 So, if the therapist can think about, you know, the healthy contact, what needs to happen. Think about internal contact, external contact and interruptions to contact. They've got a map, if you like, that they could use in the therapeutic process. 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 73 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones and the formidable Mr Bob Cook. That's a new word. Are you formidable? At times, I can be called that, at times. Can't we all? And in this episode, Bob, we're going to be talking about interruptions to contact and important prerequisite for therapists to understand. Yeah, it's a long title, but I think it's a really important one to look at. And what you basically look at is how clients make contacts externally. That means with the therapist and internally, that's with themselves. So if the therapist can think about this in terms of an external process and an internal process, they can start thinking about things like lack of spontaneity by the client, an inward process by the client, internalization, and many of the different defence systems that people put up to stop healthy contact internally and externally. Yeah. That's what I want to talk about. That sounds brilliant. I've had clients shut down on me, where they've definitely shut down and contacts being disengaged or severed completely. That's right. And the more you get to what the real therapeutic processes are about, then their defence systems, which is to usually move away from external or internal contact, will occur. Yeah. So like you've just said, they're closing down. So if a client closes down externally to you, that means that in terms of there's an interruption to contact in their relationship with you, then they will signify that and things like moving to things like intellectualisation, dissociation, movements away from the self and the relationship with you, moving to past timing, into humour, moving to places where there's not an authentic sense of contact with you, there might be a completely big shutdown or there can be, as I say, a move to adaptation, but you'll know just in the relationship that the authentic contact has disappeared if it was ever there. Yeah. I think that's important because knowing the person, you build up that relationship where you can tell when they've shut down, when they've disengaged, when they've switched topics, whatever it is, yeah. And this particular client I'm thinking of, that was the time where she always used to go back to a younger self and the confusion came across her face. She just looked really confused and that then shut down. Yeah, that's a good example. Of course, when clients come to see you, they may be able to make contact with you from, in TA, we're going to call it an adult legal state in the year. But as you start to work with the younger self, like you just talked about here, then healthy contact may disappear. Yeah. And I'm not sure if she was aware of it until I pointed it out that she looked confused. So therapists need always to be thinking about what is happening in the here and now externally between the two of us where a sense of spontaneity has disappeared, a sense of healthy contact perhaps has disappeared. So that's important prerequisite to start thinking about. Yeah. So another one is to think about whatever is happening at an internal level will be manifested externally. Yeah. So in other words, if there's an interruption to contact an external level, then there will be probably an interruption internally as well. So in other words, the narrative to themselves gets disconnected. Yeah. Or there's a different type of narrative taking place. So internal and external contacts tend to go together. So when you say an internal one, could an example of that be like a parental interject or they've gone into that negative self-taught type of thing? Yeah. They've moved away from, say, healthy dialogue to negative dialogue and like you've just said, an internal sort of parental interject, if you like, or they've just disconnected and they don't feel anything. They go, well, they might report things like I just feel numb or I don't feel I'm really here or they won't say anything can appear to the blank and in those situations you often need to ask what's happening internally to be able to find out what's been happening basically. Yeah. If you wait forever for them to tell you, you will be waiting forever. Yeah. Yeah. Because often they won't know the process. They're not aware that that's what they've done during your conversation. So when you maybe point it out like I did with this client, where have you gone? Where are you now? That was, I think, when the confusion came because she hadn't realised that she had gone somewhere. That's right. And full contact in a healthy way with the therapist often leads to more awarenesses for the client and the chances of oh-ha moments where there's full realisation is the contact between the client and the therapist is, you know, a healthy one instead of a dysfunctional one where the person's closed down in some ways. Yeah. And it can be really helpful. Which then becoming aware of the internal process, not just the external one, that that's what they're doing, it's, you know, that in itself is awareness and it's really helpful. Yes, you can point it out to the client, you know, in an interesting way, I think it's important to say, you know, I'm aware that perhaps you've gone somewhere else because I don't feel in contact with you say, is that the case? Yeah. Because again, we need to be mindful of shaming the clients that there's, you know, they're not present in that moment or whatever. Yeah. So, therapy is about promoting healthy contact. Yeah. And people do connect and make contact in different ways, which can also be an issue. Do you want to say a bit more about that, Jackie, because it's interesting? Some people do connect intellectually. Oh, I see. Some people connect emotionally on things. So it's about knowing the client well enough to know whether there's been a shift and they've gone from emotional connection to intellectual connection and vice versa. Yeah. And one can be a discount of the other. Yeah. So you might be able to connect at an intellectual level, but you're disconnected from your feelings. Yeah. And I think that's a good point because the therapist needs to make some sort of analysis about which part of the South they might attempt to connect with. Yeah. Not. Yeah, because it's a nice follow on from the previous podcast that we did about, you know, different personalities and things. Depending on what situation we're in, different parts of ourselves might come up, you know, the disconnect protection mechanism or you're getting too close to something that I feel uncomfortable about and things like that. You know, so it can be in their awareness. They know externally they are disconnecting because you're going too close to something maybe. It's usually when they feel vulnerable. Yeah. That they will move to a defence process, whether it's denial, disassociation, whatever it is. Yeah. In that process they'll disconnect usually from the therapist. Yeah. Now, if the therapist can point that out in a way which is not shaming and not critically, then it's often useful. Yeah. I think it's very useful. Oh. Gosh. Yeah, and often people come to therapy because, say, their communication is broken down in relationships and often they realise they're attempting to connect with their partner on the wrong level. Yes, yeah. So they may be trying to connect on an intellectual level and the feedback they get from their partner is, you don't understand me. Or, you know, you have no sense of trying to understand me in an empathic way. Yeah. So the communication blocker is happening because the level of connections are broken. Yeah. For whatever reason. Yeah, because I know you touched on past timing. They might move to past timing. Yeah, yeah. But past timing can be a subject that a lot of people struggle with. Yeah, because they might want the relationship to be more intimate. Yeah, yeah. And people with social anxiety find it really difficult to just pass the time in conversation. Yeah. So it's very important that the therapist thinks about this internal, external connection process we're talking about. And also remember what's happening at an internal level, you know, is manifested at an external level. Yeah. So whatever's happening internally will often get projected externally. Yeah. So if they've closed down internally, then they'll close down externally. You can't have one without the other. No. So what do we do? Do we just? Well, it's an interest first step, like I said, the title of this podcast is for the therapist to, I think, start thinking about, you know, just even only even if it's a simple thought process about what's happening externally will often be happening internally and vice versa. So if they've closed down externally, they probably closed down internally. So I think one of the best ways often for the therapist is just check out if they feel there's a lack of, you know, external contact, just to check out. Well, you know, I feel you've gone away somewhere. Is that true? And the person will then usually answer. Yeah. Or they may not even be aware they're doing the first place. And then you can say, so if they say, well, I wasn't aware. I've moved anywhere or anything stiffens happening. And then the therapist can explore that. Yeah. Is there a possibility that the therapist's assumptions or presumptions of how contact is made comes into play? So can you say a little bit more? It's interesting that. Well, for me, you know, one of the forms of contact is eye contact looking at the person. But I've had clients in the past that eye contact is is quite difficult for them. So it's difficult sometimes to make contact, external contact with a client that isn't looking at me. Oh, OK. That makes sense. It makes sense. I'm thinking of a client. This is common, what I'm going to say now, though I'm particularly thinking of a particular client. And when she came in the room for the first session, I don't think she ever looked at me. Yeah. The room has some windows looking out onto the road. And she spent most of the time looking out on the road or looking through the other window at the tree. Yeah. I don't think she really looked at me at all. I can't remember. And then the therapist has choices to make. Now, if it's in the first session, do you just, you know, think about that in your head and think, well, I haven't got a particularly strong relationship with the client at all. And there's obviously good reasons why she's not. Yeah, why she's breaking contact with me and think about that in your head and. And come back to it later. Yeah. Or do you say, well, you know, it's interesting what you're talking about. And I realize that you're looking out the window is a reason for that. There's something going on. So I think you have choices about when you ask these queries. Yeah. I think this person, I did write at the beginning after about three course of an hour, probably not even that long, say, oh, well, we haven't really. I've already been looking out window most of the session. Is there is something happening for you? And then she said, oh, have I? And then she looked at me. Yeah, I said, oh, what's it like to look at me for that? This is the first session. And she said, well, I do that with everybody. Because I don't actually trust anyone. So it led us into some interesting information at what I would call a script level. And it actually helped our relationship, but, you know, it accelerated the. Yeah, the closeness, if you like, even though it was the first session. Because it's really interesting saying that because. There's there's a very fine line in. Shaming somebody, but allowing them to be seen and heard. To me, the fact that you notice that and pointed it out might never have been done with her. You know, particularly because, well, this person said, I do that all the time. So the fact that you took the time to discuss it with them can make the client start to trust and feel like they've been seen and heard in that hour, which can be quite powerful. It was very powerful in the second session when she came in. And she sat down and she looked at me and she said, what did she say? So like, I'm going to tend to try and look at you as much as I can. Yeah. So we went back to that first session. I said, well, yeah, I'm not saying you have to look at me all the time, but I'm just interested in what's going on. Yeah. And we started to talk a little bit about her lack of trust. And also, I think by the third session, we went to lack of intimacy. Yeah, all from that beginning. Yeah. So contact, however it comes across is, you know, can be quite useful and insightful in the therapy. Whether they have it and then it goes or whether from session one, the contact isn't. I don't want to say normal, but if there's a disruption in it, you know, from the get go. Absolutely. And you know, Jackie, what do you think is happening when somebody feels inadvertently shamed or not? What do you think then the natural defence system of the client would be? To disconnect, to shut down. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the therapist, if they are aware of thinking about internal external contact and thinking about healthy contact versus defences, for example, then they've got some important clues, haven't they, to what's going on? Yeah, yeah. They might not be aware in the first place what's happening for the client internally. If they're thinking about external internal contact and what's going on generally in that dynamic, they've got, I think, a lot of clues to follow. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's building up that relationship, you know, long term so that it can be spoken about freely without, you know, fear of judgement or anything like that. The more... Did you ever lose contact with the clients rather than the other way around? I think we're always losing contact with our clients. I don't think it's a matter of do we, don't we? You know, in normal life, if you were having a discourse with anyone, how often would you look at them? So it's like, even though I'm talking about healthy contacting, you know, quite healthy relationships, is about maintaining contact. I'm not talking about staring at people for 15 minutes. No. I'm talking about feeling in contact with them and having some eye contact. So yes, you always, you'd always, if a therapy is working well, then, and the client gets to, say, feeling more vulnerable places, then they're most likely to defend because they don't want the feeling vulnerable. Yeah. So yes, I mean, I'd be surprised if I went to a therapy, well, I don't think it could happen going through therapy treatment without a person defending against their exposure to the criminal self by disconnecting. But as a therapist, do you ever disconnect? Oh, now you're talking about counter-transfers. Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about negative counter-transfers, I think in one of the podcast, not a long ago. So if your own stuff gets evoked, consciously or unconsciously, the therapist may well disconnect and start, you know, talking about, well, using intellectualisation, past timing or going to a different medium where they defend against their own vulnerable self. Yeah. That's very common. We've sat, that's interesting, you know, there's, I want to say, there's always two people in the room, but there's probably an awful lot more people in the room when we think about all the different ego states and everything else in there. Yeah, yeah. It's inevitable. Yeah, it's very inevitable. And I said, again, I think in a previous podcast, not enough is written about negative transference for the therapists as well as the client. Yeah. And, you know, you've only got to have a client in that you positively identify with in terms of their trauma or whatever they're talking about. That may evoke you to feel vulnerable. Yeah. And that might easily lead to some sort of disconnection internally as well as externally. Yeah. Because I think that's one of the things that the more I was seeing clients, the more I became aware of that whatever is going on for the client potentially is going on for me as well. You know, we're both human beings. So whatever the process is, I've got my own process as well that can play out in life and in the therapy room and generally. Yeah. In therapy, of course, that's called transference. Yeah. So if you were trained as a therapist, you would be talking about or be a lot of conversations in the training about analysing the transference, which is really analysing what you just talked about. Yeah. Where the two people's processes meet. Yeah. And after that can come a lot of good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Because it's not that we can stop it. It's that we're aware of it when it's actually going on. To me, that's the key. And the best way for that is for you to have done some of your own therapy. Yeah. Then you'll know when you're merging or not merging with the client. Yeah. As always, it's a minefield when we're in the therapy room, whether we're seeing a therapist or whether we are the therapist. You see, I see one of the jobs of a therapist is to help the client manoeuvre their way around the minefield. But to do that, we often need a common map. Yeah. But both of us are sort of in that co-created manner. Maneuving ourselves around the minefield. So we don't actually step on a mine and get triggered back to the trauma of yesterday, which in a process which isn't useful. Yeah, because I think one of the the things that's useful at the right time, as well, in the therapy room is modelling by the therapist. You know, because it is a minefield. So what do we do? You know, I was always fearful when I first started being a therapist, that they thought I had all the answers. You know, so sometimes it's OK to be vulnerable in the therapy room and model what being a human being is. I think it's more, more than all right. I think it's a vital part of the therapeutic process. Yeah. I think that it's completely, it's really important to understand that because modelling at a correct developmental level is absolutely vital. And of course, the client might never have had that in a positive way. Yeah. I mean, I was just going to give another client who talked about the traumas and abuse from the mother and talk to the client was talking about, well, you know, even though that happened in in life, I met another I think friend of the mother. So anyway, it was a different, a different positive model figure. Yeah. Yeah. So. The therapist needs to model. Difference, I think, in a positive way. Yeah. I really enjoyed that, Bob. Yeah. And the reason why. Oh, good, but just a few people. The reason why is that through the modelling, they provide the opportunity for a different type of experience than the original one that the client had. Yeah. Now, that's really, really important because that process creates transfer, the possibility for transformation which leads to therapeutic change. Yeah. Oh, I mean, in fact, I would say that's one of the most central planks in describing what therapy is about to help provide the space for a different experience in a positive way. Yeah. Than the old, destructive way. And modelling is really important in that process. It's vitally important. And we do it in so many different ways as well. Yeah. And hope we think about it there. You see, the people that come in and say, the therapist's coming to Supervision and say, oh, well, you know, sometimes I think we just had a, we have a therapeutic chat. I think they're missing from an adult place what they're actually doing. Yeah. Because if they start thinking about what they're doing from an actual clinical place, then they might see the potency of what helping to provide a different experience means in the world of transformation for the client. Yeah. And it can be done in so many ways in the therapy room as well. Say a little bit more about that. I think that's really important, if you said that. Well, you know, what do we model? And like you said, breaking down, is it just a therapeutic chatter? Are we modelling all the time? But having firm boundaries, you know, is a really good way of modelling in the therapy room, you know, showing vulnerabilities making mistakes and being OK with it. There's 101 different ways that we can model things. You picked on three vital ones there, though, showing that you're human in the therapeutic room. It's a really vital one. Making, allowing yourself to make, well, if you do make mistakes in a virtual commerce, that the world's not going to collapse. And we'll. So you've picked some really good examples there. Yeah, but like you said, you know, if if you break down everything that goes on in the therapy room, there's so much modelling that takes place. Reparenting, you know, being empathic, there's literally. That's right. And you know, Jackie, we're talking all the time. About contact. Yeah. When we're talking about these various aspects of therapy, which is so important, we're talking about how the therapist involves themselves in a contactful therapy treatment. Yeah. See, I'm not a person that believes even I'm even though I know that people get trained in many different ways. I think the therapist needs to involve themselves. In the attempt to make contact with the clients, even if they fail. Yes. Because that process will not go. And no, no, no, and mentioned by the client. Yeah. And silence is another one. So I think, you know, you know, there's a lot to be talked about. And if you're a training weekend, you talk about ages, about the use of silence and psychotherapy. But one thing I do know that if you take that to its extreme. And stay too long in that silent mode, I think it's often experienced in a negative way. Yeah. I'm sure we discussed this in a podcast quite a while ago. I really struggled with silence in the therapy. You have because I remember you saying that. Yeah. Yeah, I used to fill the space, whether I was in personal therapy or whether I was actually the therapist because, you know, again, it was something from my past, but I find silence very uncomfortable or I did. Yeah. So it's a fine line. Yeah. When you be training, helping the client have the opportunity to make realizations and awareness. And go to a place where the client feels ignored. Repeating history, discounted or all the things I can talk about. It's a fine balance, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it can be seen as a punishment, you know, just silence. Yeah. So if we take as a prerequisite, we're talking here that one of the main duties of a therapist in the therapeutic process, which will lead to transformation change is to provide a different type of experience or opportunity for a different type of experience for the client to actually experience. Yeah. And now from the negative one back there, if we see that as one of the main major prerequisites, we are in the world of contact making. Yeah. Yeah. No. And further and by definition, we are in a stop. I stopped. I watched a program the other day about a group of scientists explaining their desire again to go and to Mars. And, you know, what needs to happen when you go to Mars? And as it's an alien planet, of course, what you need to take and how environmentally hostile the planet of Mars is. Now, I'm saying this is is a bit like this in therapy. Yeah. If you are actually if one of your aims is to provide the opportunity for different experience so they get transformational change, the client may experience is a completely different alien world. Yeah. It's like Mars. Yeah. Then they'll move out of contact because they'll project and think the therapist is trying to trick them or they won't believe in the experience or we could go 100 different ways why they may disconnect. The biggest is, though, I think is this like an alien experience to them. So they almost don't know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And as you were saying that, that you just kept coming back to me, that, you know, a lot of the time, that's why, you know, therapy takes place outside of the therapy room as well. You know, looking back on a session like that, where they feel like they've visited some sort of alien planet and they don't understand the rules or what's going on. Often it kind of seeps in during the week. And it's an opening for the for the following week on what's happening. Yeah. So I'm very much think it's a prerequisite for therapists to think about involving themselves in the search for contact making. And that might mean thinking about when they enter up contact. Yeah. That's just as important in the search for transformational change. It is so interesting when you appeal back the layers and you look at all the different things that are going on. And like you said, at some point in this intimacy and making contact with another human being is, you know, one, it's one of our relational needs and, you know, two, it's what we want to do. That's right. And another big question about talking about contact making when you hit on it really is say the therapist has a vulnerability about intimacy themselves. Yeah. Right. So, you know, they may not naturally go out of their way to involve themselves in contact making. Now, they may not think that consciously or even think this through might be in a conscious process to do with their script. But I tell you what, the client will pick it up. Yeah. And they'll often then move away. Yeah. And therapy becomes much harder. Yeah. When you have two people disconnected. In fact, it's almost impossibility in the end. Yeah, because maybe this is my stuff again, because a lot of my stuff comes up while we're doing these podcasts. But, you know, if there isn't intimacy for me, there isn't trust. And when we're talking intimacy, we're not talking sexual intimacy. We're talking about the connection between two people. Yeah, of course. But for me, there's something can miss. There's no trust there if there isn't intimacy with somebody. Yeah. Right. And. We did a podcast years ago, well, it seems a long time ago now, on neurotic transference. Yeah. People are kind of afraid of the vulnerability, even if it's in the whole sexual arena. They they they move away from it, can't move away from it. And therapy becomes a different ball game. So if the therapist can think about, you know, the healthy contact, what needs to happen, think about internal contact, external contact and interruptions to contact. They've got a map, if you like, that they could use in the therapeutic process. Yeah. What a wonderful podcast, Bob. Thank you. I find it really interesting. Yeah. Thank you so much. Right. So next time, we're going to be looking at intuition and important consideration in the therapy process. Oh, God, that's fantastic. I mean, Eric Byrne wrote a book on intuition in 1957. And, you know, I always think intuition is a bit like magic. So in fact, the podcast could be used, could be titled, how to use magic in psychotherapy. Right. Until next time, Bob, don't give too much away. OK. See you on the next one. See you on the next one. Bye. 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.