 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to The Therapy Show behind closed doors with the wonderful Mr. Bob Cook. You're looking very serious today, Bob, and myself, Jackie Jones. And what we're going to be talking about in this episode is repetitive cycles in the therapy room. I was just thinking about what you just said there, that I looked very serious. I wonder if I was looking serious because I was thinking about what I'm going to talk about. Maybe. Or if I was serious just because I'm looking serious. I have no idea. But anyway, either way. I just looked up. I knew you looked very serious, Bob, which isn't like you. You can say all that title is again. It sounded very long. Repetitive cycles in the therapy room. Yes. And you know what, Jackie? You're correct. We're going to talk about in the therapy room. And people, they go through repetitive cycles throughout the whole of their life. Anyway, per se, from beginning to end. Yes. Whether in therapy or not. But we're going to particularly talk about, I think, that process and maybe the destructiveness of some of these patterns and repetitions which aren't useful. Yeah. So. For me, one of the things that kind of came up for me when I was thinking about this title is I've had clients in the past and probably still know that we do some work on something and we seem to be making great progress and everything is going in the right direction. And then it's like we do full circle and go right back to the beginning again. And you know, I could think of one particular client where we've done that numerous times. And in my head, I'm thinking we've been down this road before. Why are we not continuing that way? Why are we keep looping back? And it's obviously because they've not processed it or they've not, it's not come to a conclusion for them or something. The needs haven't been met. I don't know what it is. But yeah. I know one of your favourite books is about, listen in a way, cycles of power. Yeah. Pam Levin. Yeah. Pam Levin. So I know you like the idea of cycles. Yes. And repetitive behaviours aren't far off the idea of cycles. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And people come to therapy really, I think, for a couple of major reasons. One to get a different outcome and secondly to understand themselves. And I think with these repeated patterns, we keep repeating them and repeating them and repeating them and repeating them under the hope that we'll get a different outcome this time. Yeah. Is that a sign of madness though, Bob, when we keep repeating the same behaviour or something? I'll talk about that in a minute. I was about as a hatter, I think. But I just want to say that about three or four podcasts ago, we did a podcast on hope and dread, I think, in the cycle of cycles. Yes, yeah. And I was saying hope is one of the most dangerous words in English literature and one of the most liberating words in English literature. Yeah. But here's the destructiveness. We continue repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating almost like learned behaviour, I believe, for two reasons. One, with the hope things will change and it will get a different outcome. And secondly, to, well, three really, secondly, for a complete structure. But thirdly, there's some relational needs which haven't been met. So keep repeating and repeating. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the other thing before I go into this again is just to acknowledge what you just said there. If you talk to therapists per se, one of their frustrations quite often is that they do lots of good works with clients or they think they do. And then the client repeats old processes over and over and over and over again. And yeah, I think that's borne out of therapist frustrations actually because they want to achieve a quick fix. But I'll get away from that counter-transface. But I think people repeat, as I said, because they want a different outcome. But we have to go, I think, with all repetitive behaviours. We have to go to the need that wasn't met underneath those behaviours. Yeah. In other words, how come these people are carrying out these repetitive patterns over and over and over and over again? And we have to get to the unmet needs and meet the patterns. Yeah. So game theory from TA is a useful piece of theory when we're looking at this. I mean, I know you know this because. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So games, the definition of games and transaction analysis is a series of repetitive, a series of repetitive patterns that we play over and over and over again as a maladaptive way on an attempt to get on these web today. Yeah. Now where we started playing these behavioural patterns out was way back in childhood as a way to survive, but they don't actually completely meet our needs. No, because nobody wins in a game. No one wins, but we may survive. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And it's familiar and we know how it works. And all that sort of stuff. There's a sense of continuity, there's a sense of predictability. Yeah, all those things. Yeah. But we may also just be simply surviving. Yeah. But we have to get to the needs underneath the behaviours for change to occur. Yeah. Are we both agreed on that? Yes, yes. Yeah, definitely. So there's also something for me about having to let something go in order to move on. And sometimes I think we become attached to our pain or our diagnosis or whatever it is. And letting that go is a really big deal for a lot of us. Well, it's a very, very big deal. Yeah. Cricky. I mean, you know, to let go of behavioural patterns, which are the basis of our script, even how, even if it's destructive scripts, if you like, or descriptive, you know, destructive life plans. Yeah. Let that go and put a new life plan on the road. Wow. That's often such a big deal, isn't it? It is. It is. And to me, that's underneath all of this stuff that we're talking about. The fear of letting it go, because often we've lived with it for so long. It's our purpose. It's, yeah. That's correct. So what do you do then when you spot people, TA will be playing games, but in the language is, you know, repeating these destructive behavioural patterns. What's your position as a therapist then? Well, usually I've been in sessions with the client for quite a while if we're repeating patterns of behaviour over and over again. And I do point it out to them. You know, I use humour a lot in the therapy and I will, you know, literally say to them, I feel like we've been here before, or are you getting deja vu or something and kind of point out that, you know, even the words that they're using and everything is literally the same as what it might have been six months ago. And then just open that up, you know, as a communication that we can then discuss, is this something that happens often that we repeat the same behaviour and, you know, yeah, just explore it, be curious. Do you work backwards? Possibly. And I mean thinking about the needs that haven't been met for the behaviours in the first place. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I know we spoke, I don't know whether it was a couple of ones previously episodes about re-parenting, do you know what I mean? And looking at the need that wasn't met. Can we meet our own needs? No. No. Yeah, that's why I was thinking. Yeah, but I was thinking that's an interesting, very interesting question. I said no, I'm a spontaneous, a bit provocative, but I'll be really interested what your pondering or meandering is or thinking behind the question. Well, when I was talking about re-parenting and everything, and, you know, sometimes we get into the relationship with the client in order to, you know, parent them in a more appropriate way to then let them go. Do you know what I mean? It's not about co-creating something where they're dependent on us, but at some point, you know, they've kind of got everything that they need and we can let them go and everything's fine. Oh yeah, I think that's a different process. You know, it's like I often think of my job as a parent with my daughter and when she's now 24, and I think part of my parent is about part of the job as a father is to let go. And it is one of the most difficult things as a parent is to let go. So yes, and hopefully I've done a good enough job in terms of developmentally helping a medium met needs that perhaps were met, you know. So I think the significant other person, the parent, almost, you know, is developmentally, you know, anticipates the needs of the child and as the child grows up, developmentally goes to the developmental tasks, etc, etc, they work through those needs, satisfies those needs and move on. If that's not, if those needs haven't been met for mutuality, for self-definition, for self-agency, you know, if they have a need to express that, if they haven't been met, I think what happens is, is the infant child growing up will, how can I explain this, play out patterns of behaviors in an attempt to get those needs met from others? Yeah. Because they weren't met by the significant others. Yeah. And I think that will happen through our life. And you will see in numerous films, books, romantic stories, the people that play out with other people, often very destructive behaviors in an attempt to get the recognition they never got from their father for acceptance or their mother. Yeah. So we know that happens. Yeah. Yeah. So it's impossible to get, it's impossible to meet our own needs. And most people come to therapy anyway, who are wrestling with unmet needs, are attempting to get those needs met through the therapist. Or even if they don't come to therapy, they attempt to get those needs through, those unmet needs through relationships and often, often destructive relationships and, and so forth while they come to therapy. Yeah. Because those unmet needs have never been met. So they play out these repetitive behavioral cycles in an attempt to get a different outcome and get their needs met that would never met all those years ago. Yeah. I agree with what you're saying. Yeah, I do agree with what you're saying, but there's something for me about, I don't know, if we can't meet our own needs and validate ourselves and all that sort of stuff that we're constantly demanding it from the people around us. And what I'm seeing is Jackie, I was sort of puzzled because what is wrong with that? It's like if we haven't had those processes and we've not had the recognition, we've not had the validation, how can we thrive? Now, fortunately, you know, in 1984, and it wasn't, wasn't me saying I need to go to therapy. Actually, someone came up to me and said, would you like to come to therapy? So I went into therapy for a very, very long time. And you could even still say I am now. And through that process with the significant person, it led the way to me being able to get to a lot of the validation and recognition and the needs which I never had as a child from a significant other person today. And therefore, different narratives, a sense of self esteem and resilience was built. You cannot do it if you don't get it. It's impossible in my head. Yes. Yeah. And I do, I do agree with you. But is it a constant thing that we're constantly looking for recognition and validation throughout our life? Yes. I believe. Okay. I believe that. Now, now then we're into a whole other concept which you're talking about, I think, is if things like overindulgence, things like always searching and searching and searching and searching and searching. But you see, I believe that if we get the right nurturance, the right validation, the right love, we move on from that. Okay. Yeah. We don't get stuck when outside. I have to go back a bit because when I said we're always looking for those validation and recognition and all that sort of stuff, I think we are. But as we get our pot full, we don't do that so intensely. Yeah. Yeah. It's more an entitlement through life. We don't have that intense yearning for what we didn't have. So therefore we don't go into the destructive cycles. We pick people who will be having the same script as us and we don't then spend the life of misery and yearning searching for that process which we've never had. That intensity is not there. There's been a sense of healing and a sense of transformation. Yes. I do agree with that and I do get that. And the relational needs that we have, we never lose those. The need for the other to initiate and all that sort of stuff. We don't get it once and then that keeps us going forevermore. We're constantly searching for that. So I do understand that. Yeah. I don't research. I think it's part, well perhaps it is search, but I think it's part of connection. Yes. Yeah. And getting our needs met is part of a social arena. Yes. And in my head, I think that's fine. Yeah. And I think what made sense for me was when you was talking about the urgency and the intensity of wanting, the more that we get our needs met, the less intense we are and the less urgent it is. Yeah. I think it's transformation then. Yeah. I think that's the healing. Yeah. We can rest in peace then. So as therapists, it's our job to notice this repetitive cycle and take that as their needs still haven't been met. They're still looking for the recognition, the validation and that's okay. Whatever it was. Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. Absolutely correct. Yeah. And all romantic stories, all many of the soaps, a lot of the dramas on television, they're all about what we're talking about right now. Yeah. I do agree with what you said earlier on as well. I'm agreeing with a lot of what you say about that. If a therapist is feeling uneasy about this, it's because they're looking for a quick fix. Yeah. I think so. And is it something to do with our ego as therapists that we've been here once? Yeah. Why are you doing this again? Yeah. I wrote, as I said, the five, I wrote something called the five most effective qualities that a therapist needs to cultivate. Number one was humour, I think in my list. Number two was patience. Yeah. Yeah. To develop patience. And we have to understand that even if we go back 50 times, 60 times, 70 times, there's a reason for why we're doing that. And sometimes we also have to confront those behaviours. Yeah. In the caring position. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And what is being unmet or what is it that you're attempting to tell me that isn't being told was to go back and back this way? Yeah. That's what I mean by caring confrontation. Yeah. And I think, like I said, you know, I have pointed out to clients, it's a bit like deja vu, I feel like we've been here before. What's that about? Yeah. So, yes, I do understand that. Yeah. Like breaking it, it's like the two of you breaking a code. Yes. Yeah. And it takes a long time to break that code. Yeah, because the client doesn't know how to do it. Yeah. They haven't got the tools. They don't understand the understandable. Yeah. So it needs the therapist's patience, their wisdom, their caringness, their compassion to go to those places many, many times and eventually will crack the code together. Yeah. And it's a really good way of putting it because we are very complex creatures and it's not, there isn't a book that tells us how to do all of this because we're all unique and we're all individual and we're really clever at working out how to survive and cover our tracks very well. Yeah, though I'm writing a book. Yeah. Did this code called the Psychotherapy Cookbook? You're writing a book? Yeah, called Psychotherapy Cookbook. I need a copy when it's done. I won't be done for a while because I'm one of the worst person disciplining myself but I'm taking out of the basic mental health issues of the day, depression, anxiety, stress, etc., etc. And looking at the ingredients that make up these ailments and how we can have different ingredients in our cake. I love that. And it is true. I just think we're really good writing our scripts at a really young age and locking it and throwing the key away and often we need the key to get in there and work it all out. Absolutely right. So it's about and we do that to survive. Yes. And then we realise it's a survival is, you know, not just what it's all about. We need to, you know, we need to help to find the key to have a different type of life. Yeah. When we go to therapy. Yeah. I will never go to therapy. I started to go to a lot of personal growth groups in the beginning of the 80s and that led to a situation where a therapist came up to me and said, you know, would you like to have some therapy? Basically, it wasn't quite like that. I was thinking that because it's not very ethical, is it? It's not very ethical. We're talking about the middle 80s. You need a bit of therapy. Yeah, middle 1980s or something. It wasn't quite like that. I was saying a bit simplistically. But I was ready to go into therapy, I think, you know, and it needed the help of a compassionate, caring, loving other person to stay with me while I went through a lot of those destructive patterns. And eventually, you know, together, we found the code. Does it depend? Like, I'm going to ask you a direct question. Was your therapist a female or a male? A female. My first ever therapist was a female. Do you think that makes a difference? Like if your needs weren't met by your mum, are you more likely to do better work with a female therapist? Well, I think you definitely have a podcast on this. Okay. Definitely. But I'm going to answer that direct question so you can ask me directly. I think this is the perfect grounds for a therapist. But as you asked me directly, for me personally, you know, it was important that I had a female therapist. I did pick a female therapist. I can assure you, or perhaps I did somewhere in the fate and, you know, whatever we believe in. So maybe, maybe I did. But ostensibly, it was a, you know, a female that that I first went into therapy with. And for me personally, and it's a really big question you ask, actually, it was important it was a female. Now you can ask lots of other people and then I say theoretically, it doesn't matter. That's why I said this should be a really good podcast because actually, I think it probably does. But we need another podcast to talk through all this lot. But theoretically, many therapists as well, it shouldn't matter. And, you know, I've done lots of this about my father, by the way, I've done lots of, but would I, you know, it's really interesting question. However, for me personally, I think it was the love and connection from a female that I needed at that time in my life to be able to go to where I have, you know, where I've now achieved to go to, you know, in terms of male. But I'm glad I started with a female. I love our podcast, Bob, and the conversations that we have because in the conversations that we have, there's a lot of curiosity for me that comes up that I think is helping me as a therapist. I've never even thought to that before about does it make a difference whether it's a male or a female? When we're looking at getting our unmet needs met. Theoretically, most people or a lot of them would say no. Yeah. But I think we need the space for a much larger discussion. I mean, I could say, I could sit here and say, well, I'm not ready because eventually, you know, I also needed to work around the male and perhaps you could even argue I needed to do it needed to do it more. However, in terms of a starting point, I think it was important that we started with a female for me. Because I'm not sure that clients think about that when they're picking a therapist. I always ask them. Do you? What if they prefer a male or a female? I do all the assessments of the institute. So I could be six, seven, eight a week. In the, in the half an hour assessments, I always ask them that. Yeah. Now, you know, I was like, oh, it doesn't matter. You know, I don't matter. It doesn't really matter female or therapist. But if I broke down, I would think I maybe is 50, 50. They say female, male, male, female, whatever it is, invariably quite a lot. So I never thought about it. Then you ask them again. So, but when you push them again, they often said, well, I'd actually think might be better with a man. And then we have a discussion about that. So I always ask them out of courtesy and taking account of gender. Yeah. Interesting. It should be a pop cut on itself. Yeah. Oh, I've written it down so that we can do it. But I'm not sure what the title of it will be. Oh, how do, how do, you know, something like, it's an important, I don't know the title either. I have to think about that. Well, that's it. I know it's an important podcast. Yes. I've written it down. So that wonderful. So it's okay. We, it's okay. I think that's wrong. We're pretty much guaranteed to see repetitive cycles in the therapy room. Always. Yeah. I don't like saying 100% in psychotherapy, but I'm saying 100% here. And, you know, we can look for positive destructive, sorry, positive cycles. Usually people come in, of course, with destructive cycles. Yeah. With an attempt to have a different outcome. Yes. Yeah. But game playing in the therapy room is, you know, is really what it's all about, isn't it? In transaction analysis, they defined a game. This is why you're using the word games, which I'm not sure why. And this is a personal thing, Jackie. It's really personal. They aren't sure I like the word game. Because some people then take it negatively, they're responsible for game playing. And I always have to point out, you know, this is not what it's about. A game, if you want to use the word game, is a series of behaviors that we play and that we've learned in childhood as a way of surviving and getting our needs met. And as well, the thing that I say to clients all the time is that it's a subcon that we're not aware that we're playing the game. It's not that we set out to play this game. So it's not an intentional act. Yeah. It's a behavioral cycle, behavior pattern that we choose not necessarily from our awareness, as a way of surviving and getting needs best met as we can. Yes. Back in the day, maybe it doesn't work. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. It's an outdated process and it needs updating. Yeah. I think when I talk about this, most, well, all clients think that it's a conscious thing that they're doing, whether playing with the other person's feelings or emotions and they're playing a game. And it's like, no, that's not what it is. T.A. that's really defined by burn. And you know, you just said in life, people pay these patterns out. Yeah. And of course, people will come to therapy. I think it's the therapy's duty to look at these cycles and patterns that are played out in a destructive way, which nowadays don't help us, especially in communication and relationships. Yeah. And it is about being curious and peeling back the layers and working it out. And sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we get it right. And that's part of the process. Yeah. Lots of inquiry for me about it. Thank you, Bob. Be more. Yeah. You literally, every conversation that we have, I get so curious about things. And yeah, I really enjoy these. Yeah. So the next episode is 100, Bob. Oh, absolutely. I'm going to get the champagne, as I said, I'm going to toast ourselves and all the people listening. And the subject matter we've chosen is change. Change. The importance of the concept of change in the therapy process. Yeah. Absolutely. And of course, we're also going to talk about celebrating the positive changes as well. But that's a wonderful title for the 100th podcast. Yes. Because I think with the podcast, what we can do is have a season. So this is the end of season one. And we can start season two with episode 101. That's one way to look at it. Yeah. That's a marvelous way to look at it. Yeah. Okie dokie. I look forward to that, Jackie. Okie dokie. Until next time, Bob. See you soon. Take care. 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.