People come to see me and they have to pay. Because they are paying, they expect something. They would probably say that they feel bad and expect, by seeing me, especially because I charge money, that they will feel better. Hmm.
That is a framework: pain is bad; I part with something that is valuable to me (money) in order to get rid of ‘a bad’. And impact of the money kicks in fairly quickly, for some: “Well, what can you do, or say?” they say or think increasingly impatiently. ‘Impatience’ comes from the Latin which means ‘lack of suffering’. No wonder they are impatient. They do not want to suffer. Hmm.
Sometimes doing psychotherapy feels like a race against time. You are faced with the huge continent of someone’s soul, built up over thirty, forty or fifty years. You have never been there. In fifty or a hundred minutes sometimes you are expected (by some) to illuminate some part of it – the money’s worth. The best you can do is to listen, and to feed back what you have heard. They tell you the capital and you tell them back the capital.
It all feels a bit rushed, so I am tempted to use some tricks: I sometimes listen to what my stomach feels; or, I listen to my own feelings and wonder if they are the feelings of the other; I watch and take on board the bodily communications of the other – yes, body language, and how it impacts on me. Sometimes people are impressed with my tricks and feel that it is worth coming back for another session ‘to give it a go’.
Or I feel driven to link things together: “You got used to your mother doing everything for you and now you expect your wife to do everything for you.” “Oh yes,” they say, with more or less conviction. Inwardly they sigh and think that perhaps this is psychotherapy, these comments are what they are paying for; they suppose it is ‘interesting’ – which for me is a word like ‘fine’ which means the polar opposite. ‘Interesting’ means that it is crucially boring, but they suppose there is nothing better around, and wonder if it would be better to go to the chiropractor or masseur.
And, what else is around? For me, it is “Wait, hold, hold” or ‘the accumulation of evidence’. A client tells a story; it could have lots of meanings. Why do they start with this story; what are they trying to communicate? Are the actual details of the story significant or symbolic (or not)? What relationship is the client trying to set up between the two of us as they tell this story? Am I thinking that I would like some breakfast as they tell it, and if so, has that any significance? You may imagine that if you wonder that out loud, they may feel aggrieved to be paying you money to think about breakfast whilst they are telling you about their suffering. Perhaps, just perhaps, you are wondering about breakfast because they are telling you about their suffering rather than telling you their suffering.
One story could be or mean anything. Do I feel expected to stroke my beard and say knowingly “Oh yes, I see”? If I feel that I am, is that is my stuff (that is how I see psychotherapy), or their stuff, or a bit of both? When I pause to wonder about the above things, a client may laugh and say ‘I have given you a lot to think about’. Are they being protective – and if so why, how does it feel? Or contemptuous, and if so why? Whatever, is it helpful to wonder about that out loud at this stage, or is it feel better to think about it and keep it to myself? Either way, for the sake of humanity, I have to say something or respond somehow, at some point.
“Tell me more,” sounds promising. What it may mean is “I am nervous, you are nervous, I do not know you, will you allow me to hear more of the continent?” And why the article is called ‘Wait, hold, hold’ is because I often feel driven towards the cliff edge of the demand to respond. I feel useless, inadequate, a fraud if I do not come up with something. I am sure that part of this is my stuff and the response to my own present beliefs about what it is to be a psychotherapist. ‘Wait, hold, hold,’ is me pleading with myself to hold off from categorising, from knowing, from solving the riddle of a continent in a sentence. Encounter, meeting someone, a stranger, is the gold-dust and glory of life. Can I try not to ruin it by jumping in too soon?
You may imagine that something similar pertains around a client’s response “So what do I do about it?” As a therapist I may have named a feeling, labelled it or put it in a box; and they are saying “So what?” I feel so guilty – I have no techniques to make it go away; I feel totally useless (and out of that feeling I sneer, inwardly of course, at the client who is the one who doesn’t understand how the world works – feelings don’t just go away). I think my sneering shows how hard it is for me to feel useless and inadequate. Let’s not move on too fast: this is my stuff – I am a therapist and I find it hard to feel inadequate and attack the client out of that response – hmmm. Oh and don’t be fooled, the sneering may be inward, but they can hear it; they can hear my dis-connect from them.
Meeting someone is hard: to encounter them, their feelings, thoughts, their world-view.
If this prompts anything for you as you read it, please feel free to contact me on contact@anthonybedell.co.uk