What Is It Really Like Growing Up With a Therapist? A Teacher Turned Counselor’s Perspective
Episode 36: Behind the Therapy Door
This article draws on a conversation between therapists Sarah Thome and Matt Gallagher. Listen to the full episode for the stories behind the takeaways.
Your dad is a licensed therapist. He reads people for a living and spends his days helping clients through their hardest moments. So what is it actually like sitting across the dinner table from him? Maddie Gallagher knows. She is Matt Gallagher’s oldest daughter, teaches high school psychology in Wichita, and is in the second year of a counseling master’s at Wichita State University. Growing up with a therapist parent is not what most people imagine, and the path from therapist’s kid to future therapist is anything but a straight line.
Related: About Matt and Sarah.
Related: Understanding PCM® personality types.
What Happens When a Fourth-Grader Helps Dad Study for His Clinical Exam?
Maddie’s introduction to the clinical world started early and memorably. In fourth grade, she helped Matt study for his licensing exam. One term stuck: encopresis. A nine-year-old learning clinical terminology for bowel dysfunction is not a typical homework assignment, but it captures the casual intersection of family life and clinical practice that defined the Gallagher household. Clinical language was part of the furniture.
That comfort with clinical settings became an advantage Maddie did not fully appreciate until later. Plenty of her grad school classmates are so awkward in mock sessions that, to Maddie, it is clear they have never been to therapy. Some get so flustered seeing her at the WSU clinic that they will not look at her. She grew up in a counseling office, and her take is simple: you can make mistakes. It’s okay.
Related: PCM® training for therapists.
How Does the Imaginer Personality Type Show Up in a Future Counselor?
Maddie’s PCM® profile tells a nuanced story: base Imaginer, phase Persister, with Promoter sitting on her fifth floor. Her own description: “I like using all my ‘personalities’… All the floors, not dissociative but diverse.”
“We’ll say, ‘Just be our dad.'”
Maddie Gallagher, Behind the Therapy Door
The Persister shows in her opinions: she admits she gets “a little aggressive” with them and is “a little intense” in class. The Promoter shows in what Sarah Thome calls her “fun, fearless energy.” Maddie pretend-farts on her students to break tension in the classroom. She teaches PCM® alongside the Big Five personality model in her high school psychology course, giving teenagers a framework for understanding communication that most adults never encounter. Her students call her an “op” and a “rage-baiter,” which in the currency of teenage respect is the highest compliment available.
Related: Compare PCM® to other assessments.
Related: PCM® for educators.
“I would rather have somebody be a little too open than a little too guarded.”
Maddie Gallagher, Behind the Therapy Door
What Do Therapists’ Kids Really Think About Growing Up With a Therapist Parent?
From early on, Maddie and her sister Gracie called their dad out whenever he got “therapist-y”: “Just be our dad.” It worked. It changed some of his language and his questions. Matt’s side: the therapist and the dad overlap like a Venn diagram, and you cannot fully remove the therapist from the person.
Gracie’s reaction to Maddie practicing reflection of feeling on her became family legend. When Maddie mirrored her sister’s emotion back to her in classic person-centered fashion, Gracie responded with a two-word phrase that would make any clinical supervisor cringe. The response was authentic, boundary-setting, and, in its own profane way, healthy. She was not interested in being therapeutically engaged. She was interested in having a normal conversation with her sister.
Her takeaway for her grad classes: reflection of feeling does not work if it sounds forced. With teens especially, it comes across as patronizing. Her own students call her out when she overdoes it (“You’re fake. You’re like a help robot.”), so she pretend-farts on them and walks away. Real connection needs a dose of playful humor.
Related: Communication strategies for families.
What Turns a High School Teacher Into a Graduate Counseling Student?
Maddie’s pivot from teaching to counseling did not come from a dramatic moment of revelation. In her fifth year teaching at the same school, she has it down and wants “a new challenge, something new to perfect.” Her mom pushed, too: “When are you going to start your master’s? … Do you like living in poverty?” Does she feel pressured? “A little bit, but it also really fits.”
She is now completing her master’s in counseling at WSU with a play therapy certification. The flat tire she and Gracie changed using YouTube becomes a metaphor for Maddie’s entire approach: resourceful, practical, willing to figure things out in real time rather than waiting for someone to rescue her. She also already knows what many of her older classmates are still learning: when they ask, “How do I fix this client?” the answer is that it is not up to you. The job is to walk the healing path with people and give them tools, not to heal them yourself.
Related: Explore all workshops.
Related: Take a PCM® profile assessment.
Related: Contact Affinity.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is it like growing up with a therapist parent?
Children of therapists often develop comfort with emotional language and clinical settings that peers find unfamiliar. However, they also need clear boundaries between the parent role and the therapist role. The healthiest outcomes come when the therapist parent uses clinical knowledge as a foundation for empathy rather than treating family interactions as informal sessions.
What is the Imaginer personality type in PCM®?
Maddie is base Imaginer, phase Persister, with Promoter on her fifth floor, and she likes drawing on all of those floors: “not dissociative but diverse.” Her Persister shows in her strong opinions, and her Promoter in what Sarah Thome, LSCSW, calls her “fun, fearless energy.”
Can you teach PCM® to high school students?
Yes. The Process Communication Model® is accessible enough for teenagers to learn and apply immediately. High school psychology courses can pair PCM® with established models like the Big Five, giving students a practical communication framework alongside academic theory. Students respond well because PCM® explains real behavior patterns they recognize in themselves and their peers.
How do you know if counseling is the right career for you?
Signs that counseling may be a good fit include a natural curiosity about why people behave the way they do, comfort sitting with emotional intensity without trying to fix it immediately, and a desire to help others develop their own solutions rather than providing answers. Prior experience in teaching, mentoring, or caregiving often translates directly into strong counseling instincts.
What is play therapy and who is it for?
Maddie is earning a play therapy certificate as part of her counseling master’s, and her current placement is at a daycare, working with little kids wherever there is room: the floor of an office, a workroom table, the lobby.
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