 I mean, I know that one of the models you like when you're thinking developmentally is the one by Pam Levin and which I think is the stages of being, I can't remember the title. I just call it ages and stages, but yeah, it's from, I've got a book somewhere. Is it The Cycles of Power? That's it, The Cycles of Power and takes you through the developmental sequences that children go through and the developmental tasks they have at a psychological level and behavioural level through the different cycles of development or cycles of power as you call them. I think it's a very useful way of thinking. 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 to episode 86, Bob. We're on 86. We're rattling towards 100 of The Therapy Show behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones, and the ever-present Mr. Bob Cook. Hello. Hello. You're always in the moment, you're ever-present. Ever-present. So the title is How to Work with Our Younger Self, is it? It is, How to Work with Our Younger Self in the Therapy Room. Yeah. Well, you know, what we're talking about is how to work developmentally. Yeah. So it means that therapists who think this way need to have a developmental model, or at least to have an understanding of developmental theory. And what would be really good as well is if they had an understanding of child theory or therapy, you know, like a child therapy model, if you like. Yeah. When we're working developmentally, one of the sort of cornerstones really is that events, traumas, current day processes, stress, depression, anxiety in the present may well trigger off what actually occurred many, many, many years ago. Yeah. And that's really important that we know that. So when you say developmentally, what are you talking about? Are you talking about the ages and stages type thing? Yes. Yeah. So for example, if you were going to do, see a CBT Themepist, for example, that's the favourite model in NHS, I think largely because of economic reasons, though, it's often claimed CBT has a lot of research behind it, which is true. But many of the other models now catching up with the research transaction analysis, for example, has a lot of research behind it now. Yeah. If you went to see CBT Themepist, if you could actually get into C1 with a huge waiting list on the NHS, they would not be thinking developmentally at all. They would be doing therapy in the here and now and helping people change their thinking patterns and their behavioural processes from the change in the thinking patterns. They wouldn't be interested or they wouldn't go back at all to a person's history and they wouldn't be thinking developmentally. Yeah. They wouldn't be concerned at all in the younger self. Which is a shame because, yeah, totally because I think, you know, if we're, you know, being trained in transactional analysis and looking at the script stuff and everything, there are kind of benchmarks along the way while we're growing up. And that's really true. So in psychodynamic theory or cognitive analytical theory or any of the developmental models in a way, they always, they do take that few you've just said about the benchmarks and the developmental periods. Yeah. The sequences, if you like, of a child developing through teenage years, etc., etc. I mean, I know that one of the models you like when we're thinking developmentally is the one by Pam Levin, which I think is the stages of being, is it? I can't remember the title. I just call it ages and stages, but yeah, it's from, I've got a book somewhere. Is it The Cycles of Power? That's it, The Cycles of Power. Yeah. And takes you through the developmental sequences that children go through and the developmental tasks they have at a psychological level and behavioral level through the different, you know, cycles of development or cycles of power, as she calls them. Yeah. I think it's a very useful way of thinking. I like it because it's got structure and you know me structure, Bob, I like a structure. But I first found this, I think, when I was doing my fostering and it gave me hope because, you know, it kind of goes from the moment we're born to 18, but then we recycle it all through our life. And that kind of made me think, well, if there are ruches or breakdowns in the relationship, then we have the possibility to rebuild them and, you know, reprocess it further down the line, which I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And when I say developmentally, I mean, going back to these developmental stages that a child will go through, and also going back developmentally often to the stage where the real traumas happened. Yeah. Yeah. And the other way that I look at it as well is, you know, if we start a new job, we go back to the very beginning of the kind of the being stage because we don't know anything and it's all new and we're out with our debt. So we look to others, you know, to provide us certain things. So we're constantly recycling these stages throughout our life, depending on what we're doing at the time. Absolutely correct. That's the way I think of it as well. Yeah. I mean, particularly use that model so much, but it's a model of child development I like, and especially one which is used in, you know, TA theory. I mean, there's many from Eric Erickson's ideas of the seven stages of man. And many of Winnicott's ideas of child development, we could look at foie's ideas of development. We could, we could look at many developmental models. Would you say Maslow's hierarchy of need fits into this as well? Yeah. Yeah. Very much so, in terms of developmental tasks. Yeah. That person will go through their lives. And it's very, very useful because what we find time and time again is then when someone comes into your treatment room and deals with, say, anxiety. Say they're overwhelmed with anxiety in a classroom or something as a teacher or socially anxiety or whatever it is. It's usually a trigger back to a different developmental age. When they started to have these anxious processes or these depression processes or whatever it is. Yeah. And it's really important to think about what age a person will go to or get triggered back to when you're working with them. So for example, somebody who's triggered back to say a trauma or a relational need that wasn't met or a deficit in their childhood. Then you need to know how to work with them at that age they've actually gone back to and the term I'm going to use is regressed to. Yeah. Because you'll be dealing with the 12 year old or the 14 year old psychologically. And even of course they might be 30 or 40 year old physically in front of you. Yeah. Absolutely. And you can see that regression sometimes just by the body language and the way that they sit or move or the voice everything. Yeah. So the younger self is very evident. Yeah. But the really important question is what age is this younger self? Yeah. They could regress back to three, regress back to six, regress back to 12. What's the age of the younger self? And that's very important because that then will determine how you transact therapeutically and how you think therapeutically. Yeah. So what are the signs that as a therapist you can use to work out what age they are? Would you ask them outright what age, you know, where have you gone back to, where are you now? I nearly always do. Okay. And then they will answer. Yeah. It doesn't mean that's necessarily correct but it's a very good gauge. It's a start. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing after asking them is things like what you said a moment ago, body posture. Yeah. Non-verbal signals. Because non-verbal, that means that they're quite young. If, you know, they haven't got the power of speech or they can't put things into words, it's all feeling, then they're probably quite young. Yeah. That's right. The length of their transactions. Yeah. The way they see the world. So, and of course, in analysis of their transactions, but you know, I think probably the non-verbal signals and the way they speak will probably give you the clues to what age we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Because as long as we've got a sort of a ballpark figure, then we know what we're working with and how we need to be around them. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's based on the theory, of course, which is really, really important is that the decisions we make at these younger, you know, younger ages are, you know, younger self, for example, determine how we are today with our older self. Yeah. There's many, many, many, many, many examples I could give. Do you ever watch the film Notting Hill? Yes. With that famous actress, which I quite like, and then I'm losing their names. Julia Roberts is the actress. Yes. I can't think for the life of me what the fellow was talking about. The aristocratic sort of woman blow, because it's huge something. Yes, it is. Huge grants, that's it. Well, we got there in the end, Bob. Something like that. And I really like the scene where the leading actor is the managing a bookshop. Yeah. And Julia Roberts is this famous sort of actress who turns up at the bookshop and says to the leading actor, I think it's this huge grant. Yeah. You know, I'm just a young girl. Oh, I'm coming here talking about X. I'm really a young girl talking to her. Yeah. I can't remember the phases, but basically. Yeah, I get what you mean. Yeah. They bring the ideas. We bring our younger selves with us. And psychologically in the moment, we may regress back to how, you know, she felt, felt, which is younger, you know, girl in front of a first boyfriend. Yes. Yeah. Well, we fumble over our words and we feel really insecure and nervous and everything. Yeah. Yeah. So we bring our younger self. We all know that when we go to interviews, for example, you go to an interview for something that's really important to you and you're being evaluated. So that's probably that way. Most people will regret, will regress back to a younger age where they feel under pressure or fear of being judged or fear of being a failure. I do that quite often when I'm with somebody of a higher status than me. Very common. Yeah. A police officer or anything. You know, yeah, I instantly regret going through customs at the airport. So if somebody comes, say, with those sorts of issues around, you know, feeling very young when they go to interviews or feeling young when they're stressed or whatever. Let's take the interview one and I do this a lot. I'm happy that I might well do, for example, or undertake, probably a better word, is get them to empower themselves and in TA terms, be the A's they are, or if we could even put adult TA terms. So I might ask them to imagine that the evaluators or interviewers have short skirts or have short trousers on or, you know, so they can take the power in the power dynamics. Yeah. They don't feel a child anymore. They feel more grounded. Yes. Yeah. And move from that, what I'll say, younger self or child, eager state of your TA terms into a more here and now adult place. Yeah. And it is really powerful when we can do that. Yeah. When we can shift them from one ego state to another, particularly if it's bringing up, you know, memories that they don't particularly like or things, you know, the grounding methods I find quite useful in the therapy room. Yeah. So of course, remember, they're the people that have to change this ego state. So in other words, you can teach them these things and they have to be the people who actually do the change if you want to put it that way. Yeah. But I think the concept is very useful for them to think about, and that is that they have gone to a younger part of themselves. Yeah. And enable them to be able to be grounded and to function appropriately here and now. They need to ground themselves and to act and feel and think as a grown-up or adult in TA terms rather than that regressed teenage child or whatever you want to put on it. Yeah. And in the therapy room, it's a safe space for people to experiment and explore doing that so that it's a skill that they can then take away and use with them whenever they want to, if they can visualize, you know, certain things around them that are going to ground them or make them feel more empowered. Then that's a fantastic life skill to have. Yeah. I remember in another lifetime when I was a teacher, a stroke lecturer, and I taught it in a different colleges. I think of one college particular. And the problems I was having in, I was very, I was quite young, teaching these rebellious 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds. Lovely age. But the problem was I was younger than them psychologically in reality. Yeah. And I needed to set boundaries and be a parent or an adult, not sort of fumbling 12-year-old. And I didn't know TA at all. So, you know, what I'm talking about now and hindsight is a wonderful thing. But if I hadn't known it, I would have either not taken a job in the first place to be a teacher in a technical college, or I would perhaps have learned how to have techniques to take care of my younger self and ground myself. Yeah. What I did in the end was realize it wasn't a job for me and left. Now, I'm not saying anybody listening to this goes and leaves their job. But I am saying that I think it's important to have a model to think this way and to help clients do exactly what you've just talked about, ground themselves and move to an adult bigger state and find ways to empower themselves. And to start to be aware that we do shift, you know, from moment to moment where we are and dependent on who we're having a transaction with or what situation we're in, we will be at different psychological ages. It's understandable, but it's being aware of when we shifted and when we're in a different state. Absolutely correct. You and I trained in transaction analysis and the originator of transaction analysis, Eric Byrd. He died a long time ago now and we're talking about a model that was created 80 years ago. In his first book called Transaction Analysis Psychotherapy, I think it was 1961, when he's talking about what you're talking about here and I'm talking about here, the ideas that will move from different parts of ourselves. He was talking, he gave an example, I think, about a client who came in to see him and said, oh, I feel like a three year old in my parents' study. Yeah. As an example of a shift to our younger self in the shadow of an authoritarian figure or perceived authoritarian figure. Yeah. I think what we're talking about here is extraordinary common. I mean, you've just talked about it earlier on when you said that with authoritarian people going through the customs. Definitely. Yeah. You can feel part of your younger self coming forward. And I think that's why I like Pam Levin's Ages and Stages because each one of the stages, like this one that's three, I think I'm just checking here what age it is, 18 months to three years and then three to six. For me, that age three to six is a really important one. As we're growing up because we're kind of moving away from our parents, you know, we're starting going to school. We're in, you know, the first year of school. There's an awful lot of transitions taking place within that three year period. That's right. And there's different developmental tasks. Yeah. If there's a rupture or trauma in those years, so we don't actually, I don't know, complete those developmental tasks, then we're always attempting to complete them throughout life. That's it. Yeah. And that age between three and six, you know, it's all around separating fantasy from reality and, you know, working out who we are as a person. So it's a really important developmental process that we go through. And if there are ruptures in it, or if we don't, you know, get our needs met in the right way by our caregivers, then it does have an impact on us. I mean, Margaret Marlar, another famous child development, she talked about that period as a separation individuation period. I love that as well. Yeah. And if there's problems in that period, like say, usually this is your area, people being fostered or using important people in their lives or attachment ruptures, that will have severe or can have severe consequences psychologically throughout their life. Yeah. And they may always carry that deficit. Yeah. And it's not just, you know, children in the care system and everything. There's been an awful lot of studies. I can't, you know, quote anybody around, you know, kids that go into boarding school from a young age and how that can impact on them as well, as far as the individuation and separation part of things. And, you know, I know we spoke about attachment in previous podcasts, but things like that. You know, I've seen big bull, you know, rugby players in my therapy room that went to boarding school that, you know, maybe being traumatised is quite strong, but it definitely had an impact on the relationships. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I want to quote a book, it's a very old book called Separation of the Young by Margaret Marlowe and I think it was Peter Patterson who talked about this very vividly and there's very vivid photographs talking about before and after these attachment ruptures and how that can carry psychological scars throughout life. Yeah. So if we've got a client that does regress and does go to the younger self, is that the time where we step into our nurturing parents? Well, that's what I think. I think I'll talk about nurturing parents a minute, but I think that's where therapy is most effective. Exactly. Yeah. Because I think the early decisions we make about ourselves and life in the world are made for our younger self. So if we can use the regression in that process we're talking about here where the cloud goes to their younger self, that's when real therapy I think is most effective. So that's the first thing I want to say. So you would step into regression. Now, using a TA model because that's what you did in terms of nurturing parents, the answer is yes to your answer, but it would be good to utilise the nurturing parent because usually, and I'll say usually and there's never a certainty in psychotherapy, but usually the deficit is because the relational needs haven't been met or traumas have occurred. And usually they need a different type of parenting. Yeah. A more compassionate one or a TA let's use an nurturing parent. It's quite a good channel to go to. Yeah. Which, you know, if we talk about the ego states and everything else, that transaction can go on for quite a while. If they're in their child and we're in our parent ego state that transaction, like I said, can go back with some forwards for a whole session. Yeah. And it's not so much about so the people listening can put this in perspective. So if we're talking about therapists using utilising the nurturing parent in aid of parenting healing the deficit with the self, then we might be sort of doing things like giving permissions to the younger self that it's okay to be different. Yeah. Or it's okay to be you and the world. Yeah. The world won't collapse. Yeah. It's okay for you to express feelings. I'm still with you. And those sort of permissions from a different type of parent are incredibly useful in healing. Yeah. And recognition and validation for things as well. You know, and I know we've spoke about strokes in the past, but giving positive strokes for, you know, what they're doing in the present. Yeah. And the other area going into the nurturing part of this language is protection. And I think that the so-called parent, let's put it in that job for the therapist is very, very geared towards protection. Yeah. So the younger child has been traumatised or they're relationally something met or there's been a rupture in the attachment system. Not only are they going to, you know, have validating permissions, but they will feel a protection, you know, of a parent figure if you want to believe in those terms. They probably never had before. Yeah. To enable themselves to express things which perhaps they've repressed for a very long time. Yeah. I agree protection and permission, I think are two of the main things that I use in the therapy room. Yeah. And so I think to think developmentally and a really good question for a therapist to ask themselves and then to ask the person that can't, what age is this person presenting in front of me? If they're not sure, just ask them. Yeah. Yeah. If they say three, then you have clues on in your, let's use your model, three to six, you know, what to do next. Yeah. I love the developmental processes, you know, whichever one it is, like you said about, you know, the individuation and separation and all those sorts of things. I think they all kind of merge quite well together and there are a lot of tools available for the therapist to use in order to do this work. And I think that a lot of the trauma that people bring into the client room in the present has its etiology in the past. Yeah. And what happens in regression is the client will go back like going through an onion in a phase of an onion will go back to where the first trauma was. Yeah. So to think the filamentary is very important when we're dealing with the younger soul. Yes. Which is, like I said, it's the foundation of everything I think in the work that I do, you know, because we do bring our past into the present. So wherever we are in the moment, it's our younger self that we're bringing, even if it's 12 months ago or five years ago, we can still be in adult, but we're not in the here and now. We're our past person. I'm so ingrained over 35 years to think developmentally. Yeah. I was trained that way. I worked clinically for 36 years from this foundation. I will be the world worst CBT therapist. Bless your heart. No, I was because how can I not, you know, it's be like going to an alien planet. Yeah. I don't, I just, I find it very hard to stop thinking developmentally. Yeah. Because when you think there's a door behind you, Bob, and I keep imagining this thing of, you know, somebody walking in the therapy room, literally behind that door where you are, that, you know, I would imagine the majority, I don't want to make assumptions, but the majority of people, when they walk in the therapy room door and not their self of today. Correct. They're usually younger. Yeah. And if you, and if I take myself back to, I have to be 34, when I went in to see my first therapist, I was certainly was not 34. Yeah. And that's a logical age of a very different younger person. Yeah. You know, but even the, the projection of the person we want people to think we are tends to fall away when we walk into the room. Yeah. So I've been very, very, very difficult for me to have this be a CBT therapist. Yeah. I don't want to discount or discredit CBT therapists because, you know, solution focused therapy has its play, you know, as it's placed, if you've been trained that way, it will be like the reverse, you know, it's like a different way of thinking. I'm just saying for this podcast, in terms of developmental thinking, it's a different way of doing therapy. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. It's a time, you know, a time and a place for CBT, you know, we don't want to discount any other models. It's just, you know, for me, I can only talk about the one that I've been training because I don't know that much about the other stuff. So, yeah. Of course, it has a developer transaction analysis, which is a psychedelic model. As it is hard to develop a mental perspective. Yeah. Now that does not mean that it couldn't be used in short term focused outcome ways like CBT, if you want to look at that way, because of its theory on contracts and various other thoughts. But it has at its heart the ideas that we can move from different parts of ourselves. And then we have a younger self, which we always carry with us. Yeah. A really interesting podcast again, Bob. No. It's fascinating, both of us were trained with this theory. And, you know, it's, I'm sure it's the way that both of us think. Yeah. Yeah. And as you said earlier on, mine started when I was nursery nursing training, when I was in my twenties with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So, you know, there was, we called it the PI system, physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. You know, like the holistic side of things. Yeah. No, I think it's really important this stuff. Yeah. Thank you, Bob. It's been another wonderful podcast. So what we're going to be talking about in the next one is working with metaphors in the story. Oh, again. And if you're talking about the younger self, this podcast is a must for you next week, because one of the best ways to reach the younger self psychologically is through metaphor and symbolization. Yeah. I think it cuts through a lot of barriers using metaphors, whatever age they're presenting. Yeah. Absolutely. Okie dokie. Until next time, Bob. Speak soon. See you then. Goodbye. 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.