 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. So welcome back to the next episode. We're up to episode 31, which is interesting. I know we're cracking through these of The Therapy Show behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones and Bob Cook. So here we go, what we're going to be talking about, because it's coming up to New Year. Hopefully we've all enjoyed the festivities. I think it's worth just mentioning, Bob, at this point, that these are pre-recorded, so we don't know what's happening in the world as we stand because of the new variant and one thing and another, what's actually going on. So I just wanted to make that note, but hopefully we've had a Christmas of some sort or another, and we're in between Christmas and New Year. We thought we'd do a little bit about maybe New Year's resolutions. Okay, so let's go ahead then. So you can start then, if you wish, and then I'll carry on. Yeah, I think it's worth mentioning for me. I don't really do New Year's resolutions. I've got this thing that if I have a New Year's resolution, I usually break it, so I tend to look more outside the box at maybe rules to live my life as opposed to New Year's resolutions, if that makes sense. Gosh, well, I'd be really interested to hear them. Well, I do it probably every New Year on my therapy stuff, so there's things around not taking on other people's problems as my own and not comparing myself to others and what's one of the other ones. There's another one that I quite like. Some people like them and some people don't, so it all depends whereabouts you're coming from. Make peace with your past so it doesn't cock up your present is one of the new ones that I had last year. So I'm not sure what your thoughts are. Do you have New Year's resolutions? Well, I look at more from a clinical base. As you do more things, Bob. Yeah, I mean, I can make resolutions, I suspect, but most of them I break or I don't really. I suppose I don't really take it that seriously, really, but with my clients I used to. It's kind of like new beginnings at this time of the year, isn't it? We kind of try to have a bit of a clear out and let go of things of the past and start a new for some reason. Yeah, so I tend to, clinically, I used to talk to people about what did they want in terms of let's put it into New Year's Resolution categories, but most important, I used to really consider, I think, on how they may stop themselves reaching that goal. Interesting. Rather than focusing on the outcome. Yeah. So I would be far more interested in how you might sabotage yourself reaching those goals. So if one of them was for, I can't remember what you said, Jackie, but let's just say one of them is to be kind to yourself, for example, then I would be concentrating on what the person is doing to stop themselves being kind on themselves. And usually, what it is, is a parent narrative they got in their head, because they don't really see as their own, but it actually comes from somewhere else. So what we tracked down is how does a person sabotage themselves? You know, so if they're hard on themselves, which really usually comes from somewhere else anyway, is what can we do so the person changes that process from being hard on themselves, so they actually hear themselves so they can be kind on themselves. And usually it's a parental process that they're getting in touch with. Yeah. Usually. Yeah. It's usually in transaction analysis terms, it's usually the dynamic between the child ego state and the parent ego state. So if we can identify that process and say put the parent on a chair or a cushion and put the younger self, which is usually what it's about with the client onto another cushion and to get them to talk to each other, we can find out what the dialogue is, which is the center of the drama of how come they aren't kind on themselves. Yeah. See, what they really need is permissions from the parent quite often, but what they've had in their history is often things like, oh, you're really stupid. You don't matter how can you be kind of all sorts of things. So the dialogue between the child and the parents is really important when we're looking at the saboteur process, which stops them being kind on themselves. If we pick that as an example. Yeah. It's funny. I've been talking quite a lot with clients, not necessarily about the parent child internal dialogue, but how the child ego state or how the child copes with certain things. You know, often I'm finding my clients being quite critical of their child as opposed to being compassionate and, you know, the adult that they are today being compassionate with the experiences of that earlier child. And rather than beating it up, kind of giving it a metaphorical hug, so to speak. Yeah. But see, I don't think it's the adult. I think when you're working as a transactional analyst, the first question you need to ask yourself is what ego state are we addressing? And I think it's the parent ego state and not the adult ego state. So what you need to do, I believe, is get hold of the original parent the toxic message. And then the child needs to, with the help of the therapist in terms of protection, take on the toxic parent to give themselves new permissions and new decisions to integrate with the adult to be different. Okay. Is that clear? Yeah, yeah, it is. I'm just wondering if what happens if the person's relationship with the actual adult wasn't the best, which a lot of that happens. But if there was some trauma that happens. I don't think it's the adult we're talking about. If we think of the adult's ego state, thinking, feeling, behaving as the age you are, and there's no contaminations from the parent or the child, then I don't think we have a problem. I think the problem comes where there's an energetic overload with the parent into the adult ego state, or the child delusions or decisions from the past actually contaminate the adult. So I think what we often need to do when we're working in these areas is to do what they call in TA decontamination. So the adult is clear to make those decisions. And usually the work needs to be with the child ego state to resolve those contaminations because it's usually a double contamination, I think, from parent to adult and child to adult. Clear those up and then make a new decision to integrate into the adult. Yeah. Because it's very rarely to do with the adult. It's very rarely to do with the adult because the adults, if you're in the adult's state, you're thinking, feeling, behaving as the age you are. So for you to be in another ego state, there must be contamination. Okay. Yeah. So it's dealing with whatever the contamination is for the adult to be clear to make that new change. Which then will lead on to not self sabotaging or what's blocking them achieving their goals as in the New Year's resolutions. But I think you need to get the child ego state first to look at what was the sabotage. And once you've worked out with the sabotages, with the help of the therapist and the protection they offer, to then take it on in dialogue with the parent, which is usually where the contamination is, and then make a new decision, which gets integrated in the adult. So in other words, the child and the adult made that new decision. Yeah. It usually ends up with the actually truthful. It usually ends up with the therapist providing new permissions for the child to actually make a new decision in the adult. But they need the permissions from the parent because their original parent usually hasn't given them any permissions at all. Yeah. So when you're talking about putting the child on the cushion and the parent on the cushion, it's their own parent ego state. It's not their actual parent that's on the cushion. It's the parent ego state. It's the parent part of themselves that's having a conversation with the younger self. Yeah. Yeah. In their head, though, it is the real parent. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's for me where some of the crossover is if they've had an abusive relationship with a parent, that can be quite difficult. Very, very difficult. Yeah. This is where the therapist comes in, in providing protections and new permissions so the child can talk to the toxic parent, otherwise they'll stay withdrawn. Yeah. So often tonight, I think, let's recap, often to make new resolutions, we need to find out what the sabotage mechanism is. Then we need to help the child resolve the sabotage process, which usually is, I think, a dynamic between the child and the parent and then integrate it in the adult ego state with the help of the therapist. Yeah. And it's that integration that is the important part. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think this will happen without the protection of the therapist or the new permissions by the therapist. Yeah. So I'm all for resolutions, but I much prefer looking at how the client is sabotaged making new resolutions in the past. I'm working with the sabotages so the new resolutions can actually happen and be maintained. Yeah. Yes. It's an interesting thought. Yeah. Because as a therapist, we're always looking for the child's, you know, the sabotage, aren't we? So whatever decisions we're talking about, we just happen to be talking about new beginnings, which is true. But unless we look at the past and the problems in the past, how can we ever get to a new beginning? Yeah. Because the past is always going to drag the person back. So the resolution is in the past so the person can have a new beginning. Otherwise, it won't work. We can't just say, right, we'll just have a new beginning without looking. It will drag them back from the past. Yeah. So the walks in the past, even though the decision is a new beginning, in my opinion. Yeah. And I suppose there's, you know, work to be done around the client's awareness, around even the decisions that they made early on. Absolutely. I think there's awareness a lot of the time. So that's for me a lot of the work I do for them to realise that the decision was made very early on. They might not even have any recollection of that being a decision made. Absolutely. And I think you said in the last podcast, I don't want to get too depressing again, but I feel like I might be doing, that if you go to the A&E on New Year's Eve or even New Year's Day, you'll find more people being over, you know, dealing with overdoses than any other time of the year. So it's a very poignant sense of time, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So to ask somebody to make new resolutions when they feel so triggered, isn't a straightforward process. You see, it is for me and you, and it is for lots of people, but when we're working clinically with clients who are particularly disturbed or based, New Year can often be a trigger. Once the New Year process becomes a trigger for the person to regress or go to a disturbed place, they'll enter a different ballgame and we have to look at the past, in my opinion, for us to go forward to a new beginning if you like. Yeah, because once we get to grips with that and we have an insight into our values and beliefs and those early decisions, that's where true change and transformation actually takes place. We can look at our environment, our behaviours and all those low level things and change might occur, but in my opinion it's going to be quite short lived. Whereas if we look at that deeper level of our values, beliefs, our upbringing and all those sorts of things and understand that we made a decision in the first place, so therefore we can make a new decision going forward. Even if those old decisions were Hobson decisions, in other words, they were Hobson's choice, it was out of surviving. 100%. Yeah, which is one of the things I always say to my clients, it's kind of like asking for life advice from a four-year-old. Yeah, and it's true. Yeah, I mean the amount of times I've done New Year therapy or whatever and the New Year process is so triggering, triggering. So you know, say I go and walk my dog around the park and I meet somebody and I say Happy New Year to them, or they'll say Happy New Year to me, that's very different from when I'm working clinically in a therapeutic group when I say Happy New Year, because that can really trigger them into a place which hasn't been happy for them. Yeah, which again, this is what piques my my curiosity with a lot of, you know, is the meaning that we all put on certain things is what's so unique to all of us. Happy New Year, walking your dog in the park is kind of perceived one way, whereas in a different situation or even the words Happy New Year, the client sees it through their reality in that moment and what's going on for them and it can completely derail them. If they've had a trauma based history, yeah, a lot of the clients I've got have had, then you know, in a therapeutic situation where we're dealing with the trauma, the Happy New Year or Happy Christmas or whichever way you want to look at this can trigger them into quite a traumatic episode. Yeah, so that, you know, re-decision work isn't just going to happen in one session around a year, that's a long process, yeah. But you may start the work, you may in fact get to a position where someone makes a new decision or a new resolution which they think they can keep, however you as a therapist know that you're going to keep revisiting that decision again. Yes, yeah. In my belief system, yeah, because to anchor a new re-decision in your adult needs a revisiting of that decision many times. Otherwise the danger is it becomes an adapted decision and if the person's making the decision from an adapted place and it won't last very well. No. It won't last very long at all. Yeah. If they're making the decision to please you, that's a great problem. Which again kind of I suppose that touches on what we've talked about in the past about the, you know, the Father Christmas Syndrome or whatever and if they're trying to say the right thing to the therapist from their adaptive child, then yeah, it's not in a line with what they truly want. Correct. Yeah. Oh, it's a bit of a mind field. It is because my top resolution would be to help people, especially clinically, perhaps to be kind to themselves. However, that whole process isn't going to happen in one therapy session. No. So, when you're talking about kindness, are you talking about self-care and prioritising yourself? And loving yourself, yes. Yeah. See, the conversations that I have sometimes, there's, you know, the sticking point or probably that internal parent is that that's selfish. Well, I'd rather have the word self-aware. Well, I say it's selfless rather than selfish. When we prioritise our self in a relationship or in life, it can be seen as quite self-indulgent. I don't know whether that's the way of thinking. Remember when I like to change the terminology, which I always do. And number two, if you get the parent on the cushion and start talking to the parent, you'll soon find out it's the parent which is selfish. Yeah. Yeah. Now, quite often you might get a parent which says, well, I want the best for my son or the best for my daughter. And then you can encourage them to give them new permissions so they can become more self-aware and perhaps take care of themselves. But you need to get hold of that parent psychologically I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. It is all very deep rooted as well because the decisions that we made, we don't even realise that there was a decision made. No, but you see, if a parent says to the child, you are stupid. You are so stupid. You are really, really, really stupid. In fact, you're the most stupid child I can ever think of. What happens eventually is the child changes the you to an I. And they then believe I am stupid. And then they grow up feeling it is them that has made the decision that they're stupid. It's not until you start tracing it back can we get to this traumatic resolution? Yeah. And it's very difficult for some people to actually understand that there was a decision to be made. I think that's why I like transactional analysis and everything going back to the very early days where it's like, I'm okay, you're okay. Do you really think that? No, I like what that, Jackie, but I just want to go back to the first point. Do you really believe that? Do you really think that? Do you think that for most people, when they start reflecting on themselves, they find it hard to believe that a decision was made? Yeah. Well, Patrick, for my sake, because I don't think that, but we may think the same thing. So I'll be interested, perhaps it's the way we're thinking about this. Can you say more about that? Because you see, I think in my when people reflect, they come to my therapy room, they come because they believe there's something usually wrong with them, or they believe they're crazy, or they believe something is up. And as they start reflecting things, it isn't long before they start realizing or even say very quickly that I made a decision. Now, I think somewhere in that they are aware they make decisions. The problem isn't, the problem for me isn't that they aren't aware of they make decisions. The problem is whose decision is it? Who makes it? I think it's often the parent that pushes that decision down like you are stupid. And then the child makes the decision, I am stupid. That becomes part of their personality. And that's where I think you're correct. They don't then think of it as a decision or choice. They think it as a template. They've always been that way. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Always been that way. And one of the first steps in psychotherapy, I believe, is that the therapist needs to help the person. And this is where I think we might be talking about the same thing. Be aware that the decisions they take about themselves aren't often or usually themselves. It's actually comes from somewhere else. And then you just separate out. Once they start doing that, they can get better. Yeah. So perhaps we're talking about the same thing. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. The conversations I have are that we're all born okay, and then life. And in order to survive, we make certain decisions. If we look at the injunctions and things like that, do you know what I mean? It's about our very survival from a very young place that I need to please others. I need to don't be a child. I need to grow up quick, all these things. But ultimately, it was a survival decision that we made. I couldn't agree more, but perhaps you could just sort of illustrate a little bit more about what you mean by okay. So when you said you believe they were all born okay, we know, for example, in the Catholic religion, and we know actually in many other religions and belief systems, they certainly don't believe that. So can you say a little bit more about what you mean by okay? The way that I look at things that were born with a clean slate, the moment we enter the world. Okay. So it's diametrically opposite. Catholicism, which doesn't believe that at all, they believe were born into original sin. Yes. That's okay, by the way. I was just trying to clarify this for the listeners. Yeah. But again, you know, it's which way, I don't know, which side of the fence you're on. We all have a birth story. Do you know what I mean? When we're born, there's kind of a story around our birth, let's say. Or is it our parent's story? Well, yes, but it's kind of projected onto us that we are giving it, which is what I mean. The actual baby is born okay until it starts to have things introduced to it or projected. Let's take away the religious part of this, because my daughter, if she was listening to this one, of course, she says Jesus came along and took us in the humanity on the shoulders, X, X, X, X. So there are many religious belief systems, let's say Catholicism, we certainly agree with that. I actually follow the same belief systems as yourself. And I know Eric Byrne did, and that's the way that I operate and believe in from a psychotherapy point of view. And unfortunately, for lots of reasons, don't believe that. Yeah. And so I come from the same place as yourself. But I always feel very sad with the amount of humanity that doesn't believe that. Yes, yeah. For lots of reasons, by the way. Religion is a big one. Yes, my sister, I'm not sure whether she listens to these podcasts and I don't think I'm breaking confidentiality or anything. But my sister went through a phase of being a born-again Christian. And it was very difficult for us as a family, because it was kind of like a bit of a cult, really. You know, there was an awful lot of fear around it. And I can remember for my dissertation on, you know, at the Manchester Institute, I looked at her and how what part religion plays in certain things about, you know, being a father figure and all those sorts of things. Oh, really interesting. I found it really interesting. Yeah. I like a lot of, you know, you know, so that's what I meant by just to say a little bit more about what you see as okay. And I've very much in the same ballpark as you. Good. So we agree on something. And I also agree with what you said about the role of the parental influence. Yes. And it starts from day one. Or even before. Quite possibly. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. A lot of the latest fetus research about the nine months in the womb and the way that the baby is talked to right before birth. Yeah. There's a lot of research on the effects of that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. For example. I don't know whether this is a bit random. And I think we're probably going off topic now. But I think I even read somewhere or heard something about survivors of the Holocaust, you know, generationally, their children, you know, had issues around food and they were related back to that. Whether that's a genetic sequencing thing that takes place. It's astounding really. Yeah. Very interesting that. So how are we getting on with our resolution? We've covered everything. So. So, yes. Do you do new year's resolutions, Bob, to finish up? Is that something that you do every year? Or do you look at how you sabotage things maybe? Yeah. I look at how I always sabotage them and how I usually sabotage them. So I might make one to be kind of myself. And I try and keep that. But there's huge narratives inside me from my own history with sabotages that. And I think through my own therapy and things over the years, I maintain that resolution longer than I used to do. Well done. Yeah. Even when you were saying that, being kind to yourself, there was something here for me, which is that parental part of me. I know that kind of just I can feel it bracing when I hear people saying things like that. And especially, I think for me personally, under stress, stressful situations, I'm more likely to go to a place or could go to a place where I'm not kind on myself particularly. What I'm happier over the years, by the way, is that I get away quicker from that place than I used to. That's what I found. It's not that I don't get triggered. It's not that I don't go there, but I don't tend to stay there very long. I notice it and then I can step out of it. Yeah. So that's pretty good resolution. So when I say card on ourselves, perhaps there needs to be some sort of loophole in that or not loophole, but I don't want to be perfect to actually people over to give people the amount of people that could give themselves a hard time for not actually meeting their resolution, the paradoxical in itself and what we're talking about. I think that's why I don't make them. It's like dry January. I don't drink. I don't like drink. You know, birthdays, celebrations, the odd one. But if I said I was going to do dry January, I know I'd want to drink. There's the rebellious kid in me that comes out. So there's a lot in making resolutions, isn't there? Psychologically. Yes. Yeah. Very interesting. So what are we going to do next time, Bob? Because we've got a great big long list and I'm quite interested in maybe covering the rise of online therapy or how to work with people who have intrusive thoughts. I think those are two really points. So which one would you like to do next? I'll go with whatever you choose. How about looking at the rise in online therapy as we go into the new year and seeing how that works? Because you're just touching on that. I know that you are seeing clients face to face. I'm still not seeing clients face to face in real life. I don't see people clinic anymore, but certainly at the Institute where there's 15 or 16 therapists, they all work face to face. But I'd love to talk about the rise of online therapy. I have a lot to say about it. Me too. Text therapy. What's that about? Don't tell me down that line, but I'm happy to talk about the year. I think that one might be a long episode when we do that one, Bob. Yeah, we could perhaps text, but I understand what you mean. Yeah. So until the next time, thank you so much and happy new year. Good. And you. See you soon. Bye bye. Bye.