 So another view, of course, is some people might take, and I think Claude Steiner did, he was a prodigal stunner at Eric Byrne, was that once the contract has been achieved, that could be seen as therapeutic cure, for example, so people have different versions. I would imagine that most people think that that is the therapeutic cure, if they've put something down on the contract, what they want to get out of therapy, and then that is reached and it comes to a conclusion, then that theoretically is therapeutic cure. But I quite like the thing about script, I quite like that. Yeah, the idea that once we've moved away from our script, our dysfunctional script, and put a new script on the road, that could be seen as therapeutic cure. 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 episode 90 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones, and the wonderful Mr Bob Cook. Hello, hello. I always like it when you say wonderful Bob Cook, you say many different things, I think you said the delicious Bob Cook last time, or the time before. Enlightful and delicious, yeah. It's taken away from all this rain we have. Yes, I know, the weather is not good. So what we're going to be talking about in this episode, episode 90, is what do you mean by therapeutic cure? How have we gotten back to 90? I was looking the other day at the number one we did, which was introducing... Introduction, yeah, many moons ago. Many moons ago, and I thought, gosh, I look so youthful then. I don't think it's the podcasters have aged me. I think we're doing really well with these, I know we've mentioned it before, but a lot of people start podcasts and just don't continue them. So the fact that we're up to episode 90, and that we've still got listeners. Oh, listeners are going up and up and up and up. Yeah, whether they prefer to watch it on the video so they can see us, or whether they just want to listen to us on the podcast. But yeah, the numbers are increasing, which is brilliant. So a big thank you to everybody out there. Yeah, thank you. So the title is, say it again. The title is, what do we mean by therapeutic cure? Oh, gosh, that's a question and a half. It is, because it does cure mean different things for different people. I think so. I mean, you and I were trained originally in our first trainings by Eric, you know, transactional analysis. Eric Byrne was the originator of the PAC model that's parent adult child, which formed the basis of the concept of transactional analysis. And he, when he talked about cure, and he did quite a lot. He talked about different types of cure. So he talked about script cure. Yeah. He talked about psychoanalytical cure. He talked about transactional cure. That was in 1968, 69 up to date, of course, people when people talk about cure, Richard Erskine talks about cure in different ways. And many people talk about cure in many, many different facets. But I think the question you've just asked is really crucial. Around, well, what, you know, is the different types and different meanings of therapy to cure. And I bet your bottom dollar, if we took nine people off the street, they'd all have different versions of what cure might be. Yeah. Let's say Eric Byrne talked about transactional cure, talked about, I think it was psychoanalytical, psychoanalytical cure. He talked about, so he talked about various lots of cure. So I can start there. I mean, I think it is book, I don't know which book is it, Scripts People. Once you say how to say hello was it Scripts Book? Well, I think he talked about script cure. Yeah. And what he meant by that was, if we take the term script to mean an unconscious life plan, then he would talk about that once we've moved away from our script and put a new script on the road, we have a variant of therapeutic cure. Yeah. So another view, of course, is some people might take and I think Claude Steiner did, he was a prodigal stunner, Eric Byrne, was that once the contract has been achieved, that could be seen as therapeutic cure. Yeah. For example, so people have different versions. Yeah, yeah. But I would imagine that most people think that that is the therapeutic cure. If they've like put something down on the contract, what they want to get out of therapy and then that is reached and it comes to a conclusion, then that theoretically is therapeutic cure. But I quite like the thing about script. I quite like that. Yeah, the idea that once we've moved away from our script, our dysfunctional script and put a new script on the road. Yeah. Yeah, that could be seen as therapeutic cure. Byrne also talked about what he's termed transferential cure. And of course, what he means by that is that people might leave therapy, having achieved their contract or achieved their goal, but they're still in transference with the therapist. So it's been the therapist who's provided the therapeutic potency, if you like, or the therapist may still be in their own narrative in the client's head, and they feel a lot better. And he called that transferential cure. Which we've kind of touched on that topic in the past about, you know, the part that the therapist plays in the cure and, you know, whether I think I was saying about becoming the crutch and we were talking about, you know, transferable objects and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. There's also transformational cure. People talk a lot about today. And that's when people have, you know, in therapy have had some sort of transformation, positive transformation. They may see that as therapeutic cure, which of course has to align in with the contractual process being achieved. And that could be called cure. Yeah. So I think people have different versions of what cure means. I do like the idea of script cure, Richard Erskine talked a lot about that. The cure for him was, I think, I can't quote him too much because I can't remember where the article was. But once we let go of the dysfunctional life path that was holding ourselves back, then we put a new healthy script on the road. That would be called cure, if you like. Yeah. Yeah, because there's some I don't know whether it's because of what I've been through over these past 12 months or not, but I've been thinking a lot about, you know, we're constantly changing as human beings. You know, we were evolving all the time and, you know, life events happen and all this sort of stuff. So, you know, I'm curious as to whether there's ever just one cure. No, that's, I really agree with you here. That is why when people talk about contracts and contractual theory being so central to transaction analysis, for example, and people come in with a contract and burn you should talk about contracts being specific observable. And, you know, it's like, often as a person deals with or changes or achieves what their focus or contract was, another one may appear. Yeah. It's like going through the layer of onions. Yeah, when does it ever change. So for example, I'm going to probably be, I mean, I've been in a sort of a therapeutic group for a very long time, last 10 or 11 years, meets twice a year, and I'll probably be ending that soon. When I look back and am I ending because I feel cured in a general sense. No, I'm ending because I feel this right time to end. I've done a lot of good work where I've achieved certain goals and certain contracts. Am I cured from, you know, all the things that have been so challenging to me, probably not but I have actually are able to deal with those challenges better. Yeah, I don't say in the same sort of hole that I used to fall down I get out quicker. So I'm not sure if we ever get inadvertent commerce cured in that sort of all encompassing way. Yeah. And I think it's good that you've shared that Bob as well because, you know, and again, this could just be the way that I think about it. But I think sometimes people think that, you know, therapist counselors, you know, psychotherapists or whatever have got all the stuff sorted out. You know what I mean that we don't have issues. We know what to do when something happens and we've got it all sorted and life's wonderful. And that's not always the case. We need support. We need, you know, whether it's supervision or whether it's our own personal therapy, because life happens to us as well. Yes. And of course, the therapist that don't have their own therapy or the therapist who believe they've done, I don't know, 20 sessions of therapy, they don't have to do anymore. They're the therapist usually that have challenges and run into problems at a clinical level. Yeah. Yeah. And it's about being authentic and understanding and noticing when when we we do need to take a break or when things are getting too much for us because we can't serve our clients if we're not looking after ourselves. It's that what comes first the chicken or the egg type thing. No, it's impossible. And I believe, you know, many people probably don't believe this. That's fine. You know, I believe it's ridiculous to go down the line that BACP go down, which says that you don't need to have any therapy at all. And, you know, most of the courses perhaps only demand 20 or 40 hours of therapy in the whole of their three years of training. I think that's just not like really because it doesn't protect the client. It doesn't protect the therapist either. You need at least a big chunk. UK CP says basically 160 hours over the four year of training. I would go further than that. I understand that. I think that's a good chunk. However, I will go further and say, you know, in this job, I've always been triggered by many, many things that clients bring to me. More as I've gone on. So I've always believed in support for myself. And it's really helped me. And I say I've been in the job 35 years as a clinician and without my own therapy, I think the job would have been too difficult for me, actually. Yeah. Or at least it would have been more challenging to me. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Yeah. I was just wondering when you said about the BACP, you know, and not it's not on the criteria or whatever, but yet supervision is do you think that they see supervision as personal therapy? I have no idea what goes through that regulating body's head. So no, I put that in a positive life. I think the major reason is, is because out of there, they've got about 30,000 members in the business association counseling for psychotherapy. And the last time I had this conversation, some of the regulating body of the BACP, which is probably 20 years ago now, and we're talking this sort of thing. They said, Oh, well, 20,000 of our membership. They, they, they, you know, don't need counseling per se, because they work. They may need some six or seven sessions, maybe because they're working in a situation in the workplace, where they just use some of their counseling skills. So they don't need to have in depth counseling or in depth therapy. Right. So that's the sort of counselors in the workplace that would offer six sessions or something. Yeah, which is different. Yeah, the problem is, of course, that might be the case for a large amount of the BACP. But for all the others that are counselors or therapists listen to this, who may see clients for six months, eight months, 10 months, a year, two years, three years. Yeah. Yeah. So I do, I do think it is important that we take care of ourselves. I couldn't agree more. So when we talk about cure, you know, as you reflect on cure, you know, in terms of you've been working clinically for a long time, how do you see cure personally and professionally? It's kind of like what I touched on. I do see cures when, you know, the contractors come to its conclusion and the client has achieved whatever it was that they set out to achieve in it. But it's, it's like it on a loop. Do you know what I mean? Once they've achieved that, is there going to be something else that they want to achieve that then starts to cycle off again? So I'm not sure whether we ever actually get to, I don't even know what cure is in a therapeutic sense to be perfectly honest, Bob. Usually, I think it's like dominoes. Yeah. If you dislodge one domino, you know, we may actually dislodge another one. Yeah. Yeah. Dislodge another one. We can often dislodge another one. Yeah. So as people come to you contractually, usually in my experience, other things get dislodged and then there's another contract or another focus. And that's how it goes. And this is kind of just triggered something else for me. You know, I've been on lots of different training courses. I've done NLP and a bit of hypnotherapy and a bit of all sorts of stuff. And one of the criticisms that I hear an awful lot about therapy is that it's never ending. It's always ongoing. You know, whereas counsellors, it might be a six or eight week sessions or, you know, with hypnotherapy, it's two sessions and then everything's fine. And it's, that to me is exactly the reason because we're constantly evolving and we sort one thing out and then there's something else. And it's, it's kind of like people want to rush through it and get to the end and be cured. And I don't know whether we, that's ever possible. When life happens and we change and we evolve and we grow up and we go from being single to married to a mum or a dad or, and then we grieve. And even that shit happens, Bob. Yeah, it depends on you by cure again. I mean, if we mean complete cure of all our ills, wards. On suffering. Then then it's that's a life's journey, I think. Yeah. If we just come in and say something like, well, I'm depressed and I want to be more relaxed. Maybe, I don't know, maybe it was time we're able to be more relaxed. Yeah, we can handle the depression in a more healthy way. That's more specified. Yeah, like, yeah. But in terms of all things I've just said, this overall arching aspect of cure, I think is a lifelong journey. I agree, but that's not to say, like you said, that, you know, the specific cure, we can't go on in life and be better able to cope with what life throws at us. You know, every step of the way we, you know, we're pointed in the right direction and we're going to be getting, you know, more well as we go along. But yeah, I wouldn't like to say that I've been cured yet. But when I look back at, I say, my professional personal life, I mean, I went, the beginning was personal therapy, and I've had quite a bit of therapy and I would say that my life, or I changed my life. Look at this dramatically in many different ways through therapy. And that doesn't mean I will go to my, you know, rave saying that I've been cured. I would go say there's been through therapy, there's been a positive, positive transformation. Yeah. And life was much more beneficial for me. Yeah. Do I still have vulnerabilities? Do I still have difficult times? Yes. Can I handle it better? I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. I kind of feel the same way now. If I get in a funk, you know, if something happens, I don't stay in it as long as what I used to do. It would be weeks, weeks and weeks I could hold on to something, whereas now I kind of am more aware of my triggers and how I respond and react to things and I can move out of my scripted stuff a lot quicker. But I still go in it, I still get caught up in it now and then. Yeah. So I think there's a difference between long term psychotherapy, medium therapy if you want, and short term therapy. Yeah. It's fine if somebody wants to come to therapy and deal with something specific and that might only take three months, six months. Yeah. It's fine if they go on and deal with other things that have been dislodged in the process and it's also fine. If they leave as well having cured that aspect, say agriphobia or whatever it is specifically. In my experience, people change the degree where they'd be able to cope with certain aspects of life better and more healthily. And they might call that cool. Yeah. I don't think there's any other place where you get the same that you do in a therapy room. Yeah, you can talk to your friends and you can talk to your family, you can get support and everything, but to get, you know, non-judgmental, safe space and everything. I think everybody should have therapy. It's a matter of course, all the time. Yeah. Unfortunately, the economic situation with lots of people hinders that, but in an ideal world I completely agree with you. And you know, when I hear about people who say, well, I was in therapy and I went into therapy because of my obsessions and I now understand where those obsessions came from. I understand the function of those obsessions. And I can deal with it in a more peaceful manner or those demons don't attack me so much. I think that's cure. Yeah. Yeah. That would be to cure, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And like I said at the beginning, it's what is cure for that person. And if that person is OK with the level that they're at, then that is cure. Yeah. And I think the therapist has a big part in this, in the sense of, which is another podcast again, perhaps, but we'll bring it into this one. And that is in inverted commas, letting the client go. Yeah. Because that's something we can talk about in this aspect. And that is the therapist who, for whatever reasons, might need the client to stay in therapy to meet their own needs or, well, let's just leave it there. And so the client stays too long in therapy if you want to put it that way. And so I think the therapist needs to actually, with the client, have focus, perhaps have a bilateral contract where they both agree and they both discuss endings, transitions to endings. Yeah. And the therapist might often give permission if you want to put that term for the client to move on. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it's important for clients, you know, once they've moved on to, you know, if they wanted to come back to therapy to try another therapist? I thought you were going to say something there and completely I thought you were going to say, is it OK for the client to come back occasionally? And I was in my head then going to talk about maintenance contracts where some people come back because, you know, they feel they wanted some support to be able to, you know, get on with life or to be able to just come back and have some support in the changes they're making, which I call maintenance contracts. Can you say a maintenance contract is kind of like coming back once a month or once in a couple of months rather than regularly every week? Yeah. I think I've been wrong with that. Yeah. But you didn't ask me that question. No. So what was the other one you asked me? Just whether you would ever advise a client if they had a break and then came back to you to try a different therapist. Oh gosh. Because we all, we all have our pies differently, I would imagine. Yes, we've got the same basic training, but the way we are in the therapy room. Well, I can answer that one. I've certainly done it in assessments where, you know, a person that I have passed on to a therapist and then they come back to three years later. And I say, how did you get out with that therapist? They said really good. And then we have a discussion about whether they want to go on to another therapist or go back to the original therapist. So I certainly have pointed different directions there. However, if you talk about personally with me, has a client come back to me and said, and I've said, you know, we could continue XXX or I could point to someone else. No, I never have. I think it's okay to do that. Yes, because I don't think there's any absolute psychotherapist. Psychotherapy. They don't think there's an absolute right way or wrong way to do therapy. So would have I had conversations about going to a different therapist? Yes. Has it, has it happened? No. So it's an interesting one. There's a lot. There's a lot in that question, you know, like how come somebody comes back to you in the first place? You know, what are they projecting on you and what do they expect you to answer? We talk a long way about that. So in the main when people come back to me, they come back to me because they want to be with me. Yeah, yeah. And they're good service last time and all these things. They don't come back and then say, well, perhaps I need another therapist. Could you recommend one? Yeah, I think it's been mentioned to me in the past and one of the things that, you know, clients will say is I don't want to have to go through it all again with somebody new. Yeah, that's the problem. They kind of want to start off where they are now going forward rather than having to go back and revisit certain things that they've already worked through. Yeah. Absolutely. That's very, very common sentence. And I usually say, suppressing the assessment process is what do you don't have to start again with someone new if you don't want to wringing them up. Yeah. Well, it's going to help us another whole podcast, but it's just an interesting discussion. As for cure, I think you're in the end is up to the client how they see cure while they have a therapist secure. Yeah. The therapists can talk about how they see cure and it can be a bilateral discussion. But in the end, if that's up to the remit for the client, I think. Yeah. And we need to support them in whatever that decision is when they reach a conclusion to it. Yeah. Like you say, it's not it's not down to us to say whether they have or haven't been cured. Yeah, I think the discussion is much more is about really, in some ways, how people sabotage cure. Yeah. Yeah, and then there's the people who that's another topic for a podcast. Yeah. Then there's the people who want to, from their own script position, leave therapy early. Yeah. Oh, they think they might be cured, whatever cure is, and we're having this discussion now. And of course, it's been behavioral cure rather than the wheel transformational cure. So I do think that the therapist needs to discuss the process with the client and with where the client goes. But I think there's there is something in the duty of care for the therapist to give some of their own thoughts. Yeah. I'd have that discussion. Yeah. I mean, you must have had it yourself for clients about, is it the right time to end? Am I sabotaging endings? Have I completed my contract or is the more you must have had that conversation? Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think for some clients, I felt like they're going over old ground again, like they don't want to actually end. So they kind of go back and stops. And it's kind of like, you know, this is not what I would say to them, but it's kind of like, hang on a minute, we've been through this. We've, you know, reached a conclusion with this. Why are we going back to that now? Was if there's a fear of actually being out in the big wide world on their own? And often there is. Yeah. There actually is. Which is where the maintenance contract would come in really handy with people. Yeah. And it may not be the right time to end. But I think it's very important in the sense of termination to have the discussion. Yeah. And maintenance contracts are very popular and they're very common where people may come back, you know, I don't know, four times a year or something like that. Yeah. And I think it's a good way of helping people re-enter, if you like, and integrate some of the changes they've made and still have some support. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's a really valid point is letting them, you know, try it out and see how it goes, you know, integrate their learning and the things that they've done and see how it pans out for them, knowing that you're still there if they need it. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot in that discussion, but I think that as time has gone more and more my career, I've liked that idea. So cure is a very big subject area. It is. But this is important to think about. And I say, Eric Byrne, I think, besides talking about different types of cure, symptomatic cure, transventional cure, psychoanalytic cure, he did also link cure to contracts. Yeah. And I mean, Steiner particularly, and I think also burning his book, which is after talks about cure can also be seen in terms of when the dysfunctional script has been let go of the new script. The positive one has, you know, started to be actioned or put on the road. And I think, you know, talking about that with it being, you know, when the contract has been completed, just to touch on it kind of shines a light on why it's so important that the contract is quite specific to start off with. You know, often clients will come and when I say, you know, what do you want to get out of therapy? They'll say, I want to be happier. How do we know when you're happier? What is it on the scale of one to 10? You know, so the contracts at the beginning need to be quite specific as to what they want to be able to achieve. Yeah. And also observable. Yes. Yeah. And finishable. Yeah. Yeah. How will we know when we've achieved it? What, you know, what will life be like for you? Yeah. I mean, I think one of our early, early podcasts, maybe six or seven was contracts part one and followed up by contracts part two. Yeah. All about this. I don't think we linked it to the idea of cure though. No. Certainly one way of looking at it. Yeah. I really enjoyed that, Bob. Thank you. It's a very interesting, and I think it's also important for therapists to think about all this, particularly in a, in this whole process about bilateral discussion about when the therapist has finished it and whether it's linked to contracts or not. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So what we're going to be talking about in the next one, episode 91 is how do we deal with feelings in therapy? Oh, one of my favorite subjects. Whether it's ours or theirs or anybody's, I don't know, whatever comes up. I feel excited about this one. Okay, okay, Bob. Until next time. Yeah, thank you. See you soon. 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.