 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 number 28. I'm Jackie Jones and I'm the co-host with the wonderful Mr Bob Cook on the therapy show behind closed doors and following on from last week's about boundaries, we're going to be looking at the use of the self in the therapy room and self-disclosure. How much do we disclose and how much do we not? And not no wonderful topic. It is, it's right up my alley this because but let's start at what we mean by therapy, what we mean by cancelling and which disciplines have been trained in. So for example, if you were trained psychodynamically, which basically means, I mean, the psychodynamic therapy is listening, this is a very basic definition. So don't ring in. But basically means how the past is reenacted in the present. That's why it's called psychodynamic because of the psychological dynamics of this, how the past is played out or enacted is the word in the present. Now, if you're trained in that particular school, then you would have whole training on how to use self-disclosure and there'd be a frame of reference for understanding that. If you're trained in the person's centered mode of therapy or stroke counselling, it's a completely different type of therapy where self-disclosure is an order of the day. So I think it depends what training school, if you're trained in a CBT, it's a completely different way of thinking as well. If you're trained in transaction analysis, now it's a psychodynamic model. And the way that I was trained by Richard Erskine, I was trained by the early T.A. Thepis, who thought psychodynamically and it was sort of a very developmental model. So then I will naturally have a whole frame of reference about using the self and disclosure of the self and the therapeutic relationship. Whereas I think other students from other models might have a different frame. Yes. I just wanted to say that because I don't want to come from a position of, you know, this, this, this, what we're going to talk about is the only way of doing therapy. But in this psychodynamic and transaction analysis way of training, it's often seen as a really important way to do therapy. Yeah. I, I did a year of person centered counselling. And that was part of the process that I didn't like, that I was kind of supposed to leave part of me outside the therapy room door. And I didn't necessarily like that. No, because why didn't you? Well, if it's relevant to the session and relevant to the client, you know, and I can be empathic with them because I've been through something similar or show an understanding of that in the room, I see that as quite a positive experience. Obviously not taking over the session and talking about myself for 50 minutes, but if it's relevant, I think I should be in the room completely as opposed to leaving part of me outside. I suppose the question would be, what is relevant? So, so for example, in your frame of reference of what you're thinking as a therapist, you're making a decision all the time, what is relevant and what isn't relevant in the context of how you see therapy to cure? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's an important one, because some other therapists from different disciplines may see things in a very different ways. So that last bit you added on, which I thought was crucial, very crucial. And he said it sort of as a, I don't know if he's just, he smiled when he said, of course, that's not where I talk forever and take over the session. But if you go to some planet, it's certainly in person centred. It's the fact, by actually talking at all, maybe, is taking the space away from the client to speak. Yeah. So I think it depends what you're trained and what your thought process is around. And I, using the self and psychotherapy, I'll clearly say where I come from in this. I come from a psychodynamic view. And that is the past is often enacted out in the present. So clients coming to therapy will act out with me, often the traumas, confusion, difficulties they've had in relationships. And by using myself, I can provide a different type of object if you like. So the person can get a different type of experience. Yeah. What a wonderful way of putting it. Yeah. When you were saying that then, because I know you've said about a frame of reference and everything, I think that that's one of the things that I found a bit confusing about all of it is if I'm not fully in the room, then how can I have my frame of reference? But and, well, I'll be a devil's devil's advocate, or I'll have a as always go for it, Bob. No, I'll get a response to that. And that is, is your frame of reference useful in any frame in any way you look at it to affect cure? Now, some people might say, well, that's your frame of reference. But bringing your frame of reference in, you're providing contamination. And you're actually the person who's selecting and taking away from the space of the client's empowerment. So it depends, I think, on what you see cure is, how to have the best way to listen to cure, and usually goes back to where you were trained. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I, I kind of relate it to being authentically me and, you know, hand on heart, I can only see things through my own frame of reference course. And it's you. It's fake if it's anything else. Well, one way to look at it. I think you have to go back to ask yourself, right, really, what, what role or what do you see yourself as doing as the inverted commas, psychotherapist in the room? Now, if it is to be real, authentic, less, more transparent, being, or actually word use less fake, or whatever the words were used, then how does that affect cure for the person opposite you? Now, I'm sure you can respond back to that. And I think a bigger question is, that's the way you may see it. But is it the way the client sees this? So when the client walks in the room from beginning to the end, they're living in the world of projections. And if anybody, this thing projection is what you put on to the other person. Yeah. Right. So I'm here, Jack is there with the therapist, the client comes in from the moment they open the door, they are going to project on to me or project on to Jackie in the sense, their own frame, their own history, their own experiences and what and how they expect you to act or not act. And according to their history, they'll slot you into that. Now, by being the most genuine person in the world, the most friendly person in the world, I'm talking about the therapist here, for somebody who's had a very harmful dysfunctional history, that actually could be more harmful than good. In other words, they might actually see that as a big trick to seduce you so that you can X, X, X, X. So I think it's about what the therapist sees as the methods to affect your. So by being yourself in the room, that's fine at one level. What does it mean for the therapist is another question? Sorry, what does it mean for the client? Yeah, never question altogether? Yeah. Now, if you go back to Freud, this is a long time ago, over a century ago now, his view of psychoanalysis way before the world of psychodynamic and therapy and everything else, was that the, the, the, the therapist shouldn't bring their self into the equation at all. But in fact, if you went and looked at psycho therapy psychoanalysis books before 1940, yeah, nearly all the books would be about the therapist staying out of the relationship and not using their sense of self at all. Why? Because the therapist needs to be out of the equation so they're not contaminating the field. They're allowing the client to have the space to just free associate, just talk about anything they want to know that that conversation will come the material of healing that is needed. And the therapist needs to keep out of the picture. Now, we're now in a place in 2000, you know, now 21, where it's very different in many ways from the early psychoanalysis and psycho therapy and we've evolved to what is often called self psychology. And you go to the bookshops, or Amazon or whatever, we've got online now. And the majority of the books, third books might be the complete opposite, which is about how you actually bring yourself into the relationship in the service of cure. So we've had a complete revolution in how we see healing. And probably I would say 1990 ish, called often called the relational turn in psycho therapy, where many, many books started to write about using the self in the relationship in the effect of cure was the most effective way forward. Yeah. So we've had a revolution in the idea of using the self in the therapy relationship from Freud to where we are today. I quite like the revolution. Yeah, I see it as a co-creation in the, do you know what I mean? It's co-creating a relationship. I see my interactions with other people, whether that's in the therapy room or outside of the therapy room, it's 50% me and 50% them, that adult to adult, we are. Though Jackie, should it be? Co-creating question is, should it be in the therapy room or outside of the therapy? Should it be? I think so. Well, here's another way of looking at this. If you saw therapy around empowerment, helping a client develop self agency, helping the client develop self confidence, helping the client assert themselves. If you are taking 50% of the conversation, how does that help? No, I didn't say 50% of the conversation. What did you mean then when you said that? I think we co-create the therapeutic relationship together. It's, it's with you, but I'm saying there is another view. Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. You co-create a relationship. I agree with you. And I think through the co-creative relationship, we can start providing a type of healing, which gives the new experiences to the clients, which come from quite a dysfunctional relationship. So that is my style of therapy. And there is other views on this. Yeah. I think another view on this is keep out of the relationship. Yeah. No, I hear you said, and I thought I was great, we said, where you prefer the co-created one and I do as well. But I think it's important to look at the heritage of where we've come from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you touched on it earlier on. I see that more as the psychoanalytic bit that I, I feel uncomfortable with that because it's kind of like they're in charge and they've got all the answers and the clients. Yeah, that was for you. Yeah, yeah, I would know that lying on the couch and yeah, so I can go away and I'll analyse you. Psychoanalysis. Yeah. Well, I tell you what I like about that. Study of the unconscious. And the idea that isn't just a co-created relationship. It's also two unconscious forces coming together. Oh, interesting. It's a different type of relationship. Yeah, because when people talk about relationships in psychotherapy, I think, well, what relationships are we talking about? No, we could be talking about the relationship of probatory age now, or we could talk about the relationships from our side of the therapy room, or we could talk the coming together of two unconscious processes. Now, so psychoanalysis was all about the interpretation and the analysis of the unconscious. But where I agree with you completely, which is, and I don't, I don't agree with this either. It was from an expert one at one down position. Well, I'm much, much more a believer in terms of healing and effective cure is to look at the third beauty relationship between the therapist and client is a co-creative relationship. And out of that, getting new more, getting more new healing experiences, which the client can actually grow for. Yeah. So I'm more on your side of the fence. One of the problems I have though about this is if the therapist coming from that frame of reference has it also unconsciously might be coming from an ego driven place, what you might want to call narcissism or unresolved narcissism. So in the co-creative relationship, it's led by them rather than created code in a co-created way. Yeah, I'd like to think early on in the therapeutic relationship, I'm, you know, looking for and being aware of changes in dynamic on whatever the conversation is, whether there's a shift in ego states or whether there's a shift in them, what the conversation was about at that time, whether it's making them feel vulnerable or blame or share all those sort of things. It's on a different level, if that makes sense. Yeah, because sometimes, you know, clients might not want me to take up any time in the session, which is absolutely OK. Yeah, it's absolutely OK. What I did like was that you were you were talking about, I think you were talking about how you are thinking clinically about and I think it's really important this that you're thinking clinically about what's happening in the relationship, what you may bring into the relationship and what's going on in the relationship in the service of cure. Yes, yeah, that's very important because otherwise people give a license for therapists to just talk about anything. Yeah, now, so for example, I think if a therapist is going to disclose aspects of themselves or their own histories or bring their sense of self into the work for a lot of reasons, they need to do it from a clinical frame in the service of the client. Yeah, that's a big, big belief of mine. Yeah, because I've had clients in the past that are really good at avoiding certain subjects by asking questions about how's my week been and how's how am I doing and how and it's kind of like a really good way of let's divert off the topic of conversation because I'm feeling uncomfortable. And I will point that out to them. And you could also another clinical way of doing this. You might think you want to go along with it. So I think it's about the therapist through the contrast, through understanding how a person enacts out their history in the relationship with the therapist, I think means that the therapist can think clinically about what they do next. Yeah. So for example, let me take that example of what you just said. So somebody starts to manipulate you or distract you or displace you because they don't want to talk about their depression or they don't want to talk about their denial or they don't want to talk about their trauma or they don't want to. So you think clinically, I don't know if you will do, you wouldn't, but I understand many people would and I might as well would be, well, I think I'm going to bring that into the person's awareness that there's a distraction or displacements or moving away from what we need to talk about. So I'll do that. Now that's a very positive clinical thinking. For many ways I'm thinking about how you do it. Important though. Yes. Yeah. Because you may do it in a way which might elicit a different level of trauma altogether, a much deeper level to do with shame, do with early traumas. Yeah. So I think as long as it's thought out clinically how you use yourself to sense yourself in the service of the client, I think we're onto a winner. Yeah. And that comes with time and building a relationship with the client. I can think of one particular instance. Absolutely. Were a client, I don't want to break any confidentiality or anything, but a client, I was feeling the urge to comfort a client. And I knew from, you know, the history that we had together that the client found it very difficult to ask for her needs to be met. And I can remember in that moment thinking, do I offer comfort or is that buying into the scripted stuff of not being able to ask for their needs to be met? And I can remember in my head being in a bit of a turmoil as to what to do with that. Yeah. But that's good what you're talking about. But that's the kind of situation that I see is for the cure of the client. Rather than just jumping in and doing it, there's kind of something else going on for me. Am I reinforcing the script by jumping in when really I would like to encourage them to ask for their needs to be met? Yeah. So that's great in my book, because it means you're thinking about how you would use your sense of self. Yeah. Service of the client. Yeah. So on the same page that you're going to be able to extend by a science fit. God, I'm glad. Let's turn this conversation to something very, very important. I don't think we can do a podcast on talk about how we'd use our sense of self or not the therapeutic relationship. If we did not talk about the concept of transfers. Yeah. Do you agree with me or? Yes. 100%. So how do you respond to that? Um. Transference is the therapist's reaction or response to something out of transference, but transfers itself. How do you say? Well, I go on. Tell me how do I say I do it from my frame of reference? How I see transfers is created relationship. There's two parts of transfers. This one will be called transfers to projection of the, um, what the client will transfer onto the therapist. Yeah. In other words, when you frown like that, you remind me of when I was three talking to my father. Yeah. Let's make the father on you. And then there's the response to the transference. So my countertransference to that might be. Uh, well, I'm really angry. I'm not your father and I'm not going to upgrade your father and you remind me of a needy X, X, X. So the therapist's response is the countertransference. And that both makes up the transfer. Both those parts make up the transferential encounter. Yeah. Now, why that is important is if you can analyze, step into or use the transference, you can play out in a different way what happened or never happened in the person's history. So you can allow them to experience a set of experiences in a different way and write their own script in a different way to get a different outcome today. Yeah. Is, is that dependent on them verbalizing and letting you know what's going on? Or is that a case of when I was talking earlier on about looking for a shift, some things, the dynamics have changed somehow. Well, I don't think the clients needed any form shape or unless they want to have some magic therapy, need to talk about transference or what's happening in a, in the way that we're talking about it now because I'm talking about it for the podcast listeners, but the clients don't need to know any of that stuff. But I think for the therapist, they need to think about who am I for the client and who is the client for them. So in other words, they need to think about when they're in a relationship with the person in front of them, who they are for that client. And I think also to think about who the client is for them. By understanding those unconscious transferential processes, they will then start to think about, well, when will or might I step into the, or use myself in the therapeutic relationship for affecting different experiences. But unless they start thinking about who am I for the clients or who the client is for me, they're not starting to think unconsciously, are they? They're starting to think about, or they might just start to think about things in the here and now rather than what's being played out in the here and now. Yeah. If that yes. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole of psychodynamic theory is built on what I've just said to you. In other words, the past is reenacted in the present. So to understand that, if the therapist thinks about who am I for the client, the halfway there, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. Because another way of thinking that is this is I'm never Bob Cook. I'm simply a representation of the client's projection from the past. Well, that's a bit heavy. But yeah, I'm never Jackie Jones. Yeah. I'm simply a representation of somebody or quality from the person's past. Yeah. Now, if their past was particularly a disturbed one, then they're going to project on to you and enact out with you those experiences, which were perhaps quite negative from the past, and they're going to attempt, even from an unconscious place to manipulate you to be that person. Yeah. Now, this is where using yourself might come in from a psychodynamic way, because if you start thinking that way, you've got several choices, you can allow yourself to be manipulated from an adult place, actually get a relationship in a different manner so that you can allow the person to go to a healing place and get a different types of experiences. Or you can actually do something very different, which is confront the transference and say, well, I'm not your father, or you could do many other things. But you are actually thinking about how you might use this sense of self to allow the person to have a different experience in the past from what they're attempting to enact out with you. Yeah. Because if you allow them to just enact out their past experiences onto the relationship with you, you're allowing them to repeat history. Yeah. On TA terms, you're actually unconsciously supporting them, carrying out their familiar script and games with the same script outcome. Yeah. It's just reinforcing it. So if somebody's been sexually abused, therapist, the worst thing a therapist can say is can I give you or maybe the worst thing about awareness certainly will be the worst thing that there is. Can I give you a hug? For you, the age you are at 71 or sorry, you're much younger, you're doing it from that adult position. But then they can enact out their past, project onto the therapist and suddenly you're that negative object or abuser. Yeah. So if you don't understand their consciousness, you'll have a different type of therapy. Yeah. And it will and also from this frame of reference, it would the therapist then starts thinking clinically about how they may use their sense of self so that the client has a different set of experiences from what they're attempting to enact out in the present with you. Yeah. Is this to am I losing you? No, no, no, not at all. I thought if I'm losing you, I'm losing you. No, no, it makes perfect sense. It is, you know, that bringing the past into the present and replaying it through transference and my reaction as a therapist to that or my response to it in the therapy room. Yeah, exactly like you say, it can either retraumatise to a certain extent or it can show them a different outcome from it. That example, if I just went in for a hug, that would not be the best. In that sense, thought, yeah, I think very good practice for therapists automatically, if they think, oh, well, I won't go for the client for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. But they say, is it OK if I hug you? Yeah. Now, I think a therapist automatically should say that and they could still go wrong. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, we should have another frame of reference into it. It's how it's seen by the other person. Yeah, you should have another podcast, perhaps we have on our list on the use of touching psychotherapy. Yes. Yeah. Because mostly you would talk about transferential trust, transferential touch. So therapists that might see, well, 10 past nine on two thousand and twenty one in March, whatever the day was, I you know, I thought was important to an end in a way of a positive regard or whatever to give the client a hug. Well, that's that's take it isn't taking into account what could be happening transferentially. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've. Yeah, I don't even sit on the couch with my clients. I'm on a chair and they're usually on the couch. So in order for me to have any physical contact with them, I would have to get up and move towards them or them to me, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's an interesting podcast we should do. It is it is because even as I'm thinking about it now, when we were talking about boundaries and maybe barriers, not only are right when I was seeing clients face to face, I'm in a chair and they're on a couch, but I've also got a law table in between us, which could be seen as a barrier. You know, literally, absolutely. Well, it could be recreating history for some. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it's not what I want to sign this podcast, which is really important. I don't want to deskill people. I want people to think about things from a deeper level and what's happening going or even considering what might be happening in an unconscious place because I believe clients not from an adult place, but from a different younger place will be always attempted to manipulate the therapist to create history for them. Yeah. Because even as you're saying that ultimately, if if we do something different that goes against the scripty stuff that itself, yes, it, you know, can be a forerunner to cure, but it also causes a lot of turmoil for the clients. It can do. And there's a term in transactional analysis like that, but I really like. And it's from a book in 1969. So it's a long time ago. What do you say after you say hello by Eric Byrne with the originator of transactional analysis therapy and he coined this term script backlash? Yes, that that was what I was going to say. It's like, well, what's the point? I've lived my life by this for so long and now you're just shattering it. And yeah. Yeah. And I think that is really need to think about the backlash which will inevitably come when a person attempts to make life changes. Yes. Yeah. That is something I talk quite regular about with clients, particularly in the early, early day. The podcast. Yes. We've got so many. We have the list is getting longer and longer, Bob. So I just I've really enjoyed this one and the one that we did before as well. They've been really interesting. I learned something new every time we have these discussions. So what we're going to be looking at next time is you are for me, Jackie. Say who do I think the Transparency language? Who do you think you might be for me or even, you know, I can ask that for you. You know, you could be, for example, a elder sister that I didn't have. Wow. Yeah, that's what I'm coming. I'd like to really encourage. The podcast listeners to think about it in those terms and to think about, well, who could Jackie be for me? I was like, oh, how could I be for Jackie? Now, why it's important is that you're starting to think about what could be enacted out. Yeah. My attempt to manipulate you into actually continuing the way they're thinking, taking a script playoff and nothing changes. So it's just allowing the other person to think at a deeper level. Yeah. And that that just says it all because it is at a deeper level. It's when you talk about manipulation and things like that, it's not that it's a conscious thing. It's a completely, you know, out of awareness that we all do it to replay our script all the time. Yeah. Yeah, they talk about games, ulterior transactions, repetitive behaviors, scripts, life plans. It's all really to keep the decisions the person made about themselves, others in the world going. Yeah. Now, that's fine. If it's healthy, we'll never see those people. No, no, people that come through the door that have anxiousness, stress, depression, trauma or we could go on and on and on and are having an unhappy life. They're playing out scripts, decisions which aren't healthy. And how the therapist helps the person move those unconscious processes is what therapy is about in my favourite question. This is why I love transactional analysis, Bob. I I love it. Yeah. So thank you for allowing me to talk. I feel I've started to talk about my passion and hobby horse in this podcast. And it comes across in a very positive way. Maybe there's a trans-frenchful part of that. But anyway, we we can discuss that. So we will be back next time with another exciting episode of the therapy talk and close doors. We're going to be looking about effective communication and relationships. Yeah. Coming near Christmas. Yes. Yeah. We might all know that's me presuming things. Yeah. A lot of us might need some support around that. Yeah. At Christmas, all the reconstructed families come together, the pressure we all feel to have a jolly good time and everything. And quite often we see that, well, this is very, very true for me anyway. My long experience of being a therapist that in the first week or second week of January, I hear all the traumatic re-enactments of many Christmases being played out. Yes. I often talk about my mum in that respect, bless her heart. She always says I don't look forward to Christmas. And I'm like, why not? Something bad always happens at Christmas. And I once asked her, how many bad Christmases have you had? She's 80. And she said, well, I can remember this one. And I'm like, you had one bad Christmas. Yeah. And in her head, something bad always happens at Christmas. But alongside that, coming into December and Christmas and everything, I think last year and the pandemic have had an impact on how we connect with people. And, you know, last year wasn't a good Christmas for a lot of people. And is that going to be impact on them this year? Well, it's a podcast I look forward to talking about. Good, good. Right. So I shall see you next time, Bob. Thank you so much. Take care. You too. 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.