My children love butterflies, so we decided to try inviting them to our garden. We went to the nursery and asked for plants that butterflies like. Contrary to what we imagined we’d get — not a lush flowering plant — we got something that looked a bit like clover called “medicinal pigweed,” low and cheap shrubs with simple leaves. But we’re believers (believers in others), so we planted and waited.

After some time, a butterfly arrived and fluttered for hours among our pigweed bushes. We thought, “Great, it’s working.” We didn’t yet know how much.

A week later, the kids called me outside, excitedly shouting — dozens of beautiful caterpillars hatched on the pigweed, green and spotted and, as is classic, hungry. A dizzying success, the kids were thrilled — “How fun it is to have creatures to care for and look after!” (So cute. We have a dog too, way before you were even part of our plans. He’s really old now, but still hears a bit, so maybe ease up on the enthusiasm for other animals — he hasn’t quite recovered from your arrival or from no longer being the only child.)

Within two days, the pigweed bushes nearly disappeared. We proudly rushed back to the nursery, bragged to the staff about our little feeding factory and the need for more food for our new little ones. We planted more bushes, and the caterpillars kept growing and devouring.

Every day we counted them and made sure they were all there, but gradually — they dwindled. We assumed some were eaten by lucky birds, some may have gone off to explore the world, but most troubling for the kids was the group that “lost direction” — the caterpillars climbing empty branches without leaves, the ones crawling onto the nearby fence or the ground.

“Mom, put them back! Where are they going?! They’ll die! There’s no food there!”

I listened, and my immediate reaction was to comply, both to please them and because I agreed that these caterpillars didn’t know what was good for them and needed guidance back to their spot. Then I remembered — these are animals. There’s an intense process here of change, growth, development, maybe more than most creatures in nature, and who am I to interfere? Maybe I don’t know what’s best for them better than they do themselves? Maybe if I move them, pick them up, touch them — I’ll seal their fate? Maybe that’s what would divert their natural life path and harm them?

So, despite my kids’ protests, I decided not to intervene and let each caterpillar go its own way.

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Here’s where this story was supposed to end and where the poetic part of the post would begin — about the connection between this experience with the potential butterflies and the world of therapy.

About all those times parents come to me with teenagers and are frustrated that their child is totally off the path they set, that the teen is being contrary, digging in their heels, cocooning in their own chrysalis, while the parents just want to see them moving, on track, active, meeting expectations, acting as parents (or the world) think they should. And how to bring them back on track together? And I think also — how can I help them see their child’s perspective, respect their right to be in the chrysalis, to move from stage to stage at their own pace, remind them that they too went through stages and didn’t always meet expectations. And for the child to bloom and transform from a little caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly — a chrysalis must come first, there’s no other way…

Nice, right? A sweet link between everyday life and important work matters. What a joy — I would have ended this post saying that indeed the butterflies hatched and we had the privilege to watch the entire beautiful process.

But the truth is — quite a few caterpillars really did “lose their way” and didn’t survive. We found some ants in the planter who seemed pretty pleased with the caterpillars lying at their feet. I have a feeling that even though ants don’t have hands or legs or normal limbs — in this case, they definitely have a hand in things (Google it, it’s not far-fetched).

At some point — only a few remained hanging on what was left of the pigweed bushes, heads down, like tiny bats or maybe like embryos preparing to go down the birth canal and begin a new phase of their lives as something completely different.

A few days ago, the ant funeral company came to collect the last chrysalis waiting for them on the planter soil. A strange kind of funeral procession for creatures who never fulfilled their potential fully.

Maybe it’s a bit silly, and honestly it bothers me more than the kids (“The butterflies hatched and flew, right Mom?” — Of course, that’s what happened) — but the thought of what would have happened if I had intervened and “put them back in place” doesn’t leave me.

The “rescuer fantasy” of therapists is a very common psychological phenomenon, where the therapist believes they alone can heal their patients, regardless of external circumstances or other people (who often appear as the root of all evil and an obstacle).

This fantasy, of saving others and showing them the way, is considered one of the main motivations for choosing helping and therapeutic professions. As long as it’s managed with humility, awareness, and discussed openly in professional supervision — it’s an essential part of therapy. After all, anyone who chooses therapy wants to believe they can lead to change and improvement in others’ lives; it’s the basic motivation to do the work.

However — when this fantasy exists in high intensity and low awareness — it can harm everyone involved, create harmful power dynamics, dependency, and control. In short — when the therapist wrongly thinks that all the responsibility, the answer, and the cure to the patient’s problems rest solely in their hands, or when the patient is too afraid to leave or end therapy because they think no one else in the world can help them — that’s a problem.

So in recent days, I’ve been caught between wanting to be that beautiful place that lets each go their own way and find it themselves, and the voice telling me (or rather scolding myself), “Hey! You were asleep at the wheel, you could have prevented this, if you had intervened, your garden would be full of butterflies.”

I think all therapists walk this line, struggling with how much and in what ways to be present, what helps and what harms, where intervention and direct desire to help might feel intrusive, and on the other hand — how too much freedom and space might feel like abandonment and neglect, insufficient close support, maybe even coldness.

What are the sensitivities of each patient on this issue? How do we find the right, helpful distance?

And who said it’s all up to me? That the biggest influence is what I decide to do and how I choose to act?

For several days, I avoided the pigweed planter area in the garden. The sight of the bare branches and the spots where, not long ago, fat and beautiful caterpillars crawled, destined to become impressive swallowtail butterflies — saddened me deeply.

But today, looking from afar, where they can’t see me, I saw new leaves starting to sprout at the branch tips. These little bushes are forgiving, they don’t remember.

Despite all that happened to them, on them, to their leaves — they renew themselves, wait for the next round, invite life, and hope this time it ends differently. That’s their natural process and what they have to offer the world.