 Welcome back to the next episode of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones and Bob Cook. And because we're coming up to the festive season, we thought we'd do something a little bit relevant to that time of year and maybe how it impacts on us, meeting up with family members that maybe we've not seen for a while and the pressure of it all. The pressure of Christmas. Yeah, it's meant to be an annual time but it isn't for for lots of people because past experiences can impact on us and you know particularly I suppose what I was thinking with us being in the midst of the pandemic still. Last Christmas we weren't allowed to get together in groups so you know there's going to be some feelings maybe. Well for those people watching podcasts who probably can't see me but I've got a very big beard. People that can see me will see that I've got a big big beard and yeah a bit like Father Christmas and often I think what happens to Father Father Christmas in the therapy room and also in the in society but let's talk about a therapy room at the moment which is what I would call the Father's Father Christmas myth and the Father Christmas myth really fosters disappointment. Disappointment script in trans nationalist terms that through through the sort of idealization that the Christmas or festive time will sort of take away all our issues or resolve all our problems and then people of course get disappointed because they find out that the problems or issues are far more deep ridden and it's the same actually culturally people you know idolize Christmas and often find out that well most times find out that the idealization doesn't match up to reality. Yeah often I think that's the case it's the build up to it and then the let down I sometimes associated to which is a bit random kind of being pregnant and the build up to the birth of a baby and then the come down after it that a lot of people that's how it feels sometimes it's you know a month of preparation for one day and it doesn't always live up to expectations. No that's what I'm talking therapy was with clients these important occasions which all hopes and expectations are foisted on often because they're built up psychologically don't happen so the person gets disappointed so that script continues. Yeah So what can we do what what what can we do about that in the therapy room? Yeah let's stick with the therapy room I mean culturally I think you know many of the things we're going to talk about here they match each other what's happened in the therapy rooms matches what's happens culturally but in the therapy room at Christmas of course lots of things happen number one the therapist usually takes a time off to have Christmas. Yeah so there's a there's a gap from therapy and we all know that when there's a gap from therapy clients usually may well act out because they have lost their secure object or feel abandoned. Yeah and also remember most therapists go into the most clients go into therapy with the father Christmas myth already and that's the the therapist will solve everything and that is of course not what is about therapies about therapies about helping the person take ownership of their own issues and helping them and supporting and making chase themselves not that some sort of father Christmas is going to come around and wave a magic wand and everything will be okay. So would you say that these sort of issues need addressing whatever time of year that we're at you know I suppose again it touches on contacts and you know planning for a holiday period with the clients and letting them know that you know if you're going to take time off how long and how that's going to be and absolutely well I mean that's taken as word I think for the therapist and the therapist that sort of ignores that they do so their own folly. Yeah and then the more disturbed clients will act out. Yeah so would you say December as a whole you know is is different to any other month of all these things because it does kind of link in and maybe shine a light on that father Christmas you know the therapist is going to fix me type thing. Yeah so yeah I think I don't want to be a sort of bearer of bad tides when we talk about Christmas but the truth is the real truth is the majority of the clients in my clinical load I don't see many people now without work clinically but when I did for all these years they have lots of different issues from self-esteem issues right up to personality disorders and a lot of them of course dealing with trauma and for a majority of clients Christmas has not been a very pleasant event for lots and lots of reasons they either come from reconstructed families or the the build-up of Christmas triggers off many of the bad times they've had or the traumas they've had parents or significant others not being there homelessness neglect we could go on and on and so Christmas stimulates triggers yeah traumatic events in a person's past and usually for majority of clients that I've worked with Christmas has not reminded of them of a happy time. Yeah is it you know touching on the cultural thing is that sort of around Christmas or would you say it's around any significant event in the calendar? I think Christmas is more built up yeah you know we're talking of pandemic eras now it was 2020 Christmas of 2020 where we came to November and it was clear very clear about the escalation of deaths and the escalation of infections were getting so high that we needed a lockdown but of course what actually happened was that the lockdown didn't happen over Christmas because it was such a special event those restrictions which should have actually been completely in my opinion had a complete lockdown would have resolved many many issues but because Christmas was built up to be such a significant time for many people um uh that didn't happen yeah and I think Christmas is built up culturally to be very very significant now religiously of course it is but if we're talking about this as a sort of festive event this one day is very very important culturally and significantly and psychologically in a person's memory banks more than any other day yeah so would you bring that into the therapy room if the client doesn't would you talk about plans for Christmas and expectations and anything like that? Well it's not would I I always did okay so 100 percent how in fact it's an impossible to ignore isn't it? Well I mean you could complete not Christmas but that would be denying well be denying a reality and also we deny the therapist a chance to look at the trauma and the difficulties and the actual experiences which usually weren't so good for the clients in front of me yeah because I know I'm I'm quite mindful of things like putting up decorations in the therapy room and you know I don't want to say keeping it a sterile environment but not assuming that everybody celebrates Christmas or that everybody's memories and expectations are going to be the same so I tend to not put things up in the therapy room but I know some therapists do they put a Christmas tree up and well well I that's very I'm smiling because really I take your viewpoint and I think I think a therapy room should be pretty barren if you like yeah that way and I think the therapist that starts putting Christmas trees up or puts up Christmas decorations can it be the very least well I think could be guilty of insensitivity unless they do it clinically in a way of thinking about triggers to to enable a person to have that stimulation but I think that's a pretty over the top process to do that way around see you mentioned triggers there and I think that's that's a really interesting topic that maybe we can look at more in depth on another episode but a trigger can be anything for an individual well triggers you know if you think of post-traumatic stress PTSD and look at the research around what we're talking about here yes you're right of course at one level the research show is actually interesting enough the loud noises the smells are usually the most evocative triggers you are right that almost anything but I think Christmas particularly is a very massive trigger because people almost conditioned and have an idolized fantasy around Christmas where suddenly in those 10 hours everything will happen to resolve their misery and it's very untrue for most people yeah so what can we do in the therapy room how can we help prepare clients well it's about preparing so what I do and I with the Christmas I used to talk a lot about what did Christmas mean for people and for a lot of people it meant neglect homelessness trauma disappointments um and we used to talk about you know the healing processes that we could actually have now in the therapy room so for example but people coming to therapy may be being neglected or people in therapy who didn't have a good experience of Christmas or people to come to therapy who have significant other people who actually treated them very badly in these events or people who had mentally ill parents for example or people who had traumas at Christmas time the list is endless yeah so it gives the person the opportunity to talk about the reality of their own difficulties and traumas because you see when they leave the therapy room and they go outside into the let's put say real world that real world doesn't give the individual the time the chance or time or the opportunity to talk about uh their traumas difficulties neglect around Christmas because everything is supposed to be a jolly time yeah yeah on the television and you see many many many many programs about jolliness how wonderful things are idealization go on and on and people aren't supposed to talk about how difficult or dark or regretful Christmas might have been if they do talk about that they're often classless humbugs yes yeah and you know again there's all the you know the office parties and all those sort of things where we are kind of actively encouraged to be festive and to to socialize and to do all those things and I suppose for you know I'm thinking about the clients that I've got at the moment you know ones that suffer from social anxiety that that you know and then if they don't go there's that sense of loss or you know that fear of missing out and those sort of things that goes along with it it's probably one of the only times of the year where we we do feel I don't want to say forced into situations but we there's a lot of things that we feel like we should be doing around Christmas time I think we are I don't mind the word forced I think the that's a very good word because we have um back-to-back communication television newspapers rages which are telling us we should be happy yeah so from that angle forced is a pretty good word yeah and it you know I knew we were saying earlier on about you know the 10 hours of it that's the thing is you know Christmas starts a lot earlier and ends a lot later now you know I know people that wait for the first of November and put their Christmas decorations up and it's like whoa it's going to nearly two months of festivities now as opposed to a week when I was young or even a couple of days maybe well let's put it another way if you go to the A&E department on Christmas Eve or the A&E department of New Year's Eve you'll find more suicide attempts more overdoses more more traumas in any time of the year which says a lot about yeah says a lot about Christmas yeah yeah so it's the best thing that we can do to to kind of support our appliances to talk about the past experiences and how that can impact on them today or give them permission to you know celebrate Christmas however it feels right for them what sort of things would you be doing in the therapy room? Well first of all I'd want therapy to be very real and given the opportunity to talk about times which might have been particularly hard for them around the month of December and how Christmas might make them feel because often what Christmas makes them feel is that they haven't discounted discounted for in other words they have to be happy but nobody accounts for perhaps their unhappiness. Yeah is it a cultural thing is it a media thing what what is it because I totally agree with what you're saying that you know everybody is under pressure to be happy and enjoy it and I would ask that I guess that you know 75% and upwards of people I haven't got any statistics don't feel you know very festive around the festive season is it cultural do you think or is it increased media pressure? No it's both those things but I think of course there's more and more pressure put on us by media and the the papers and all the communication to be happy. Now we all know that loneliness, homelessness, neglect, the elderly all have a particularly difficult time of Christmas. Is it talked about? Not much but you know I often think many Christmases that are quite liking it and I should do it really I haven't done it. I did about 10 years ago but actually go down and help the homelessness in Manchester. I think Christmas is an act of kindness. Yes News are very very very very long and get bigger by the day and Christmas new year when we should be happy and everything else that goes with it people often feel lonely and happy and neglected and often their past histories have been represented of what we're talking about here. Yeah how do you feel about Christmas? How do I feel about Christmas? Yeah well should we focus some of the time outside of the therapy room on ourselves and the impact it has on other therapists? What do you mean by say a bit more about Jackie I'm not sure what you mean? Well literally what you were saying about the lists at A&E being longer you know that we are likely to be seeing clients that are feeling an increased pressure whether that's PTSD or anxiety or past trauma or things like that but maybe our workload it seems to be less of a workload in the summer and more of a workload in the winter whether that's connected with Christmas and dark nights and those sort of things so should we as therapists be focusing on our own mental health and self-care? I know it's important to any time of year but particularly around this time as well and how are thoughts and feelings around Christmas? Well that's a good quote that's a good sort of conversation I would like to think and maybe I'm wrong here that and perhaps I'm very wrong but a lot of therapists put a lot of their money and time into their own self-care I hope therapists are often middle-class they've probably they've usually got some access to money so they might go to therapist twice a week or they might spend more time on their self-care maybe going on holiday or whatever it is or even times to actually just meditate or have some sense of mindfulness about what this day is all about I don't know any research into it but I think is a very good point I think that therapists need to you know have support if need be and go to therapy particularly at these times when actually there's more pressure on being in inverted commons happy and there's a denial of what I think is reality. Yeah yeah because I suppose you know there is pressure on us as therapists to be authentic and what does that look like in the therapy room if if we don't enjoy Christmas is that authentic in the therapy room and do we let people know that? No I didn't say you're making an assumption I didn't say I didn't a therapist don't enjoy Christmas I didn't even say I didn't enjoy Christmas I think there's a difference between enjoyment and enjoying the day if in an authentic way if you know for example with my family and Stephanie I can add some of my favorite things on television sports and different things I can allow myself to enjoy Christmas but what I was really talking is the reality of the many many many and especially my clients who are stimulating triggered by Christmas and actually feel more hurt not recognized or not accounted by society and they haven't got a family to go home to or they may just go to a bedside to go home to or they may have to be part of a reconstructed family and reminds them of the family they never had in their own history so I can enjoy Christmas and that's the same I'll actually when I'd say enjoy Christmas I do to certain times but I do go to therapy as you said brings up in the past but what I'm talking about is my professional duty which is to help people talk about things which have been stimulated by often Christmas or new year in a way that they've not had the chances to before and hopefully that will mean they don't then go and hurt themselves in that in that to have their own traumas because nobody's but nobody's accounted for their own trauma that doesn't mean I don't necessarily have the time to enjoy Christmas yeah I'm not sure whether you misunderstand what what I was meaning originally but that's did but I want to just make the difference between therapists can allow themselves to have enjoyment as well as dealing with very difficult processes yeah yeah now I'm not sure that was the query question or conversation but that's where I've ended up yeah yeah and that's absolutely fine that I think that's something that I say to clients a lot of the time that you know we can be anxious and okay at the same time we can have a feeling and be okay at the same time it's not an either or situation so yeah we can enjoy Christmas and you know be triggered or things it's it's not an either or situation yeah yeah but you see I and you said something not long ago and it's very true the therapists work harder at Christmas their workload is more difficult to this Christmas and you know New Year and the dark nights and everything goes on with that now then the question is how come that's not the case so much in the summer for example because I think Christmas New Year stimulates a lot of difficult times of people and they haven't got the space to talk about it because they're supposed to be inverted commas happy yeah we've we haven't we see we haven't even talked about the economic pressure of Christmas that's another big thing for an awful lot of people yeah and again you know is it linked into the adverts on the television and the media and how it's all supposed to look and yeah do you know the average Christmas rate uh or present of presents for an average family of four people I don't think I want to go on surprise me no I'm not going to surprise you but it's a lot yeah yeah I can believe it you know I how many Christmas presents does my if I think about did my daughter get a once she was four five six seven eight nine ten far too many it's a huge economic pressure for Christmas yeah being able to make the family happy and buy the presents and we could go on and on and on and I think a lot of people feel extremely guilty if they don't do that yeah but a lot of that I believe comes from the pressure of of expectations and media put on all of this and our clients feel it just the same yes yeah yeah and I suppose that you know for some people it does encourage a connection between the amount of gifts and our self-worth or you know those sort of things that that we need to prove love to somebody by buying the more expensive thing in the shop and those sort of things around you know again it's our thoughts and but yeah we do tend to think strange things around Christmas time and that's because strange things happen at Christmas time yeah often and not necessarily happy things and that's what I'm tended to deal with in the third viewing the past which is brought into the present or the present which is actually so a sumptuous hardship or difficulty and there's so much going on the people then get the opportunity to talk about their own hurts and tribulations yeah so Christmas isn't a particularly particularly a time where um put another way there's a lot going on in the therapy room at Christmas time yeah but we we do cope with it every year how many Christmases have you had in the therapy room Bob 30 but I 34 35 yeah yeah yeah I always like to put a positive slant on things and you know ultimately I suppose one of the things that I do believe is that it's okay for us to celebrate Christmas however we want to as an individual yeah and of course I'm the same and I'm sure maybe people listen to podcasts are thinking gosh Christmas very dark and dreary time for Bob Cook I'm talking more about what Christmas is trigger off for clients uh you know in terms of their past histories yeah unity for them to have some healing and new experiences in a different way yeah now that doesn't mean back to what you said 20 minutes ago that doesn't mean putting a Christmas tree in the middle of the therapy room and having baubles and fairies dancing around and you know balloons and goodness knows wash in fact for some people that we could be so traumatic it will be so overwhelming yeah you can't force people to enjoy Christmas because you just think people should enjoy Christmas by putting Christmas trees on so I was sort of surprised when you said that but you know I'm often surprised what here third person yeah it again it's you know I suppose we've spoke at length and you know on each one of the sessions it's about being mindful of people's triggers it's about being mindful of people's past experience and trauma and how you know the most insignificant of things can can trigger that absolutely and by definition the people that come in my consulted room have had troubled histories and often Christmas has not been good time for them yeah now I don't deal with people who really are quite healthy functioning you know I I deal with people who want have issues to resolve and perhaps have a fragile sense of self so you know I have a different can't tell I don't have um you know a whole group of people who are pretty healthy functioning or who have the capacities perhaps to even be happy so I deal I deal often I deal often with the troubled world but Christmas is very stimulating or can be yeah and I suppose that you know it just touching on it before we finish as well if people you know with substance misuse it for some reason you know alcohol and things like that it's it's very difficult to you know be around that if you are you know a next addict of alcohol or drugs or those sort of things as well because it's seen as part of the festive season you're totally true I mean I think you've done a really good point which we didn't perhaps talk enough about but I the more I talk on this podcast the more I'm thinking about it is how is how how therapists take care of themselves at a time which often is most troubling time for clients and therefore there's so much difficult stuff projected on to the therapist and I think they the therapists need to go to therapy they need to have supervision if they need to and allow themselves to enjoy Christmas or festive period if they want to and not get bogged down by the troubles of their clients otherwise separate our professional and personal yeah yeah 100% and sometimes that's easier to do than others oh absolutely and I just said if you go into the year on years day where there's more suicides more drug overdose is any time in the year and Christmas follows it by the way um you're perfect correct yeah some some trauma some stories are quite hard to leave in the therapy room yeah yeah it is and and I suppose it all depends you know because we are only human and I think it's something that's overlooked a lot of the time that as therapists we go through life events just like everybody else and it's really important that you know we notice our own state of mind and where we are in the therapy room and as always there's a very fine line in feeling maybe or letting clients down in order to prioritise our own mental health and the feelings that can come around that yeah absolutely right I know we're ending this podcast but if I had to give a piece of wisdom or tips to people listen to this and therapists listen to this I think the biggest thing to say to them is to be real at Christmas whatever that is be authentic in the moment yeah because there's too much pretence out there at Christmas and New Year's time yeah what a lovely note to finish for let's all have a real Christmas as in we can be real and we can be authentic so we have a unique Christmas that's the other thing it's like it's so stereotypical now literally everything you know it's it's kind of like the picture picture postcard on a Christmas is what we try to recreate let's let's be unique and individual and do it our own way yeah no I think it's been important to be real yeah okay okay thank you so much Bob so what we're doing on the next one are we kind of following on a little bit from this you wanted one I think about is by couples was it yeah yeah yeah what was the title you put down I think I read it as couples yes yeah um basically it was how can therapy help with relationships so I presume couples is one relationship so it's a wider a wider conversation okay I look forward to talking about that yeah okay dog see you on the next one Bob yeah 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