 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 the next episode which is a hundred and twenty. No. Yes, I know. Shock and horror. That's a lot. It is a lot. We worked hard Bob. A hundred and twenty, which is titled Conquering the Toxic Narrative within the therapy process. Another wonderful title. Yeah, quite a mouth. It is. It is. It's very simple, really, in the sense that mostly people that come to therapy, and this is a generalization I know, but I think it's backed up by clinical experience. Often a toxic narrative from their significant other, whether it be parents, foster parents, or whatever we're talking about. That toxic narrative they've taken on as if it was their own. It destroys self-esteem. It creates anxiety, often leads to depression, and they feel as if they're always tearing themselves off. They will report as people are very hard on themselves, and they haven't separated out what is their own narrative and what they've gained from their history. Yeah. I think this comes up an awful lot in therapy. Oh, that's right. Yeah. I mean, you and your practice must, you know, see this a lot, hear this a lot. Absolutely. I feel like I talk about this constantly. Oh, dear. Yeah. They'll even use the phrases that that internal dialogue uses in the therapy session. Yeah. But I think part of the process in therapy is to help the clients realize that it's not their narrative. Yeah. And they've actually taken it on. Yeah. It's an internalized narrative, but they feel and think it's their own. Yeah. Absolutely. And that empowers them then. They've got a choice then. But if they can separate out and understand that. Yeah. Yeah. Then at some point, they chose to take that on board. And if they can do that, then they can have they have a choice to not take it on board, if that makes sense. Yeah. And usually in therapy, you know, the narrative, they take on board instead of the toxic narrative, but this is a long process. It's often the therapists in the transferential process. So for example, you. Yeah. Yeah. I see that and I hear that as well, which it's I don't want to let my ego get in the way sometimes, but sometimes it does. You know, a client will sometimes say to me, you know, when that happens, I think, what would Jackie say? So it's kind of like they've got my words as well as that internal dialogue going on. Yeah. So if you think of it that way, inevitably, part of the therapy process will be competing narratives. Yeah. Yeah. Do we ever have our own? Do we do we ever replace it with our own? Do we just acknowledge the fact that we have that that doesn't belong to us? Oh, no, Jackie, I mean, yeah, people can leave therapy in what we could call transferential script. In other words, they, they leave therapy and they still do what you have just talked about, which is they have taken on your narrative, which is far more positive, usually than the toxic narrative that they've got, which has created lack of self-esteem and all the things I talked about. However, if people leave therapy with that process, they haven't completed the treatment. Yeah. It's far better, of course, your narrative, a healthy narrative, than the one they often come with. But it's still not completed the process as far as I'm concerned. It's a step on the way. So we could look at this at least in a three-stage step. You know, if somebody comes with lack of self-esteem, lack of value in themselves, lack of importance, often feeling depressed or low mood, and repeatedly say to you they're hard on themselves, often the one that wants to therapist has heard the story. It's to help the therapist separate out. Sorry, help the clients separate out where that internal dialogue has come from or that internal narrative. And to be understood and to get to a place where they can understand what narrative is their own and what narrative is toxic parent that we're talking about here. Now, in that process, once they have done that, the second part of this process is usually by definition to take on a healthy parenting process. If you want to put it that way. Do we did a video on healthy re-parenting? I don't know how long ago. But to take on your healthy, usually the therapist's narrative, which is far better than the destructive narrative of the toxic parent. The next step, which I see is the near and the end of the final treatment, is where they practice the new narrative, which is yours. So the client says, well, under stress, when I hear these internalized toxic sentence constructions or narrative, I now think, well, what would Jackie say? And what is that more positive narrative? That's a great step in therapy. As I say, the next one is to really start integrating their own positive narrative in terms of their psychological personality. Now, they can't do that, I don't think, very straightforwardly without having practice that with the healthy commissions and narrative from the therapist. Once they've started to integrated that process, then they can start really integrating their own narrative, which will be, I think, the completion of therapy once they've integrated that. Yeah. So they don't gather therapy in stage two, which is almost like a copy of Jackie. Yeah, yeah. So that negative dialogue, will that always be there though? Because I think about, you know, when we're stressed, when we're overwhelmed, when we're tired, when we're ill and all that sort of stuff, we kind of go back to our scripted stuff a lot easier than when we're in top form. Okay. So I'm 72. And I recently had taken up pilates for my physical health, but also I've just developed or it's been coming on a long time an arthritic shoulder here. Yeah. So one of the things the physio said, and the Pilates person said, is that I need to not sleep on the right hand side, where my 15 and a half stone weight is always on the arthritic shoulder. That makes sense because it creates the pain and prolongs it. Yeah. So they both said, well, try sleeping on your good shoulder, which is the left hand side. Yeah. Now, I've been sleeping on the right hand side of 72, probably for 72 years. Yeah, it's habitual. Yeah, it's hard to get that one. It's so ingrained that I have tried sleeping on the left hand side. And after about 10 minutes, I honestly go back to sleep on the right. I've got to a place now where after lots of practice, I can probably do half an hour or an hour on the left hand side. But eventually it will take a lot of practice. Yeah. I will be able to change my habit of a lifetime. Yeah. And I think it's exactly the same psychologically. Yeah. This isn't a one of, oh, you can just suddenly sleep on the left hand side. If you've always been doing something for 72 years or whatever it is. This is a whole process we're talking about. Yeah. On either physical level, but in the sense of what we're talking about on this podcast, at a psychological level. Yeah. And it's a bit like you need to keep your hands on the steering wheel sometimes. If we let go, we revert back to things. So I can imagine, I've got a vision of you falling asleep on your left hand side and then waking up on your right hand side. And at some point in the night, you've turned over and gone back again. Yeah. You're absolutely right. Now, there's good news about that. Good news in all this, even though you... Good, I like good news in a therapy session, Bob. It doesn't take 72 years to change it. Yeah. In other words, I hope to have conquered this in about three months. So I don't do what you have had, what you've just said that in the morning, I wake up on the right hand side because throughout the night, I've moved back again. Yeah. So my favourite saying of all time is going to come out here, Jackie. Love it. That is therapy is a process, never an event. Yeah. So you're absolutely correct that integration, changing psychological habits won't just happen in six sessions or 10 sessions. This won't take time. The good news, as I've said, is it won't take anywhere near as much time, I'll say, maybe 72 years. I hope to have solved it and not solved it, but integrated new ways of being in the next 12 weeks. Yeah. It takes practice. Yeah. It's productivity. It takes resilience and it takes, you know, yeah, practice really. Yeah. Because for me, I think a lot that it's about noticing and awareness is the first thing because a lot of, I know a lot of my patterns in behaviour are habitual. I don't even think about them. It's not a conscious thing. I just habitually do certain things. But when we pay more attention to it, we notice what those habits are and it becomes more of a conscious thing rather than a subconscious thing. Absolutely correct. And going to therapy is one way. The therapist will help you become more aware. Absolutely. And I also think techniques like mindfulness, yeah, techniques which are about reflecting on your internal processes will help in the areas of awareness. You're absolutely correct. Awareness is very important. That alongside motivation, the two major planks takes people to therapy. Yeah. Go on. No, I'm just saying I've been doing some work with, I run a membership based on therapeutic principles and I've been doing some work on them about our values and beliefs and whose values and beliefs they actually are because I think we do inherit an awful lot with this question. So I've been encouraging them question, you know, who are you? What are your beliefs and values? And are they actually truly yours? Absolutely. Now, I think you said on the last podcast, you've said what I'm going to say on several podcasts. So I'm going to go back to what I think you said on the last podcast again. I think what really helps that process, what you're talking about is two chair work and a role play when they actually play the significant other in their head. Yeah. They go back to their younger self and have a dialogue between the two. And that helps them really in separating out and helps awareness, you know, very much quicker. So that again, have two chair work and have a dialogue with who? With themselves and their younger self? Younger self talking to their significant other, which perhaps in this case of this podcast, has been the person who's given out the negatives and the negative narrative here. Okay. Now, in that conversation, not only does the therapist hear the conversation, but the client themselves becomes more aware because they're externally dialogue-ing. Yeah. Well, we're talking about here. Yeah. One of the really, really big losses for two chair take, you know, if you wanted to start practicing it, even if it's well playing, is the increase of awareness between the two parts of the self. I did an assessment with somebody the other day, and she was talking about the two, she was talking about anxiety, but she was also talking about the two parts of the self that were competing in this competitive narrative. Now, I passed on to a therapist, but I hope the therapist does two chair technique at the correct time in the psychotherapy sequence where, you know, she externally plays out or well plays the two parts of the self because that will increase awareness if nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely need to grow a pair and start doing some two chair work. I think once you do it, I talk a lot with clients about having a conversation or an interaction with the younger self, the them of today having a conversation with the younger self. And I suppose that is two chair work, really, isn't it? It is. And I suspect, and I don't know, I'm guessing this with you and I might be completely well, but I guess that perhaps instead of doing two chair work, you might do things like, well, go and write a letter to your younger self. Yeah. Go and write a letter back to your internal fatigue. I bet you do things like that. Absolutely. What would the you of today say to the you when you're 13 or whatever it is? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a very, it's not a big step, then, just to tell them to talk to a cushion or a chair and do some well play. Yeah. So I know this is not what we're talking, and we do need to do a full session on this, but do you literally get them to move positions when they're doing it? Absolutely. That is important. Yeah, right. Okay. Some therapists might not. I think it's important because I believe in the energetic response. In other words, I, you know, human beings are basically made up of energy. So if they move from one energy place to another, they will feel differently. Yeah. And I've done that in a therapy session when the clients felt overwhelmed or really anxious all of a sudden, I've got them to get up and move to a different position. So I've, you know, I've done that, but not the two chair work stuff. It would be a very small step for you. You'd find it, I think, very important in your practice. And then I also think you'd be surprised that you never practiced it before. Yeah. I'm definitely on the verge, Bob. Definitely on the verge of giving it a go. So in terms of this podcast anyway, I think that particular techniques helps the two things. It helps for awareness and what you are talking about, what you've just talked about. Awareness being a key to this separating out of, you know, their own narrative and the critics' narrative. And I think that's important. Yeah. Once they do that, they're onto a winner. Yeah. One of the other topics that comes up around that internal dialogue with my clients an awful lot of the time is that impasse that when our critical parent is having a go at us, we'll often go into our rebellious child and then we kind of keep the cycle going. That's something that comes up an awful lot. The realisation when a client hears that, it's like, God, yeah, that's what I do all the time, literally. They go into the compliant vulnerable self or they go into the rebellious younger self and keep the cycle going. Yeah. So the bit is how they move away to an adult position. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And again, the thing I love about transactional analysis is the diagrams that we have to represent this that kind of brings it all together. So I'm just in the moments of actioning a project, which is an educational project and I'm going to get a film and company in film me doing some educational videos. And one of them is on contracting. One of them is on methods of an integrative psychotherapy. One of them is on running a relational group therapy. And I put down one of them as a parent interview or tour or two chair work. So in other words, I intend to do five educational value videos, which have gone on a website. It'll be free and people can go and watch techniques of a psychotherapist has been around for quite a long time. Fantastic. So you'd be able to see the two chair work in accident when I've done it. But talking to the parental interject or the critic that we're talking about here, I think is a really important part here, mainly again, because the other part of the self is listening on. So if they aren't able to talk to the critic, then the therapist can talk to the critic on behalf of the therapist or younger self. Yeah. And that that's the thing I can remember this in our training and observing it and how powerful it actually was that sometimes the therapist challenged that part. And when you said then that the younger self or that other part of us is hearing the conversation and we do internalize it. So it is so powerful, Bob. That's what I meant at the beginning about how we can you know, change the narrative of the toxic parent. However, in some cases, the adapted child or the rebellious child or the younger self, whatever language you want to use, hasn't got the words or the they've been too hard to stand up for this toxic parent. That's why nothing's changed. Yeah. And I need the therapist to protect them. Yeah. Stand up for them if you like. Yeah. And just by and the client just by hearing that other awarenesses will start happening. Yeah. And somewhere mixed in around that I would imagine that it builds trust and at a deeper level between the therapist and the client as well having the client do that standing up for them or talking for them or challenging for them. It deepens that relationship as well. That's right. Oh, completely. And it will be very empowering. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the clients who report extreme low self-esteem or report extreme anxiety or report low mood or mild depression are usually the clients to also report in the same sentence that they're very hard on themselves. I know I repeated this earlier in the podcast, but I think it's worth a repeat. And therefore this is the work the therapist needs to start helping the person to develop a different level of awareness. It's not their narrative. It comes from somewhere else. And this is so important for them to realise that. And the rest will follow from that. Yeah. Yeah. I love the fact that you related it to the self-worth and self-esteem and all that sort of stuff because sometimes I could be talking about me now to refer that internal dialogue kind of keeps putting us back in a box instead of us having the ability to stand in our own, I would sort of speak, and to achieve the things that we want to achieve in life. Yeah. I think it's a fine balance. Here's some examples for you. Well-known violinists, well-known actors, I could go on the list where the parent has had this high internal critic narrative and the younger child has had to match up by being perfect or getting things right for the exacting parent. Yeah. That's why I said violinists or musicians or any of the artistic process we're talking about here, where the internal critic, the mother, the father, has been so exacting on them that they've had to please this perfect parent. And they turn into parents usually when they grow older, acting, thinking and feeling just like the parent that was to them. Yeah. There's many examples. And of course, unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at this, the parents will say, well, I'm only doing for the best intentions because we want them to be really successful. We want them to be XXX. And you've got to be perfect to really succeed this way. And we're only doing for their best interests. So that's interesting. And you usually, again, find out, if you start talking to the parental part of the client, that their own parents were like that with them. Yeah. And then they pass it down to their children. I say that sometimes. Not necessarily in a therapeutic situation, but I do say it with my kids that sometimes I open my mouth and my mum comes out. The words that my mum used to say to me, I find it hard, the rattling round in my head sometimes. Yeah. Sure. If I had my mother in the room now, who's, she's dead now and is a highly toxic person for me. But I can hear her say now, well, I only did if you're your best attentions and the best, you know, XXXX. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't have achieved what you are if it wasn't for me pushing you or whatever it is. Yeah. The problem is, of course, is that in that process, the child growing up often loses themselves and their own identity because they are programmed to be a certain way and please the parent by adopting what they want rather than what they want. Yeah. Yeah. It is something that I'm looking at with a lot of my clients and my members in the membership is, you know, for them to look, and it's surprising how many of them say, I don't actually know who I am. Yeah. Exactly who I am. And it sounds such a ridiculous comment to come out with. But, you know, I'll say, well, what brings you joy? What likes your soul? What makes you happy? And they honestly struggle to find an answer. They don't actually know. Well, if they've got an overwhelming parent taking up all the energy in the psychological space, usually not much space for the younger self to explore, to have a sense of spontaneity, to understand what they actually want. And again, it's that habitual behaviour, isn't it? We don't really slow it down enough to pay attention to it. It's just, well, we've all have always done this. But do you enjoy doing it? I've never really thought about it. Who sent you those messages in the first place? Yeah. It usually comes, as I say, if you trace this back, the messages, the patterns, may go back generations. Yeah. Yeah. A bit like a hot potato. I remember that actual phrase, yeah, it's a hot potato and it's just passed through generations. Yeah. And the clients need to stop it. Yeah. Them to enhance their own sense of who they are in the world. So self-esteem grows. Yeah. Depression ceases. Anxiety is replaced by relaxation. Yeah. Intentment. Yeah. Because when we're only trying to please ourself and not this imaginary thing in our head, life does become so much easier. You know, it's not that we get it right all the time. We're not going to get it perfect. We'll make mistakes, but there are mistakes. And that's, that's absolutely fine. As long as we're not harming anybody else. Well, let's book another dimension this podcast. Freud, who was the, let's say the godfather of psychology all these years ago, not necessarily psychotherapy, but certainly the creative psychoanalysis, came up and wrote, you know, I think it was the book hysteria a long, long time ago, 100 years ago or whatever, said that we, and he meant it metaphorically, we often marry our parents. Oh, god forbid. Yeah. Now, so when we marry our parents, do we just replace one for the other? Or do we replace one with totally the opposite of the other? Yeah. Or, you know, it's an interesting, because when you look at it that way, and for people listening, perhaps a couple of therapists, will really know what I'm talking about here. I, when you were saying that I've got an imagination, though, that there's probably 80 or 90% of the listeners going OMG. Yeah. That's, that's what I've done. Either the complete opposite or somebody very similar to them. Yeah. Yeah. The good news is that if the partner's or husband's wives or significant guys, if they love and care enough for you, they'll stay with you in this process of change. Yeah. And I often say that to buyers when we're talking about communication in couples problems or whatever it is, if they care enough about you, they'll stay with you. Through the process. Yeah. This process out. Yeah. There's an interesting one to think about, especially for couples therapists. Yeah. And to look at how the scripts may interlock between the two partners. Yeah. Absolutely. See, that would be a good podcast. How to, how to resolve interlocking scripts within the therapy process, wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, I'll tell you where you would start. First of all, you help two people become aware of that, but the healing will be many, many generations back, not in the present. No. Which is a really interesting thing. Yeah. Therapy is all about how the past affects the present. And here we're talking about how we can, you know, help the person have a more enhanced quality of life, really. How they can de-sensitise, change or resolve or quieten the internal critic and how to bring their own voice louder. Yeah. I've really enjoyed this one, Bob. That's what therapy is about, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And it's really relevant. Like I said, I don't think there's a week goes by or a day goes by where this doesn't come up at some point in the therapy room for me. Yeah. Sure. All the therapists or maybe some clients are listening will, you know, really understand what we're talking about, I hope. Yeah. Me too. So next time we'll be talking about what do you mean by relational therapy or what is relational therapy? That's a big question, especially in 19, especially in 2023. Yeah. So until next time, Bob, thank you so much. You're welcome. 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.