 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to episode 113 of The Therapy Show behind closed doors with the wonderful Mr. Bob Cook and myself Jackie Jones and in this episode we're going to be talking about a really exciting topic Bob. You're looking forward to this one it's love and hate in therapy or in the therapy room. Absolutely a very common emotions in life and mirrored in the therapy room. Yeah you know like I was just going to start by saying I've got as you can all see oh can't people can't see me of course but if you're on my YouTube because I've got a blue t-shirt on very close to Manchester City Colours it's off with his football again. Now when I go and see them in the in the sort of two hours on there I can go through a whole myriad of feelings of love and hate so anyway so let's talk about it in the therapy room. My dad always used to say I think I mentioned this in the last podcast that my dad always used to say that there's a very fine line between love and hate and I never really understood that as a kid but once I was an adult I was kind yeah that makes sense. Yeah love and hate are very intense emotions. Absolutely and specifically in romantic relationships specifically in family relationships sibling relationships. Yeah the most important thing I can say here that they are both very intense emotions yeah and obviously they're played out in life and they're played out in the therapy room as well. When clients come to therapy they are dealing with intense emotions and often the intense emotions in this case we're talking about love and hate can get played out very much with the therapist and projected onto the therapist and actually therapists can also have tender feelings towards their clients and be exasperated with clients. So love and hate is really very common in the therapy room. Yeah. Do you experience them do you experience it that way I mean both ways in fact. Yeah I've never really thought about it but like you say I think you know having different emotions whether I'd say it's love and hate in the therapy room but definitely different feelings around affection and you know I don't know connection with the clients and then maybe feeling frustrated or like you said exasperated with another one. So yeah the and the mood can shift quite rapid I think in a therapy session as well. Absolutely and we could say there's a continuum if you want to look at that way from frustration to irritation. That's how it feels more for me that there's a continuum of negative and positive emotions let's say yeah. Yeah I'm a transaxon analyst and I mean you are so if we think of this developmentally we're thinking of the younger self or child ego state. Yeah the one person moves into their child ego state or their younger self they often getting in touch with quite primitive emotions. So for example a young child may easily say to their mother or father I hate you because you didn't bring home the ice cream I asked for I hate you because you didn't buy the present I want and then about you know I don't know not long after they've calmed down and then they say you know I really love you I mean if you go and buy me that present I asked for so they can switch very quickly between very tense primitive emotions of what I'm calling love and hate here and as we get socialized and grow up if you like go through the teenagers we'll talk about in a minute yeah romantic hate and love if you and they grow up they start to dilute those words yeah and they use then words you know like where you're talking about here frustrated or fondness or kindness you know they becomes a moderation of language however if you go beneath that for a more child-oriented state often the language of hate and love is there yeah and like you said that in the therapy room you know one of the things that I often do is look at the ego states and where they're coming from and like you say if it's strong emotion they're usually coming from a younger part yeah and you know that that love whether whichever way you're interpreting it you know it it can be around looking for recognition and validation in the therapy room from the therapist as well yeah and when they don't get it and get very disappointed yeah under the appointment can often be dislike under the dislike can be I'll use the word quite deep primitive hate yeah and hate simply means an intense emotion of disappointment irritation if you want towards the other it's it's actually you know towards the other person yeah the innate object when people use the word hate they don't say well I hate my car or you know they're talking usually about another person and certainly particularly when we're working developmentally in the transference with the younger self clients can feel intense feelings towards their therapist such as love and in the negative transference hate yeah so what do we do about that do we do we challenge it in the therapy room do we I know we explore it do we do we question it I often ask clients you know how would I know if you were feeling any emotion like how would I know if you were angry at me I've never really asked them what would I see if if you hated me or hated therapy or hated something oh right um what's the question I've got that statement but what's the question would we I don't know whether we challenge it in the thing would is it something that you would bring up in the therapy session okay let me take a statement I think love and hate is always there okay now it may be as as we're dealing with adult eager state for example the age they are in the room they may use words like invitation amazing may use words like frustration they may use older words more sophisticated words but if you're going to work developmentally with the child younger self aggressively when you're working say with the mixture of feelings let's take of love or idealization or desire of the towards the mother that they never had that can quickly turn to disappointment and under that underneath that extreme dislike or even hate because they feel so let down yeah so disappointed so hurt so the three-year-old the seven-year-old could easily go to those real intense primitive feelings of hate underneath the disappointment or love uh at the desired object they never had when you're working with the younger self aggressively then you're working with primitive feelings often yeah which are intense that that's that's the nature of them isn't it yeah so if we're working developmentally with the younger self we will be covering usually very intense emotions yeah so so the feelings of love of hate usually at the idolized or disappointed other is often very cold which in the therapy room are you saying that same to us as a therapist often because in the transference if you step into the transference you are in inverted commas taking the place of the object of yesterday okay that's that's a lot for us to carry in the therapy room it depends how you work Jackie you see if you're going to work developmentally in the regressive process towards integration and taking back the disowned fragmented parts of the self within the transference then these are the sort of primitive emotions which are going to occur is it a burden I think if you've got a contract for transferential work I see it as part of the therapeutic process which I've been trained in I don't really see it as a burden and less we're talking about really disturbed primitive objects which I then take personally rather than professionally yeah for example if hatred is directed to me within the transference my younger split-off part of the self then that's a professional process I understand it professionally you know it's not that I suddenly that somehow take that personally because I understand it's not me that they're directing that emotion out yeah yeah and I think that's different from uh you know if I wasn't the therapist in that moment working developmentally aggressively if I'm Bob Cook and from their Easter they start projecting hatred that I haven't made them a cup of tea or I haven't opened the door for them or something like that that's a different absolutely different process and I'd be taken back unexpectedly because I'm not in the transferential therapeutic contract that we wait for okay so when I work aggressively I don't take that burden of responsibility you're talking about because I've got a contract where I'm working specifically different way now if we are then move away from the regression and the developmental process I'm talking about and we're working adult to adult say in the therapeutic room and then there's a sudden outburst then that's a different story for me I see differently okay see I was thinking more about when when I looked at the topic of this I was thinking more about you know playing out the the script patterns in the therapy room and things and being kind of I don't I don't know manipulative with emotions in the therapy room now this is very important do you mean okay do you mean the psychoanalytical word of manipulation because if you do that is manipulation unconsciously yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah by the clients to manipulate the therapist to confirm their life script yeah and that's very common projections yeah so if you think about it all right think about in terms of neglect let's pick something neglect yeah the client that's been very neglected they're full unwanted they feel as if they don't have purpose in life they feel worthless they feel lack of self-esteem they wonder what's wrong with them because their mother and father or whoever neglected them and therefore as they continue in life they decide there's something wrong with me and also you know the world's against them etc etc so they then look for relationships where they can play that process out confirm their identity sense of predictability and they project on to their new romantic relationships that you're always going to neglect me yeah or they're unworthy of love or they're unlovable or something along those lines yeah yeah by definition they will attempt to manipulate the therapist to confirm what they think about self-life and other people yeah now the service job is unless they want to move in the transference and go developmentally the therapist job is to stay outside the transference be aware of the manipulation and help the client understand what is past and what is present yeah absolutely that's what I was thinking about and you know yeah look it's unconscious or whatever but looking you know whether they're being criticised or rejected or you know whatever it is in the therapy session and being kind of super sensitive to anything that comes up for them like that and then you know they either feel loved or hated in that session and that can dictate well Jackie you know you know Jackie you know you don't love me anymore and I know you don't love me anymore because you didn't make me a cup of tea you made Jackie you made John a cup of tea you didn't ask me if I wanted a cup of tea and I don't love you anymore I think you actually hate me I think you hate me so I'm going to leave therapy now goodbye yeah absolutely well you've not asked me about my weeks being or whatever yeah that's the rage of the five-year-old not the 39 year-old yeah how you respond is crucial absolutely crucial so how would you respond I'll tell you how I would respond I'll tell you how I would respond respond to the person I understand you feel that way and I'd like you just to come back into the room or can or let's talk about this in a dialogue and I want to help you understand the difference between perhaps what was missing yesterday and your intensity of feelings on me today is probably how I might respond yeah I think I'd ask you know for them to maybe identify or look at the feeling and see when you know they've felt that feeling before when they felt that way before and what was going on for them then or or something along those lines so you're doing the same thing yeah yeah exactly the same thing is helping them understand where their feelings have come from which are so intense in the moment yeah so you're helping them distinguish between past and present and the next step is is this familiar for you in your relationships today when you feel so discounted or hurt yeah I have had clients were and it's it's hard as I'm saying it now I'm thinking was it me or was it them I don't know but were I've kind of felt like they've tried to get me on the back foot in the therapy session like they came with a mission to direct me down a certain route and if I'm not prepared to go there then they don't like it if that makes sense yeah what they do is the up the stakes yeah and I physically felt that in the session yeah yeah your job as a therapist is to help them understand whether this what is happening between the two of you us now in the room yeah is it familiar yeah so anything in your past and help them put the two together yeah because then can they move forward absolutely absolutely and when I'm talking with clients about you know a game playing and things like that I think they think it's a conscious thing that they're doing and it's like no this is not this is not a conscious thing this is you know an unconscious replaying of something that we all do yeah so you've got many ways to do this you can invite them back into adults to have an almost adult to adult discussion with the focus being educative therapy yeah those two together yeah or if you are a therapist that has the contract to work developmentally and aggressively you might step into the transference and say you know when you talk to me like this who are you actually seeing and relating to is it me or is it somebody in your past which has treated you in such a familiar neglectful discounting way yeah so you lower your voice because you're going towards the child eager state your language becomes more intense and slowed down and you aim it developmentally at the child eager state the younger self where your client has moved to because that is where the healing is in my opinion yeah like many different ways but one thing I do know is the primitive emotions of love and hate will so easily be projected onto the therapist if the client moves into the younger self to replay the script which may be so destructive to them in the here and now and it's the job of the therapist to help the client heal from that fragmented process and I think needs to go back to where first started yeah yeah and it's individual for each client as well this is I find this bit interesting that how how they need love showing to them is different for everybody you know whether it's doing something for them or the words that you use or being empathic or caring how they receive that is different for each client does that make sense yes and no okay because I know for me I feel start with tell me along the way give me some examples for me I know I feel loved when I feel like I've been seen and heard and how and what needs to happen so give me an example of that when you say see when you've been seen and heard what do you mean it's very difficult to pinpoint it but over the course of a relationship it's when people remember certain things like I've I've impacted on them in some way they know my likes and dislikes and things like that if that makes sense mostly why I said yes and no it's mostly this goes back to the misattunement of the significant caretakers with the infant yeah that's why I said yes because its similarity is the the actual misattunement in their earlier years and then when I said you see that's what I think this is about now at the same time in a different polarity everybody has their own unique history yeah the relationship with their significant others which will be different from other people and at the same time we all have similar themes discounted neglected yeah yeah that's why I said yes and no yeah yeah so for me I'm really conscious and put an awful lot of effort with my clients that they do feel you know seen and heard and like I've listened to them and I've taken things on but you know remembering significant dates for them and things like that it's quite important for me that they feel hinted for in the therapy room yeah one level great Jackie fabulous by the way because I think that shows a great sense of thinking about them a great sense of your class being important to you I like all those things and you can never get it right for your clients because not the original caretaker yeah yeah yeah and I'm not perfect so I'm not going to get it right and I will miss things absolutely yeah and when you and the cure is that when you miss them you say I hear that I didn't pass the handkerchief to you when you were so hurting is this similar in any way to the herd from yesterday yeah so it's interesting and as you're saying that it kind of reconfirms that every opportunity in the therapy room is an opportunity for therapy if that makes sense whether we get it right whether we get it wrong whatever it's always an opportunity always I was known as a therapist and I still have as someone who works developmentally going to the child ego state at every opportunity yeah yeah and so the work I do is a lot in the child ego state and you are completely right everything that happens in the therapy room is grist to the mill yeah get back to the herds of yesterday which get played out in different ways less dramatic usually in the here and now the therapist yeah and I've been witness to that Bob in in the training that we did with you I've done one of your three-day therapy marathons and I've not only been part of it myself but I've witnessed it with other people that the the magic that occurs when you do that I can remember once and I'm sure I've mentioned this in a podcast 12 months ago or whatever literally sitting on the couch with you and all you did was move the box of tissues closer to me and the effect that that had on me was unbelievable and I still to this day have no idea why because it's an invitation to your childhood it's an invitation to the younger part who were who was so missed yeah and it hits it hits literally but something what you know when I'm in my adult something that's so simple as moving at a tissue box a little bit closer had such an impact on me in that moment yeah so when we get on to the podcast title which I've given you uh I don't know nor get on to it which is called tissues and tea in the psychotherapy room love it about this I've sent you the title I think I don't know nor get down to tissues and tea in the psychotherapy room and this is what I'm talking about now you're a master at that bog different therapies work different ways I was always trained to work this way and I've developed my own stuff and I still do these psychotherapy intensives by the way I've got one coming up in you know long I do three a year and of course I'm mainly a supervisor now I miss those therapy intensives when you know I'm talking about them in the podcast which we're doing now but that's how I see love and hate they're very primitive emotions with intense feelings which are usually really war in our younger selves get played out in different ways in the present teenagers teenagers that first romantic love that real intense emotion I'm not talking about the romantic love I'm sorry the mother three-year-old relationship I'm talking about the romantic girlfriend boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend girlfriend what those adolescent first loves they are such strong intense relationships aren't they yeah absolutely which can switch so quickly yeah when they get so disappointed I hate you you didn't phone me at 10 o'clock last night and I stayed up till 10 15 10 20 and you still don't phone me and whatever you do I'm never going to speak to you again yeah it's very black and white that's it is total I'm never ever ever going to speak to you again oh I'm so sorry I was just I was just talking to a friend of mine I'm so sorry I will never do it again well you're never better again but you know I love you after all don't you yeah there's the intense there's a switch of the intense of primitive emotions between love and hate which are often played out in the therapy room especially with therapists who work developmentally with the younger parts of the self in the service of healing yeah and helping the client understand the difference between or similarities between past and present it's a really good topic yeah it's one that I don't really think about that much but it's it's definitely in the therapy room a lot yeah because what you said early on this podcast and I saw complimented on me you said you were a therapist that thinks about your clients that thinks about validation thinks about chewing and thinks about not repeating history and actually not only will you repeat history because they have to have you repeating history to actually get some healing and you cannot get it right and in fact in many ways the opportunity comes when you don't get it right yeah I agree yeah no it's true and it's about using that as as an opportunity in the therapy room not necessarily getting it wrong on purpose but when you do to use that in a positive way yeah by the way you might want to get it wrong when you know the young the client who's from their younger self idolizes you because you are providing a recorrective experience for them okay you might want to get it wrong to help them get in touch with the other side of this which is the disappointment the when somebody's not perfect and somebody like all parents aren't perfect no absolutely and they're not perfect when you're not perfect and help them understand this but you'll need to go to the child first to do the healing in the process so you are right you're absolutely right the opportunity you need to look out for the opportunity to see to see when the manipulation or to see when you haven't matched up in the therapy room which inevitably will happen yeah yeah yeah that's what you need to look out for so we've ended up oh I don't if I hate you or love you jack in this moment but I'm quite happy to end the past time okay don't bob until next time when we will be looking at working with loneliness as a condition oh gosh I look forward to that I think okay don't until next time Bob bye you've been listening to the therapy show behind closed doors podcast we hope you enjoyed the show don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review we'll be back next week with another episode