 Excellent. 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 Episodes. Are you ready for this, Bob? No. 136. Oh my God. I know. January 11th, I said on your email. I think it said January the 11th it goes out on. Yes. Yeah. So the title of this is Blind Spots in Therapy. Okay. Interesting title. So are we recording as we speak? We are recording as we speak. It's all systems go, Bob. Okay. Blind spots and derby. Before I go on about blind spots and derby, I would have said at the last podcast, but I hope you all had a good new year and you are enjoying yourself, especially as you listen to this podcast. I hope you are. Okay. Blind spots and derby. So when you think of blind spots and derby, Jackie, what do you think of? I'm thinking about maybe what potentially gaps in our knowledge. Do you mean the therapist or the client or both? Both. Both maybe. Yeah. So when you say that, what comes next in your thinking then? Around that. Maybe personal bias. Maybe that's a good one because I think that's something that both the therapist and the client has. You mean prejudice? Yeah. You're talking about the frames of reference. Yes. Yeah. Filtrumming out certain things. I would personal beliefs and all that sort of stuff. It also leads to counter-transmissions, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I see it when we talk about blind spots and derby. It's certainly around both people's frames of reference. So as you know, and I think I've said on these podcasts, I do all the assessments at the Institute. People ring up and want half an hour assessment with me. That's fine. And we go ahead with that. And then I pass them on to one of the therapists would suit them. There's about 30 therapists at the Institute. Part of my job is to match people up. But one of the things that I think about a lot, and I believe is true, is that therapy always works better if the therapist and the client get on with each other. Absolutely. So in other words, I don't have to have equal frames of reference. But if they perhaps come from the same ballpark, then they're more likely, if you like. That's not always the case, but in terms of a sort of thumb rule to sort of get on with people. Yeah. So that's important to think about as is the cultural implications. Yeah. People, you know, they don't always have to... The therapist and client don't always have the same cultural processes. I know. But it's something I think about in terms of cultural compatibility, if you want to put it that way. And I think it's the same blind spot you see. If people come from different frames of reference or different types of script, which you could get onto in a minute, might be more likely to have blind spots, which would include things like prejudice, being things being outside of their awareness. It leads on to transference issues, of course. So I think trying to match people up, I think terms of reference, cultural implications are important to think of in terms of effective psychotherapy. There's a fine line, isn't there? I think with, you know, finding a therapist that you've got things in common ways and then over-identification, there's kind of a, you know, a nice area in the middle, maybe. But there's a chance of crossing over on that. I think there's always that dilemma. Yeah. When you're talking about that, where you get sort of overwrite or you might get over-identification versus, you know, blind spots or versus incompatibility. Yeah. Different terms of references. So it's important to think about it that way. Now, we'll talk about the idea of script a lot, haven't we? Yes, we have. But people who haven't been on these podcasts before or haven't listened to us, when we define a script, it really comes from TA theory, but when we define script or that term, it means an unconscious life plan decided early on with a beginning, middle, end, really. I think Bern changes definition, but unconscious life plan will do for me. Yeah. And then what we do is we fit other people into the way that we think about ourselves other people in the world. So if you think about it from that frame, you will surround yourself with people that will fit into your script. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So when you do couples therapy, one of the things I think about as a therapist is how the couples have interlocking scripts or don't. So people, as they go on in life, according to the decisions they've made about themselves and other people will pick friends to fit into their own script. Yeah. And surround themselves with people who fit into their own way of thinking, if you like. Yeah. When you're talking like this, it sounds like when we're picking people to fit into our script that life runs very smoothly, but that's not always the case. No, and I'll tell you why it's not always the case. Because often we make our decisions and develop our script in a survival mechanism. Yeah. So in other words, the more dysfunctional, unhealthy the environment that the person's been brought up into will be determining factor. Yeah. Making the decisions which form the hub of their script. Yeah. Now, as they continue on in life and grow up and that script may be part of their personality, they continue to pick people or may do that fit into those early survival decisions. Absolutely. Yeah. You're not okay. I'm okay. You are okay. You know, those existential life positions. Now, sometimes it could be more detailed than that, but it's very elementary in some ways. So as the person grows up, they may move into areas or meet people where those ways of thinking or coping actually brings them more challenges than they thought they might. So in other words, maybe those coping mechanisms, those early decisions need updating or at least revised and reflected on so they can find more healthy decisions now they've moved away from their dysfunctional heritage. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, I always think that I was script. It's familiar even though it can be negative. Do you know what it is? So picking the wrong people to be around that puts us in a bad, you know, state of mind a lot of the time can be part of our script. Definitely. Yeah. The therapy and just may say, well, I know things are wrong. I don't feel happy or I feel hopeless or I feel depressed and I can't get out of it. I feel not, you know, I'm not content in life or whatever it is. And quite often they're keeping to this script, which was a survival script early on in life, but actually has become more like a burden around their neck. Yeah. Because of their unhappiness in life. And so they go to a therapist and the therapist, you know, thinks about scripts or thinks about the idea about the past effects of the present. They will help the person explore their earlier life and the decisions they made. And whether those decisions are useful anymore in the different situation 20 years later. Yeah. Now, if that and it usually is where those early decisions actually aren't helpful anymore, then the therapist will help them put the past and present together and develop a new type of script and help them put that on the road. Yeah. An updated version. Updated version. Now that takes time. Absolutely. Yeah. But when we talk about blind spots and therapy, those blind spots are often created out of the script that the person's decided on in these difficult circumstances. And therefore, those blind spots, if you want to call them blind spots in this way, they're certainly outside their awareness, will continue. Yeah. Until life events happen where those blind spots lead the person to have such a distressful quality of life that they turn up in therapy or people may confront them or whatever. Yeah. I think for me one of the things that happens a lot with clients is they'll come because of repeated patterns. Yeah. They're doing the same thing over and over in different relationships. And that's what kind of brings them that this always happens to me. That's right. Whatever that is. Yeah. So an example I might give of what a blind spot we're talking about is for somebody believes that everybody that lives in Scotland or Scottish are mean. Yeah. Well, when you think about that, that means that they might never go to Scotland. Yeah. They may never surround themselves with people who have come from Scotland. They think of Scottish people as mean, not okay people. And so their life in effect is quite narrow. Yeah. Now if they keep with that belief system and they meet somebody that didn't know came to Scotland and fell in love with them or really, and then they find out they come from Scotland, you've got a problem in your hands, haven't you? Yeah. It's perhaps an extreme example, but it's an example of what we're talking about here that their blind spot, which you might want to call prejudiced if you want, has led them down the line where their life is more narrow, unfulfilled than if they saw the world in what is actually what we're talking about here is an updated belief system needs changing if you like. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Our blind spot becomes part of a script decision that gets played out and doesn't help that person. Yeah. Which for me as well links into another blind spot being lack of self-awareness. Yeah. When we're not aware that we have these prejudices or that we've got these parts of our script or whatever, which again, I know we do this in TA about having our own personal therapy. So hopefully we've kind of worked through a lot of things and we are a lot more self-aware. So, you know, big boys shouldn't cry. Yeah. We could give lots of examples. Yeah. People might call prejudiced or decisions made outside people's awareness, but they're usually made because they've been passed down by their significant other people or they're made in terms of protecting themselves. Yeah. And the blind spots because they're in our subconscious. We don't consciously know that they're there. It's not something that, you know, we're aware of after the time until it presents itself somehow in front of us. Yeah. So these belief systems which are clearly prejudiced to other people. Yeah. The need of dating. Yeah. It might be harmful in some ways. The person who's got the blind spot, A isn't aware of it and B will hang on to that contaminated process or that prejudice for dear life because it was made such a long time ago and it's linked to their identity and productivity in life. So they're not, so they won't easily give that up. Yeah. I had a conversation this week with a client and we were talking about affirmations and I kind of, every so often I'll post on social media and I put three affirmations and she sent me a message and she said, it's really funny, but I said those affirmations and two of them, I had a reaction to them. I was saying it, but I felt like it wasn't true. And that to me is exactly what we're talking about that it's that deep rooted. We don't even know it's there until somebody crosses the line or it's brought to our attention. Very true. So somebody walks in for therapy at 33 years of age and they've just had kids and the kids now are two or three, let's say. And they say, you know, I'm in trouble because my marriage is not working. I've just had children and my partner believes my parenting is not very good and doesn't help the quality of life for their children. Anyway, after a few more sessions, we invite in the husband or partner and he says, yes, it's terrible. She insists on making sure that the kids go to bed far earlier than they should do and you know, she doesn't see them as important at all and then you turn to the woman and the woman says, that's just not true. I mean, I love them very dearly and we play a lot in xxxx and as we go further into the conversation, we find out that one of her belief systems which was not only passed down to her but she believed was reality was kids should be seen and not heard because as a child, not only was not passed down to her but she was treated in ways whether she wasn't important as a child and she's carrying on with the same decision as if reality. So her own kids, if she carried on with this would have the same implications that they would probably feel not important whether they were not heard whether they would feel that values are not to be steamed as useful and the father of course didn't have those, didn't have that thought process, those belief systems and could see the damage that was happening and so we had some therapy happening yeah, not only between the both of them but for her on these out of awareness blind spots Yeah I think if we go into therapy thinking that we've got all our bases covered and things like this won't actually come up as part of the therapeutic process I think we're onto a loser Yeah, we're onto a loser definitely because we have scripts which are made out of survival reasons with our significant other people, parents they have their own scripts and it's almost like a generational process and then we come into the world meet other people with different scripts or similar scripts and then we're into these challenges in relationships I love that, I'm not sure whether people would have picked up on that hot potato literally, it's like a game I'm not sure whether it's just a British game that we play where you catch the ball and you have to pass it on as quick as you can and a lot of the time that's what I would believe systems are based on they come from our parents we just pick it up without question and then we throw it on and it is generational and a solution Jackie, therapeutically is to enable the client and empowered enough to hand back the hot potato where it came from It's a big one that one Bob What do you mean it's a big one? I'm saying that because I've literally this past few weeks had a personal experience of this and it is really difficult to hand it back Oh, yeah Do you mean difficult in psychologically, is that what you mean? Yeah, it to let something that I feel is part of me go that it's not mine so I can let it go but when you've lived with it for 57 years it feels intrinsically part of me when my logical brain knows it's passed down from my mum 100% So giving back that hot potato or that process feels like part of yourself is going Yeah and it's the scariness of being in a world without it I'll tell you what it is Bob just so that you can can be clearer My oncologist I need to have a conversation with my oncologist where I'm questioning his decisions and it feels really really uncomfortable for me to do that and I know that that comes from my mum and we don't question people in authority or professional people There's a blind spot then but you've become conscious of it Absolutely, yeah More importantly you've become conscious of where that belief systems come from Absolutely, and I had a conversation with my mum about it as well I wonder if it went back to her mum and dad but that's interesting Yeah, but it was one of those things that as soon as I realised what I was doing and the fear that I had about this conversation that I need to have I knew straight away where it came from I can't look a police officer in the eye do you know what I mean because I always feel guilty it's literally people of status rank a lot higher than me in my family So have you decided what you're going to do about this then Yeah, I'm going to put my big girl pants on Yeah And have a conversation with my oncologist next week when I need to see him Yeah Because in the end of the day I believe your own beliefs and values are just as important as his or hers Yeah The psychological example of passing the hot potato back I meant passing back the mother but of course she talked about the mother and the next thing of course would be to action out what you're talking about Yeah For me personally I'm sure you've had it as well Bob When I'm going through something myself everything seems a lot clearer Do you know what I mean It's hard to explain it to a client if we've got an example where we can kind of explain it to them so that they hopefully get an understanding of what we mean because a lot of this is kind of it's a bit out there isn't it unless we can use a metaphor or an example it's hard to explain sometimes Yes and here's one then If some parent or significant other person early in childhood where the power dynamic is loaded towards a person tells the other the child either in words or non-verbal behaviours you are stupid You're stupid You're stupid You're stupid they will change the you into an I Yeah And they all knit The you becomes an I Therefore I am stupid and that becomes their belief system and you're correct earlier in the podcast when you said out of awareness because what becomes out of awareness is where the where the message started so you feel as if your belief system is you know from you actually the belief system comes from somewhere else and this is very very very common when we're talking about shame Yes Yeah Yeah absolutely They have these belief system this is all about themselves and it's because they've been over defined they've been told certain messages which actually aren't true they've turned the you to an I and then they believe X Instead of what is the real reality Yeah and I think it's really important what you said as well Bob but sometimes this isn't you know verbally directly told to us it's the non verbal insinuations within families and how we're treated and all that sort of stuff that we pick this up it's very rare I think that a parent directly says this sort of stuff to us Absolutely true if a chart an infant is born into a family where the mother is depressed so that they're in bed most of the day or they aren't able some of the time to look after the infant because they're so low or they feel so down and they stay in bed or they can't be joyful with the infant or the infants will receive information about their mother or significant whether which is they're not being looked after they're not being played they're not being fed all these things because the parent isn't able to move away from their depression then the infant will make a decision about that and they may make a decision which says something like well I'm obviously not okay because the other person this is the mother in the case isn't playing with me but it is in response to the non-verbal messages of what's almost passed on by osmosis of in this case depressed mother I'm not worthy of all those sorts of things that affects our self-worth our self-esteem and everything going forward Absolutely It's so out of awareness if you want to put it that way that we start to believe fundamentally what was said what was decided as if it was about ourselves Yeah So then what might actually happen later in childhood as we grow up we start to act depressed just like our mother who passed a hot potato of depression down Depression is often modelled Anxieties as well I think I can remember having a conversation with my sister who suffers a lot from anxiety she made an awful lot of assumptions that her daughter who had anxiety had the same anxiety as what she did and I can remember saying to her you can't say that because everybody's different your anxiety is your anxiety and hers is hers don't assume that she's scared of the same things that you are Absolutely So these become blind spots Yeah People have because they've decided things a long time ago to survive and often they're not true Absolutely Because they're built on a different reality than the common reality Now the only thing about blind spots for therapists and for clients is in the world of transfers Yeah So all of us every one of us live in a world of projections We project something and say oh well that person's not thinking well of me there not smiling or frowning or something must be wrong So we project out our fears, thoughts onto the other person Yeah that's what I mean by projections Yeah Projections are the glue for transference and transference is another world together which is built on assumptions and built on a bilateral sense of communication where we're thinking and feeling what the other person's you know is like, usually built on our experiences from the past Yeah Which we then transfer onto the therapist Now if we talk about counter-transference it'll be who is the client for the therapist and on therapist through projection or we usually would transfer onto the client something that isn't real at all but has a basis in their own history Yeah That is the ground for blind spots And this is where it gets really complicated in the therapy room It's like the matrix there's so many different layers of things that are going on Because actually what's happening is both parties often are trying to resolve issues which aren't in the present at all They have their etiology in the past 99% of the stuff that goes on there isn't in the present it's got one foot in the past or the future maybe So you know you're a therapist and you've been adopted for example when a new area is fostered if you like and in comes a client and the issues they want to work on is loss, bereavement, adoption and foster Yeah Or the therapist has whole history about that and they've come to decisions about all those issues you just talked about through experience and then out of awareness they may transfer over their own historical experience in connection with what we're just talking about obviously the client who may not have had those experiences at all even though they lived in a similar world Yeah Then therapy goes down the wrong way Yeah Blind spots In that situation as the therapist would you bring that up? Well different therapists are going to respond different ways but as you're asking me I think it would depend on timing and awareness in the psychotherapy process in other words if it was right at the beginning working relationship hasn't really been formed probably not because it's too early for that type of confrontation the relationship might not be strong enough to hold that I'll call it confrontation but that challenge so if I'm going to talk about transference or talk about my own history being projected onto the other all those things I think I would only start to go down that direction if the relationship with the client was strong enough to be able to take that type of intervention Yeah So whatever I did would be my first thought would be is this in the client's best service clinically for me to share this Yeah It's a really interesting topic Yeah because if you choose to share something like your own history so you know I've been thinking about this because of my own history and actually I might be projecting some of my own stuff on you and I've been thinking about this and I wanted to say this to you because it might not be your own history you wouldn't do that in the first few sessions No absolutely not I'd do that 10 sessions in though you'd have to think about and the other thing you'd have to think about is why you were doing it in the first place Yeah it has to be for the client's best interest but there's also something about if we are so aware of the transference and counter transference that's going on if we can't work through that that we need sometimes to refer a client on Oh Absolutely I don't think people should be working with people Let's give the example I gave So somebody's been adopted or fostered and then the client walks in the door and they want to work on adoption issues or fostered issues or work through all their issues regarding to what we're talking about here and it's not in a place where they can come from adult rather than their own child or parent they definitely shouldn't take them on the first place The unfortunate thing with some clients is that they spring things on us weeks down the line They fall in a difficult position because it's like if they spring things on say 3 or 4 months, 6 months on then you've got to weigh up the ethicality of this Yeah Because they've built a good relationship with you And whether it's for the best of the client to refer them on or whether that's going to fracture the relationship or not, yeah, yeah There's a lot in that But I think the world of transference is a fertile ground for the emergence of blind spots Yeah And it's just to just bring this episode to a close I think the important thing is to be aware of the fact that we have blind spots Oh, everybody does You know what I mean So it's like just knowing that they're there and being aware of what our blind spots potentially are There's certain clients that I won't take on because I know my knowledge, I haven't got enough knowledge around it And I think we're really, before we finish I think a really important place for supervision Yes, yeah Your own therapy, but certainly supervision because for lots of reasons, but you have another level of protection put in there and another level of eyes which is above the transferential matrix which can help the person move their out of awareness blind spot into more of a sort of scene reality So until next time, Bob Interesting subject that though, isn't it? Yes, and the podcast title that we're going to follow on to, I think links in with this, it's the danger of assumption in the therapy process Oh my gosh, well I won't assume too much and I look forward to conversation next week Until next time, Bob, thank you Bye-bye