The Therapeutic Power to Create
Greetings, readers!
In our final essay in this series on what we might learn from the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, we turn over the authorship of “A Rich Life” to our good friend Sara Showalter Van Tongeren. Sara is the founder of a Telehealth based mental health group practice, The Flourishing Collective. She is the co-author of the book, The Courage to Suffer, and has explored the academic foundations of her work in a peer-reviewed theory paper on the Existential Positive Psychology Model of Suffering and a chapter on a model of existential hope in The Handbook of Existential Psychology. She is currently working on an upcoming book to be published in 2026 by APA on helping therapists support their clients through religious change. Her blog at Psychology Today has over 125,000 readers.
I hope you enjoy hearing from Sara and the other voices we bring into this platform over time.
Peter, Abram, and Daryl
The Therapeutic Power to Create
Sara Showalter Van Tongeren, LCSW
Having been a psychotherapist for 15 years, I enjoy when my clients use cultural references to express their experiences. It helps me know my clients more deeply and understand how they interact with culture. Presently, Taylor Swift is the primary cultural referent in my office–both for my clients and for me.
While I began as a casual fan, it was only when I watched Miss Americana in January 2020 that I officially converted. This was the first time I heard Taylor share her own experience in words my clients have shared with me for years: the pressure to reinvent themselves, feeling trapped by others’ narratives and a capitalistic pressure to remain silent, trying to recover from sexual assault and objectification, shrinking their bodies to be perceived as beautiful. I understood for the first time that she was expressing the experiences of being a girl turned woman in this very public world. I was captivated.
Part of the work of being a psychotherapist is reflecting on how countertransference (the therapist’s own feelings, both conscious and below consciousness) shows up in the therapeutic relationship. This became exponentially more difficult during the COVID-19 lockdowns. For the first time in my career, I was going through the same experiences as my clients concurrently.
However, what became especially interesting was this shared experience combined with the shared cultural references. Taylor Swift’s twin albums, Folklore and Evermore, found me and my clients (and most of the world) at a time deep in the lockdowns that lacked creative expression, play, connection, and pleasure. These experiences overflowed into the therapy sessions: desire, longing, and fantasy. She met us when we were alone and scared in a drastically changing world.
I was one of the lucky ones who won the lottery to purchase a ticket to the Eras tour. And I do mean lucky! That night was truly utopia. I remember the early college-age women sitting next to me who offered me a friendship bracelet and complimented me on my folklore-themed outfit (thank you very much!), took my pictures, and chatted about their past Taylor Swift concerts. When they got up to use the restroom, they asked us to watch their stuff and open container drinks without any concern. This is the type of world I want to live in.
Then it was my turn to leave my seat, and turn after turn women and men and everyone were one: joined in excitement, talking about what bonded us, what our hopes were. We were together. In fact, there were so many women at the Detroit concert that they shut down most of the male restrooms, but that did not stop women from telling the men to come in and stand in line. We were in this together. I was overwhelmed with the sparkles, femme energy, and power - all of that with kindness, encouragement, connection, and belonging. This was the new world order, even if just for 3.5 hours.
A recent study on epigenetics revealed that trauma is transferred uniquely between generations, which involves passing along increased stress responses. Less discussed in my field is how love, connection, and belonging are also transferred and responded to epigenetically. Trauma is not the only thing remembered by our bodies. Connection, happiness, and belonging can also be embodied, embedded, and remembered through the activation of our limbic systems, even if we are existentially alone.
Consider the power of passing along something like this:
And I saw something they can't take away
'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned
Everything you lose is a step you take
So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it
You've got no reason to be afraid
You're on your own, kid
Yeah, you can face this
You're on your own, kid
You always have been
[You’re On Your Own, Kid by Taylor Swift, Midnights (3am Edition)]
The work of therapy is the courage to envision and then create something else, even if we have not experienced it before: in our families, our relationships, or even within ourselves. What if we gave ourselves permission to see ourselves just as we are, so we can take a step toward dismantling the definitions of fear, power, shame, dominion, and success we were handed from the generations before us? What if we handed on something else? Maybe we could disentangle what we were given from what we desire to create.
During this last visit to see my eight and three-year-old nieces, we watched the Eras tour on Disney+. The felt experience of happiness and connection overwhelmed me as we sang along to the songs, and I simultaneously realized that they will grow up in a world with Taylor’s voice in it: a voice of empowerment, connection, and artistry. A woman who is brave enough to create, even when she is constantly evaluated and criticized, a woman who will look inward and share her feelings and experiences outward - can then help them find their voice over and over again so that they can create this new world, where they then can create their own stories. Uniquely connecting them to each other. She has helped to usher in a world in which they can express the evolution of their story, and the ability to create it for what they want rather than what they have been told.
Any large-scale change usually begins with the deep, hard work of personal change of individual actors. Therapy invites and empowers you to do the good and vulnerable work of retelling your story. Creating a better world usually begins with nurturing a better you.