 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 Close Doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to the next episode of The Therapy Show behind Close Doors with myself Jackie Jones and the wonderful, as always, Mr Bob Cook and what we're going to be, say again, just sitting down here, just sitting down and sorting himself out, making myself comfortable for the next half hour. Yes, half an hour, I'll remember that. Or whatever we do. You're responsible for the time. I know, but it's shutting you up sometimes, Bob. It's difficult. What we're going to be talking about in this podcast is five things I wish I'd known before I became a psychotherapist. Interesting topic. Yeah, I'd be interesting for the people listening. I know they're going to listen to what we're going to come up with. It would be interesting for the people listening to just think about, well, I wonder what things I wish I'd known before I stepped into this career. And feel free to comment on the YouTube channel or on Spotify and let us know. Yeah, there might be different doors similar. You kick off then. Probably one of the things I wish I'd known was that I need to be all things to all people as in a marketing person, a business person, being self-employed for me was a big wake up call. And I know not everybody who's a psychotherapist is self-employed. They can be employed by somebody else, but the business side of things I haven't got a clue about. Okay, so what you wish you'd known more about was that not so much about being a successful, effective psychotherapist, but in terms of selling yourself afterwards so that you can get out to people publicly and also to mean economically as well. Of course, that your practice will flourish. Yes, I didn't think about that at all. I just thought people would automatically come and find me. Yes, so it's like you're, which is very, I think very, it's a compliment to you that where you were coming from, which is very much is about how can I be an effective psychotherapist to my best abilities to help people rather than thinking, well, you know, how can I actually be associated? I don't know when you started, but in my day, social media wasn't around. So there we are. But how can I be on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn and all that sort of stuff? Yeah. Because when I started, none of that was there. Well, no, I can remember when I was doing my training that, you know, they were talking about yellow pages when they started. And, you know, but now you need to be a social media guru. Like you said, you know, with Facebook, with Instagram, with TikToks, with all this sort of stuff, it's not just putting it in the yellow pages, Google, having, you know, Google advertisements. Now, most of my clients come from Google. They've found me on the internet. And so I'm assuming as you've gone along, you've become quite a fairy with these social media platforms today, then. I've become better. I wouldn't say I'm all fair with them. But it's, you know, it's not a full time job being a psychotherapist. It's like half of my days spent on doing marketing and business admin and all that sort of stuff, which I didn't foresee at all. No, I didn't either, actually, though, probably a little bit more than you. In another vein, I always, it's interesting, because actually, I don't know where this has come from. But anyway, I'll go on. I was going to say, I'll not continue saying, I always, always from the beginning, believe very much in putting eight or nine percent of what I earned into advertising. And that was always, I was just thinking where that came from. I must have heard somebody. That's a really good thing to have, though, Bob. Absolutely. And I remember, it took a lot out of me because I did. The training was very expensive. And when I started to see clients, of course, it's like, well, eight percent of all I earn going back into advertising, yellow pages and all sorts of other things. But I stuck to it. And I think I started to develop. I didn't start to because I realised it worked out. And when people came, my advertising worked, I realised that's the way to go. And I always followed it. Yeah. I think there's a tipping point with it. Do you know what I mean? When it's a struggle when you're first starting off, but then the more clients you get, the easier it becomes. And there's that point where it's just like the wheels are turning and everything is okay. But it is a struggle when you first start. Well, even today, I take, well, four weeks ago, the bill is waiting for me to pay, I put and spent £1,500 on a full page in the UK CP magazine. That's our regulating body or the equivalent would be BACP. Because they're both as expensive. Advertising the next two conferences I do. So the one thing I haven't done so well in all this lot is chasing where the people come from. So the other thing with what you've just said, is it takes a lot of courage at the beginning to do that, I believe. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That tipping point, to the get to that tipping point. Yeah. It's like a step into blind faith. Yeah. In other words, I hope it works. And I think that maybe another thing that I didn't realise before I started is the longevity of it, that, you know, 12 months, two years into it, that's when you start reaping the rewards of the work that you were doing 12 months, two years ago. You can't come into this and expect everything to just fall at your feet in the first six months, unless you're very lucky. Well, if I look at my career, well, I'm really bearing out what you said. Yeah, the work that you do before building the structures of the house or the platform, whatever it is, means that the house, the structures will not only build, but build up in a, you know, substantial structures. And if you've got structures, then the rest will follow. Absolutely. Good foundations. That's what we need. So that's a really good, that's a really interesting one. I'll share then my first, I wish I'd really understood that how much of my own therapy I needed to do to become the therapist I needed to be. Yeah. And never really, I went into therapy before I became a psychotherapist. So I was a politics lecturer. And my, you know, psychological emotional side of myself wasn't that healthy. It took me into therapy. And at that time, I had no idea I wanted to be a psychotherapist. And it was in the first year of that that my eyes opened up to the power of psychotherapy, because I started to feel better, if you like, I don't know, better's the right word. Yeah. And by chance, somebody said to me at a party I was at actually, that they were going to train to be a psychotherapist, why don't you do it. And it was a bit of a while before I decided to leave the career that I was in. As a politics lecturer to be a psychotherapist. But at no time did I think that I would be in psychotherapy for the rest of my career. And I'm one happy person that you did, Bob. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think about it. I didn't think about the cost to it. I don't mean financial cost. I mean, the emotional cost, well, financial cost is with it. But actually, I didn't think about it. I did I did remortgage my house to pay for my training at therapy. Wow, that's commitment. Yeah. And it all came from the power of therapy. In other words, how I started to change. Yeah. But I didn't ever put the two together, unbelievably. But I would, how important it was that I stayed in in my own therapy and just had myself so that I could do the best job for the clients. I understood that as it went on. Yeah, yeah. I never really, I never thought, for goodness sake, when I started to be a psychotherapist, I've been in therapy for a year, I didn't think I then would have access to therapy for the rest of my life. I didn't think that I would believe, I didn't back then, that to be a successful psychotherapist, you always need to have access to therapy and have an actual priority to dealing with your own trauma. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's like that age old saying about, you know what I mean? There's a reason why you were told to put on our oxygen mask first before we help other people. We've got to be in the right place emotionally and mentally in order to do the best for our clients. And I've always, intellectually, can understand this. But there's a part of myself which says that I never really understand why people who come into our profession training-wise don't understand that. Yeah. I didn't understand it. I didn't think that I would have to have talking to you now, but it became a mantra of mine. I do understand intellectually at one level, of course. In other words, it might be too overwhelming, too frightening, too economically expensive, many other things. So people don't spend the money or many other things to understand themselves and move on. I do understand that. And then at another level, if you're asking you own clients to do that, I think it's, I don't know what I think, I think it's a bit, I don't like what hypocritical, but it's not very good modeling that you don't do yourself. Yeah. So I really wish I'd understood that when I started because if I did, what I have gone for probably still would have done because I was in therapy. I understood the power of therapy, but I didn't really realize that I was still being therapy dealing with my own traumas and perhaps not once a week, of course, but have access to therapy at the end of my career. Yeah. I think once you're in this job, you're just part of a different world where it's okay to share experiences and thoughts and feelings and all that sort of stuff. It's more acceptable somehow. That's true. That's true. Okay, second one for you then, Jackie. Second one for me, some things that I've written down about self-care, which I suppose links into what you were saying with the therapy side of things and knowing when you sometimes need to take a break. Life has a way of throwing us a curveball and we need to be our own priority. If we're not in the best shape, then we need to be aware that we're not going to be very good at being a therapist. I couldn't agree more with you and I think that's probably not taught enough in the trainings. I think I thought it was like a job and you just went and did it. I don't think I realised that sometimes it takes an emotional toll on us as well. Oh, that's a really important one, I think. I think it's such a vital one and as I said, I think hopefully we come to realise that, but I don't know how long it takes and for some people, you know, as you know, I have many people who went rooms in my institutes and my side across the road and I know many people who run psychotherapy centres and many, many, many therapists and many people come to supervision for me over many, many years and I always get surprised that it takes not all people, of course you know it, how long to realise that? Sometimes they can come and say, oh, I'm seeing 10 clients a day, something and then they don't understand why they're burnt out. I attempted to do that initially because when I was renting a room, I would go to Manchester for two days a week and I would try and squeeze as many in as I could and it didn't last very long before I thought I can't do this. This is... Burner? Yeah, and even the practicalities of letting one client go before the next one came in, I need to have a break between clients to literally let one go and be ready for the new client if that makes sense. Absolute sense and I think they'll just eventually start to have a priority of self-care though often they put economic costs and things like that, well for very good reasons, but eventually, unless they start to take care of themselves, they'll feel the cost of that. Yeah. So I can understand that. So is it my second one now? It is your second one, yeah. So if you met me in 1984 because I went into training in 1985 and for many years, and in fact my wife might still even say this about me now in terms of traits, what I'm going to say, you know, she would certainly define me as a self-reliant loner. Wow. And so that leads on to what I'm going to say. If I don't know the importance of support and people having my back and the importance of cultivating that and trusting people will support you and peer groups, then I think my professional career would have been a lot easier. Yeah. Because I was somebody who was very cut off from all that and self-reliant loner sort of sums me up at that stage in my life, a bit like Lone Ranger. I mean Lone Ranger back in 1956, I don't know if you've ever watched the original ones, but I saw they did a film was about 20 years about the Lone Ranger. He did have one friend. Contour. Contour, but you know that was just that was about it really. And I wish I'd realised that I needed to have support systems together than I did and the importance of having somebody people around you in this journey. Yeah. Yeah. If that makes sense. Absolutely. And I think it's about having like-minded people around you as well. Do you know what I mean? I think, yeah, I completely agree. And I've worked a lot. I've worked it out as I went along than quite a bit of therapy on it. And I still got traits of that, but I wish I'd realised it before because this profession particularly demands support, you know, support of other people around you. Yeah. Yeah. So my next one, I was thinking when you were saying that, and I'm not sure whether this is my psychotherapy training or the therapy that I had while I was doing my psychotherapy training, but I didn't realise how much it would change me and that I would lose people along the way. If that makes sense. I'm definitely not the person I was prior to my psychotherapy training at all. And the second part of that is really important what you said there is that you might lose people on the way. In other words, you surround yourself maybe with different types of people. Yeah. An understanding about how some people can be toxic and potentially that I will choose not to be around those anymore. Yeah. Relationships changed when I became a psychotherapist. Yeah. And you know, I always used to tell my trainees that that you probably won't be the same person when you leave it and you might lose people on the way and you may choose people to choose different people. Yeah. Who are more healthy for you to be around. Absolutely. And it's a different relationship that you have with the people after than it is before. Yeah. If that makes sense. It has been for me anyway. Am I on to four or three? Three. Yes. I know. Yeah. You're on to three. Yeah. I've got two or three in my head, but I'll do this one because I was thinking about this as you were talking and why. I wish I had had a sense of realism about this profession. Well, actually, about the whole myth of what I call psychotherapy or psychotherapist. I used to believe that psychotherapists had the cure to everything. Yeah, I suppose I did too. And you know, and you know, once I became a psychotherapist and I built my own psychotherapy practice and that I went on to create my own institute and my own family in a way, that everybody I met would be all loving and caring and take care of me and support me and all those sorts of things. Now, given I've just said the one about support for you, but I think what I want to say is that I think it's, how can I put this, psychotherapists are human like everyone else. Yeah. It took me a long time to realise that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I thought they were magic people. Yeah. And I got so much difficulties really in that because part of building up a practice and especially an institute, you have to be a business person where there's lots of aspects of reality. And the other side of that is all, you know, a lot of people go into the world of psychotherapy because they're dealing with their own issues. And they're dealing with their own traumas and dealing with all their own challenges and difficulties in life. And I think I just thought I was moving into a world where everybody who was sorted. I can 100% relate to that Bob. And going along with that, which I think is really interesting is that I thought I needed to be sorted to be a psychotherapist. Ah, it goes along with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I 100% agree with what you're saying. And it's, I've had to do a bit of disappointment of that. I know it's gone with that, but I wish I'd realised that. It's like everything else, you know, when I've been gone on to move into this world, I don't know, but I think I wish I'd have had a little bit more realism about this world. Yeah. You see, it's a scary thought because I'm thinking now that, you know, my clients probably think that I've got all my stuff sorted and the reality is I've not. But that is one thing in my training that I liked is that we are allowed to be human. We are allowed to share our experiences. Obviously, if it's in, you know, the benefit of the client, but I don't need to be perfect to be a good psychotherapist. Yeah. Next one then. My next one is that therapy is a process, not an event. Yes, it is. That's one. And it can be a slow process and it's not necessarily linear. We can be in a loop for quite a while with therapy. It's almost necessary to be that way. Yeah, that's right. And I think I'm very similar to you. I think I'm moved into probably not as much as a lot of people actually, but I still at the beginning of training thought of therapy and problem-solving ways more rather than looking at the unconscious and developmental processes that underneath the challenges. Yeah. And maybe that we were supposed to have all the answers or I thought we were supposed to have all the answers. I soon learned that I haven't got them. Another one, I think my comment is a fourth or fifth anyway. Courage. Yeah. So I think I'd have liked to have had, can I explain this, to have really taken ownership of the fact that I had a lot of fundamental courage in what I did because I just used to talk a lot about, oh, I just happened to me. Yeah. And if I didn't really take on board the courage of a lot of the steps that I'd taken, I think I'd have actually been kind to myself. Yeah. Because you have built an empire at home. Yeah, but it took me a long time to realize that I was building a family and took me a long time to realize that a lot of the steps I took were courageous in nature. I mean, I calculated risk as well, don't get me wrong, but I think I had a sort of a denial system about, oh, well, things just happened around me rather than taking ownership of the steps of my career. Yeah. My career. Yeah. It took me a long time to realize that it was a career, actually. And then that sounds paradoxically perhaps, but, you know, the fact that I was trained to be a psychotherapist and everyone went along with that, and that's obviously a career one. I mean, today, many trainees ask me, oh, will I get other jobs after this? So they think of a career structure. I never thought about it that way. I just, in some ways, a lot of what I thought I did was blind faith. But actually, so I think I would have liked to have been able to understand the courageous side of myself. Yeah. I want to ask you a question, Bob. You kind of touched on it with one of the things that you said, would you, if you knew what you know now, would you still do the job that you do? Would you still have been a psychotherapist? I take going to hit onto my fifth one in a minute. But the answer is yes, because there's no doubt, no doubt in my head that psychotherapy is in my blood and way of life. And where that comes from is my own therapy, in other words, to understand myself and to take ownership of what happened to me and the decisions I've taken and the toxicity of my history and how I've changed that for the helps of lots of people and how a different person to what I was then. It's like light and day. It's like light and day. So I want other people to have that opportunity like I did. Yeah. That's lovely, Bob. So that's in my blood. Yeah. That's why it's so hard for me to stop doing the job I do, even at the age of 73. You'll never stop, Bob. Those built into my identity. Yeah. I built it and I built a whole family as well. So letting go of a lot of things has been very hard for me because I know I have, yeah, I know we only have so much time on this planet and I want to do other things. But the answer to the question is yes, psychotherapy became a way of life for what I've said. So at the age of 34, I've been a part of this lecture for six years. I went on part-time for another two, at least, or three because I needed to fund the first two of my years at my side because I'd be training. But when I left that college, I remember throwing the keys in my car keys into the air and catching them saying, thank God I've finished and I need never go back. That was my first career. Yeah. Second career, I can't even let go of the keys. The main day. Yeah. That's lovely. You have, I know you said earlier on that, you know, things just happen to you, but you've worked, you still are working bloody hard at what you do, Bob. And that's what took me a long time to understand that it was work. Yeah. What a lovely position to be. Letting go of all this now. And yeah, that's a whole other podcast, but you want to be a fifth? Well, going on from what you said, and I'm just looking at, you know, five things I wished I had known before I became a psychotherapist was, and I don't mean this in a narcissistic big edit way, was how much we impact on other people. Oh, that's a lovely one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to say a little bit more though? I know what you mean? Well, just even people, like, when did I start seeing clients in 2014? I think it was. So it's like 10 years nearly now that I'll see people that I haven't seen in a therapy situation for six, seven years. And they'll still say to me, do you know, I always remember when you said this or I always, you know, when I'm going through something, I always say, what would Jackie say? It's, you know, when you hear that, it's lovely to know that you are making a difference in supporting those people. Yes. And I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. But I don't want that to sound big edit or narcissistic or egocentric or whatever. No, I identify with that completely. I completely identify what you talked about. I certainly didn't think about that. It turns my career for a long, long time until people, like you said, fed it back to me. Yeah. I don't see that's been right. So it's like the opposite of being big headed because it takes you a long time, took me a long time to take ownership of that. Yeah, I'm not sure I still do. I always say, oh, you'd have got there anywhere. You'd have got there without me, whatever it is. Yeah. So there's so many more. And I was just thinking, oh, my last one, it isn't pups, what people want, you know, pups, it's not for this podcast. But anyway, I'll save. And then I thought, well, people listening will want to list the practical things, you know, like, like, I didn't really realize how much inadvertent comments after what I've just said, hard work it takes to get clients or practical things. But I'm going to leave the practical ones, perhaps, or another podcast for further five practical ones and go to a one in the vein of what we've been talking about really. I think it's about opening my heart and love. What I mean by that is I never realized that being a psychotherapist had emotional cost to it. I never realized the emotional cost. I never realized the emotional benefit I would achieve personally myself, which led, of course, to professional success. Yeah, I never thought about either of those things. No, it's a big thing, isn't it? And it's no wonder that we don't think about these things when we first start. I was far, far away to thinking about, well, you know, the more that, you know, if I can get to the grips of being able to take on board love ability for myself and open up my heart and humility and everything else that goes with it. And I, I never even thought about those things. No, it's by doing it, not only is really priceless for yourself, but what modeling that is for priceless. And, you know, that's the way your own practice will grow when you can be, when you can express, express, you know, your own humanity with the other person in front of you. Healing will happen almost automatically. Yeah. And I think that's something that can't be taught, Bob. It has to be experienced and it has to be felt. Yeah. Yeah. I like to think I've got somewhere in that, but it's come from, always, it's come through exploration of myself. So I suppose I'm saying, I didn't realize I was, this profession would mean that I would spend so much time in exploration itself. But the other thing to people listening is by doing that, not only will people be healed in front of you, but your practice will grow. Not the other way round. Yeah. Another good podcast, Bob. We've done five each. We've done more than five each. Yeah. We haven't gone through all the practical things I had in my head. No. Cost and money and all sorts of other things. Like, you know, I didn't realize the, um, how much it would cost and financial costs and economic costs. I think I haven't mentioned them because actually, I know this sounds very strange. You might do people listening, but if you open your heart up, if you do the training, you do your own therapy, the rest will follow. If you start thinking about money, start thinking about squimping on all those sorts of other things and you keep your heart closed, actually it will be harder to keep clients. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Sounds like, I feel like I'm preaching for everybody to become a psychic therapist. The importance of understanding yourself and everything goes with it. But those are the sort of things, but it's a very good question to ask then, knowing all the, if I'd have known all these things beforehand, would I have gone into the psych of that profession? Very good question. I like to think the answer would have been yes. You know, in terms of the emotional, but in terms of the emotional cost, but the other side of it is, you know, I know how much I changed positively. So it's, it's got processes. I've sort of evolved, um, as I've gone along in knowing these things. But if I don't know them all beforehand, I think the answer would be yes, because my life is so enhanced today. How could I say no to that? Yeah. I feel the same. I think if anything, my one regret would be that I didn't do this sooner. Yeah. And the chain of events that got me to where I am, the people that I met by accident that similar to you, you know, it was Sarri who said, you know, why don't you do this? But if I hadn't a metter through doing another job with somebody else, I probably wouldn't be sat here now. Well, I know I wouldn't be. You should put podcast on qualities to enhance in the side. See perseverance, I would say to listen to this podcast as you listen to us, one of the things I want to say is just, you know, perseverance is so important not to stop at the first pitfall or branch in the road. Absolutely. Because, you know, I, I don't know whether listeners know this about me, but I was not, you know, I'm not a university graduate. I didn't go to university. I'm not that intellectual. And I never thought I would be able to qualify as a psychotherapist. So I would have put blocks in my way, maybe if this opportunity had come earlier. Yeah. Great. Thank you for the opportunity to say those things. You too, Bob. So what we're doing next time is- I'm waiting. We've got the drum going. You know, the piece of the drum is building up. So we're going to know what we're going- This is one that's very close to my heart. It is the growth of equine therapy. Oh, it's, this is your turn. It's my turn next time. Yeah. I put this in because I wanted to, I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about your passion and your specialism, which I, the bits I do know is because when I was a lot younger, a lot younger in sort of 75 years, 75 lives ago, I used to trade polo ponies. And I, okay, there's things I can offer to the conversation, not only about my- You always offer something to the conversation, Bob. This, you, you, I know it's a great passion of yours. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're doing next time. Oh, I really looked forward to that. Okie dokie, Bob. I'll speak to you soon. So yeah, bye-bye. Take care. 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.