ways. Of course, biases still seep through because we're human, but I believe being challenged has increased my capacity for empathy and just sitting with someone.
Sean: The other topic I wanted to cover was kids and parenting. Do you and your wife want kids one day?
Matt: Not planning on it at this time, but my experiences as a therapist would definitely change how I would parent.
You really get an understanding of the unintentional patterns that can make huge, long-term impacts on kids. For me, it really hits home how those things can affect people to this day. All I can do in my work is appreciate how the power of the attempt to understand can go a long way, and that is something I would absolutely take to my role as a parent.
Sean: I really like that saying – the power of the attempt to understand. Damn. Is that something you just came up with off the cuff or do you use that frequently?
Matt: (big laugh!) Nope, I’ve never used that before.
But it’s true, right? We just sometimes miss each other in relationships. It makes sense, too; we’ve got all this crazy stuff happening in our lives – how can we not miss each other sometimes?
We’re not always going to get it right, but if we can just attempt to understand, it can mean a lot (especially for kids). I mean, I think all of us can think back to times when we just felt wholeheartedly misunderstood and there wasn't even an attempt to figure out what was going on.
Influences on Matt’s approach to practicing psychotherapy
Sean: Related to this, I wanted to talk about how you were parented. Something I’ve always been fascinated by is how therapists’ previous life experiences (like family upbringing, formative experiences) have influenced their approach to therapy.
What are all the pieces of Matt that inform your approach today?
Matt: Hm, that’s a good question. Well, maybe that phrase came to me naturally because I often felt very misunderstood as a kid.
I was a very anxious child. It was the 90s, and my parents (to no fault of their own) didn’t think to send me to therapy. And back then, why would they? The educational and medical systems weren’t urging my parents to consider outside help. It just wasn’t part of the culture back then, especially in the South (where I was raised).
Those early childhood experiences are channeled into my desire to understand others. I can't fully understand you because I’m not you, but I’ll try my best.
Sean: I think it’s pretty cool how you’re aware of how your early experiences affected you while understanding that blame doesn’t need to be assigned.
Matt: Thanks – I don’t think my parents or community did anything wrong. Everyone was trying their best.
Sean: What other formative experiences do you think impact your style of therapy?
Matt: Let’s see – another one is that I grew up the son of a Baptist minister who (oddly enough) was always very pro-curiosity.
Believe it or not, I never had one lesson growing up at home that related back to the Bible. I don't know another minister's son who can say that. It was always about being a good person – only that. That has had a huge influence on me.
I’ll also note that this approach to parenting was in contrast to what I grew up around. Other parents were a lot more outwardly religious in their approach to parenting than mine were. I think this contributed to another part of me feeling very misunderstood as a child. I always felt like I was a progressive kid (politically and socially) in a very close-minded place.
Growing up, I had to learn to build bridges. I could have easily been a miserable kid and clenched my fists, despising everyone around me. But I tried to find the lanes of commonality to connect and build friendships instead.
Sean: Talk about applicable skills for today’s world.
Matt: For sure.
I'm never gonna sit down with a client and have every box checked the same. There’s always going to be some level of difference in how we view things. While finding commonalities was really hard as a kid, it has paid dividends because I know now that there’s always something we can connect on (even if we’re complete opposites).
Sean: How has your perception of your upbringing and its influence on you changed over the past 10 or 15 years?
Matt: The last 10 years are actually a good time frame.
Let's see – I got into therapy nine years ago as a client. Honestly, I was totally unaware of all of it until then. I just always view myself as “hypersensitive”; that was my label for myself. I was also a very self-critical kid.
Through my own therapy, I started to understand my personality better and see some of these traits as strengths. I still struggle with self-criticism and perfectionism, and that's why I'm so drawn to the compassion space in my career.
Social work school also played a huge part in understanding my childhood. In your first year of school, you spend a lot of time writing about your upbringing and personality development and that process made me look at things in a different light.
I don't think I've ever told my parents like, “Hey, thanks for not being bigoted like so many people around us” or “thanks for encouraging us to seek out people who were different than us.” I had never voiced that to them because it didn't compute for me until after I left home. When it finally did compute, it started my open conversation with my parents about it, which is a conversation we have pretty frequently nowadays.
Sean: That's really cool that you’re able to talk to your parents about that stuff now. It sounds like your personal therapy was the inflection point for you.
Matt: It was – and I’m really glad that I have this kind of relationship with my parents now.
Closing thoughts and career advice
Sean: Alright, we’re nearing the end. You’ve been great.
Matt: Thanks. I’m ready for what else you’ve got.
Sean: What advice would you have for people early in their careers as therapists or grad students?
Matt: Say yes to every opportunity.
Study abroad, dean's fellowships, research opportunities, guest speakers, internship opportunities, group leading, learning a new modality, attending a conference. All of it.
I also fully acknowledge there's such a thing as burnout, which I'm certainly not the best advice-giver on.
I think I got burned out because I didn’t know what direction I wanted my social work career to go in, but I also had faith that something would eventually hit me and give me direction. This “something” that hit me was saying yes to being a participating clinician on a research study. Sure, this was an extra burden on my time, but it completely changed my career and what I wanted to specialize in going forward. It came from saying yes – and not necessarily knowing what would come out of it.
There's a catch-22 in social work. It’s a very diverse degree that you can take in a lot of different directions, but that also means… you can go in any direction. (Ever heard of the paradox of choice?) Saying yes to as many things as I could helped me explore these directions and see what stuck.
Sean: That’s good advice. For social work, but also just for life in general.
Sean: What final thoughts do you have for the people reading this?
I imagine many of them are a mix of grad students, people considering entering the profession, practicing therapists, and folks generally interested in mental health.
Matt: Ah, man. I don't know if there's any more important work that I could be doing, especially in these times. I feel passionately about that.
It’s such a hard time to exist as a human. All the different forms of oppression. The grind culture in our society. Social media and comparing ourselves to each other. It’s just always go, go, go.
Helping people slow down and live more fulfilling lives is really special work. I get teary just thinking about it. It’s certainly not all fun and easy. But if you can find balance in your life, it can be very rewarding work.
Sean: I'm so happy you found this path for yourself. I’m sure you would have made a great chef if you went to culinary school, but what a beautiful thing for life to lead you to this.
(Side bar: Yes, Matt almost became a chef instead of a therapist. Highly recommend reading Part 1 of Matt’s interview about his personal story if you haven’t yet!)
Matt: Thank you – me too.
One more thing that I want to leave people with is how great it has been to find a career that I find mutually-serving. Work that you not only give to but receive from.
This is why I’ve found my way into the meditation and compassion space. As I help my patients become more compassionate to themselves and others, I also become more compassionate. When we get so into salary and benefits and all that stuff, I think we can often forget that some careers can truly be mutually-serving, and that’s my sweet spot.
Sean: That has to help with your balance and burnout, too.
Matt: Definitely – that’s been so key for me.
Sean: Well, that wraps it. Thank you so much, Matt. This was incredible. In full transparency, you were my first interview for therapisting and I don’t think I could have hoped for anyone better.
Your personal story and openness are really admirable. Even if this never got published anywhere, I feel like this conversation changed my life.
Matt: Thank you, man. It was a pleasure. It's a real honor to be able to reflect and think about some of those parts of our work that you don’t really reflect on in your day-to-day.
I really appreciate the space to reflect and pay it forward. I know you're going to be a therapist someday and I really wish I just had more information when I was starting out, which I know is your whole goal from this. There's obviously a huge amount of information that we can only learn by being thrown into the fire, but it would be nice to hear from more people at different points in their careers.
And that’s it for today! I still can’t get over how incredible my time with Matt was. What a thoughtful person. I can’t thank him enough for being our first-ever interview.
A couple of fun things before we go:
#1 — A share, comment, or like goes a long way in the World of Substack (especially for a publication as new as therapisting). Any engagement is appreciated – let’s show Matt some love for his thoughtfulness and honesty!
#2 — Is there anyone you have in mind who would find our work interesting? (like that cousin of yours who’s considering becoming a therapist, that friend who just started their own therapy, your actual therapist etc etc) We’d love for you to share our work with them!
And before we go, some great news! Matt also offered to share his experiences and thoughts on his transition to private practice and a bit more about his day-to-day life, so people curious about private practice can get a better sense of what lies ahead.
So stay tuned and Matt will show up in your inbox again someday!
– Sean
The information provided on this mental health blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. therapisting is not a healthcare provider and does not offer medical or psychological services. Use of this blog does not establish a therapist-patient relationship. For any questions and/or mental health guidance, please consult a licensed mental health professional.
Really appreciated the perspective on being changed as a parent!