 Because the other thing that we've not mentioned as well is racket feeling and, you know, whether we're experiencing an authentic feeling or whether it's one that we're covering over another feeling and it gets very confusing even for us that are feeling the feelings. Well, it's a TA term we've used there, which is racket feeling. So, you know, a definition of a racket feeling, if you want to put it that way. Eric Byrne called a substitute feeling. So it's the idea that the person that's born into a culture, say, where anger is the major way that the parents operate, for example. And therefore, kids might get stroked for expressing their own anger, but they don't get any recognition for being sad, for example. Or, you know, born into a culture of sadness, but they don't get any strokes for being happy. Yeah. So, rackets are substitute feeling. Welcome back to the next episode of The Therapy Show Behind Closed Doors with the wonderful Mr Bob Cook and myself, Jackie Jones. And we're on episode 91 now. We're speeding towards 100, I can't believe it. What should we do? How should we celebrate when we've got this? Another couple of months and we'll be 100 episodes. How are we going to celebrate that? I'll tell you on the 100th podcast, I'm going to bring some champagne in. Oh, pop the cork. And we'll pop the cork. And we'll have a glass of champagne. Maybe we should do one together. Maybe we should both be in the same room at the same time and do one that way. I don't know how to cope with that. Yeah, of course, the thought process of that. So we're zooming on. Yes. So what we're going to be looking at this episode is how do we deal with feelings in therapy? Oh, my gosh. Oh, I'm saying, oh, my gosh, because it's one of my favorite subjects. And it's such a big subject. It's such a wild subject. But where should we start anyway with this? But let's start with years and years and years and years and years ago. I would have called myself a historian in many ways because I, you know, I went to the university to do history, though I ended up doing politics and other story. Many people over the years also called me a narrative therapist because I love stories. So perhaps I'll link those two. So if we look at the psychotherapy terrain in ways and models of helping people change, we can put them into four particular classifications. One would be through cognition. Yeah. So focus to believe that change is really, you know, met by people changing their thinking. Yeah. And then a bit later on, or around the same time in the 60s came the ideas of behavioralism. That is through behavior, helping people change their behaviors that change will happen. And the rest will follow. I mean, when you put those two together a bit later on in the 80s, you had the formation of CBT, if you like, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is the vote done in 2020 in the NHS anyway. So through cognition leads to behavioral change and that will lead to cure. So we got cognition. We've got behaviors. We've got feelings. So if you particularly if you look at Fritz, Fritz Perls will talk to a lot about feelings and how if we deal with feelings, we will lead to thoughts and behavioral changes. So that's very important. And many of those different models that come from that, like EFT, for example, the feelings at the beginning of the road to change. And then of course, many of the physical therapies, whether it be Reiki or massage or body therapy, they believe in physical or, you know, bodily body changes, for example, are very important. And then of course, on top of that, you've got the whole sort of, which is the fifth way of looking at really is the whole level of spiritual change. And the many, many, many therapies that concentrate on spiritual change, the priority of change. So we've got many, many different models of therapy that would take, you know, different ways of looking at how we start and the therapeutic point. Okay, so that leads us to feelings. So do you think to be a well-rounded person, we need to be kind of okay in each one of those areas? Well, I'd be really very much an integrative psychotherapy. So I think we need to visit all those different dimensions with the client. Yeah, me too. Yeah, so. I'll be aware of areas where we may be lacking. Oh, absolutely. Because people will come into therapy with missing emotions or they may come into therapy feeling very confused and stop themselves thinking. Or they might come into therapy where they don't actually action their behavioural changes. Yeah. Or they might come into therapy in a spiritual wilderness. I think it's one of the things I learned in my training quite early on that I'm a thinker and a doer rather than a feeler type person, whether that's physiologically and noticing changes in my body or whether that's, you know, expressing my feelings very well. There's kind of a separation for me that I became aware of quite early on. Yeah, and possibly somebody who has thinking as their major contact point, if you like, if that's the way you're looking at therapeutic process. They may need to get, it may be the route to get to their feelings where there's an actual blockage. Yeah, yeah. And somebody comes in and says, you know, I'm okay with thinking and intellectualising and XXX. So, you know, to reach the client, you would meet them on a thinking level. But where they might need to get to in terms of what's sabotaging them actually changing might well be feelings. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same with people who might come with feelings as their major contact level. So they see the world through feelings rather than say thinking or behavioural change. Yeah. You might have to meet them at the feeling level to integrate their thinking processes. Yeah. Which might sound a bit confusing for people listening, but it kind of works well when you know how the system is. It's like the four domains of the self. I know you've added spiritually stuff into that as a fifth one, but knowing that we've got those different areas that make up us as a whole person. But some were kind of defaults rather than the others. We've got the ability to access all of them, but we tend to not use them all all the time. Well, I think that's pretty clear. And where that goes back to is a person's childhood and their family of origin. So if in the family of origin, you know, things were mainly through thinking. Yeah. Parents didn't really utilise feelings. And in fact, it was the culture of the day. Yeah. Then the children will use thinking instead of feeling. Yeah. And in fact, they might get told off for having access feelings. Yeah. Because they, you know, they might actually be told, well, actually it's important to be stoic. Big boys don't cry. Yeah. Or that whole public school phenomena we're talking about. Yeah. Or, you know, I have permission to feel certain feelings, but not other feelings. Yeah. It's okay to be happy and joyful, whereas you can't be sad or scared or unhappy or angry or any of those what's seen as negative feelings. Yeah. Or, you know, in a netherbore park altogether, you might be born into a culture where I think where the parents see the world through feelings, but actually they have confused thinking. Yeah. Or they have blockages around thinking as the major medium for change. So it goes back to the home in the culture in their home, I think, to, to where a child operates. I was thinking about their daughter, who I think where this comes from, obviously is to us, but probably sees probably their default position might see feelings as the major way that you look in the world. But of course, she found a partner who saw thinking. Yeah. Thinking is a person's strength. So between them, they're pretty good. Yeah. And that's, that's often the case. We find somebody that fills in the bits that we don't necessarily have ourselves. Yeah. So, so, so clients who come to therapy. Oh, let's put it another way. Often majority of people, and I think it's often to do the culture as well. We have a pretty closed in culture in the United Kingdom come to therapy. And they have problems accessing feelings is a very common, you know, scenario. Yeah. Process. And then we spend quite a lot of, you know, therapy skills and help them accessing the parts of themselves, which, which are either feelings, which they need to get to, to be able to integrate the thinking of feeling behaviors together. Yeah. Which is quite a big step for some people to actually be, you know, without being stereotypical, you know, men often find it difficult to express feelings, you know, naturally or authentically or whatever you want to say. I've just, I get quite addicted to a television program, a reality television program. Some of the people in the podcast or viewers might identify with or not. And it's called the circle. Yes. Yeah. You have these, say, 15 or 16 people eventually in a, in a sort of constructed hub, if you want, they all have different rooms. And they can only communicate through social media, through texts on the screen. Yeah. But you see in the way they communicate, the people communicate through thoughts and beliefs and shoulds and musts and odds. Yeah. And people who communicate through the expression of feelings. Yeah. And even though you might say stereotyping and we could probably say stereotyping, but the men have more difficulty to express feelings through the screen. Yes. Than the female gender. Yeah. And it's, it's really interesting. But even the language that we use, whether it's thinking language or feeling language, you know, like you say on a text, it comes across whether they're thinking people or feeling people or whatever it is, even, even through words on a text. That's right. So often, not only is our family responsible for scripting us, perhaps against expressing feelings, but also the culture in the UK is pretty closed for men to express, for example, feelings. Yeah. So a therapist in these situations, I believe, not only needs to look at how the past affects the present and go back to that cult, family culture we're talking about, but needs to give permission to the client that the world won't collapse if they express feelings. Yeah. And you know, at another level completely, some people need actually to be taught what a feeling is. Yeah. I was talking to somebody else at the Supervision the other day and they said, oh, we have a big, a big huge placard with all the feelings and diagrams of, you know, a person angry in a diagram of somebody who's sad and a diagram of somebody who's happy. And we teach them Educative Therapy for some people about what the expression of feelings actually looks like. Yeah. Which sounds surprising, but I can understand it. You know, if we're not exposed to feelings, if we don't talk about them when we're growing up and, you know, use a word to associate this feeling that I've got is connected to this word and this is where it comes from type of thing. I was always supposed to know. That's perfectly right. In the subject of feelings podcast, the other ballpark, as I said, which is I think rare, by the way, but I haven't researched it. And that's where the client can express feelings, but they get lost in the feelings. And they often see the world completely through feelings and have problems thinking of feeling at the same time. Which I would imagine is what can be quite overwhelming. It's what people say. Yes. Yeah. But if you're feeling you're weighing the world all the time, it can be overwhelming. Oh, if you if those are your issues around what you have just said, and you have problems seeing the world from a thinking and feeling place at the same time, or at least having that dimension, if you're caught in that whole world with a volatile of emotions, it become can become so overwhelming, so chaotic. Yeah. If the client lacks that emotional regulation, they have they often have severe challenges. Yeah. Somebody else somebody I was having a conversation with somebody a few weeks ago, and it kind of it's something that I've experienced myself when they were saying they find it very difficult to not be overly empathic with people. And, you know, they feel the same thing that somebody else is feeling, even though they're not experiencing it type of thing. That's another way of looking at feelings. Do you know what I mean? People that are empaths and knowing where we're feeling stop and somebody else's starts type of thing. Challenge days. Yeah. Somebody is a true empath if you want to put that way. I think it's rare than the other way around. That that is truly challenging because they're taking on all the emotions of the other person often very overwhelmed. Yeah. That is that that is rare and does happen. Yeah. So there's lots of reasons why people would come into therapy and, you know, feelings being an issue, let's say for them whether they feel them too much or they don't feel them at all or they don't know whether they're theirs. Is it, you know, has it been passed down? Is this my feeling? Is it somebody else's feeling? It's a minefield when you think about it. It's a complete conch mark. Yeah. Yeah. Do we know what are our feelings? What are you on the spot, Bob? Perhaps that should be a name of a podcast. How do we know? I think it's a very, I think that's a huge question. How do we know? I mean, I don't think it's so easy to ask about, you know. I think in the world of spontaneity, for example, in the world of present feelings, I think the more accessible you have to spontaneity, the more accessible you have to be in the here and now, the more likely to operate from our own authentic feelings. Yeah. A lot of people, though, who don't live in the here and now, lack spontaneity, they actually, I think, borrow from different models. I was thinking of a phrase which is very popular at the moment, which is learn sympathy. Yeah. And I think many people, especially men here, again, I know I'm stereotyping, but I think it's true. They learn how to be empathic. So they surround themselves with or even marry our partners who are empathic, and they learn to be empathic from that person, for example. Yeah. And they're not really empathic themselves. Yeah. They learn the behaviour of it and what it looks like and things. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking the world of Asperger's and autism, where there's a so-called lack of empathy and they don't know what feelings are, really. Yeah. Another huge ball game, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And I suppose in that situation, they do learn the nuances of it, how you look when you're having a certain feeling and mimic the look of a feeling and things like that. Yeah. So it's a huge challenge. I spent most of my life, I think, as a therapist, developing ways and techniques to help people look at the different spit-off parts of themselves. And often, usually, one of the big spits is between thinking and feeling. Yeah. And it's usually because they've been traumatised. And what happens in trauma is you split off the part that is so scary or so difficult to relive or visit. You cut off that part and use another part of yourself. And it's often a split between thinking and feeling. Yeah. And feelings can be quite scary and overwhelming. Yeah, of course. We don't readily run into wanting to feel them because they can be quite overwhelming and scary. One other tip for therapists, I think, I would give listening to this podcast and how to do feelings whichever way we look at it this, is to tread carefully. See, I think therapists might... Let's take the scenario where they are searching for feelings, for example, maybe. Often, the thinking, the cognition I'm talking about or the behaviours are defences against the person expressing feelings for very good reasons. And I want to say, let's honour these defences and go with the defences and we'll eventually get the person defending against which might be the expression of feelings, scare or whatever these very good reasons. Yeah. To tread carefully. Yeah. Because the other thing that we've not mentioned as well is racket feeling. And whether we're experiencing an authentic feeling or whether it's one that we're covering over another feeling and it gets very confusing, even for us that are feeling the feelings. Well, it's a TA term we've used there. Yeah. Which is racket feeling. So, you know, a definition of a racket feeling, if you want to put it that way. Eric Byrne called it a substitute feeling. So it's the idea that the person that's born into a culture say where anger is the major way that the parents operate, for example. And therefore, kids might get stroked or expressing their own anger, but they don't get any recognition for being sad, for example. Or, you know, born into a culture of sadness, but they don't get any strokes for being happy. Yeah. So a racket is a substitute feeling. The one thing I would say though, and in inverted commas we can call them all, I think, authentic feelings. And as we explore one feeling, if you tread lightly, you'll get to the other. Yeah. You'll get to what's underneath a feeling. Yeah. The other way to look at it is for therapists or stroke counselors is to look at what's missing, which emotion is missing for the client. So the client that expresses a lot of sadness but never expresses happiness or never expresses anger, I would call a missing emotion. It's also like helping the therapist to search for the missing emotion. I've had quite a few clients that find it very difficult to express anger. Yeah. And I kind of say, for me, anger is a really good emotion for motivating me to make a change. I find anger quite useful if it's used appropriately. But it's surprising how many clients I can think of that don't know how to express anger appropriately. It's because they haven't been stroke, they haven't been recognised for that. That's the opposite. Yeah. They're told off. Yeah. Anger or being assertive or in that ballpark, they have to be polite or adapt or get the recognition. I'm quite good with anger. Yeah. So I haven't visited you in childhood, but I bet if we traced it back, unless you've changed in therapy, we would find the reasons. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. The other thing I noticed when I was in therapy and going through my training that I'm really good at is I cover up fear or scare with anger rather than showing fear. I will come out fighting. That's something that I do quite a lot even though, but I'm aware that I do it now. So that would be called a racket feeling in TA, a substitute feeling. Yeah. Or you would defend in a certain way. Yeah. So that feeling as a substitute for the hidden feeling. Yeah. I come out with my fists up. I come out fighting. Yeah. I prefer than using the words or unauthentic. I think they're all authentic feelings, but some are hidden more than others and some are defence feelings more than others. Yeah. The tricky little blighters feelings when we think about it. You know, to understand what we're feeling, why we're feeling it, where it comes from or what we do with it, it's quite, yeah, it's a bit of a minefield. Yeah. Needs the therapist to help the client, really. Yeah. Work through. What other way, whether it's where they overcome by feelings, whether they can't get in touch with their feelings. It's the therapist's sort of process to be helped and get through this. Yeah. Now, the problem comes, of course, is when the therapist themselves are afraid of feelings or they use cognition as a way of getting to feelings themselves. So you end up intellectualising, but you never really go near the process itself. That used to be me. I'll hold my hand up to that. When I first started practicing, I was frightened of having a history on it client or somebody that was a very feely person because I didn't think I could cope with that amount of feeling in a room. Do you remember what you used to do then? I would avoid it. I would tip it toe around it. I could sense when somebody was starting to get emotional and I would veer off and get them back into their thinking again because I found it more comfortable. Yeah, you'd probably intellectualise. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I would start doing educative things and I would be doing more of that to keep them away from it. Whereas now I'm a lot more comfortable with it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's very common what you've just said. Yeah. I think I was always frightened of not being able to bring them back again. And that's probably because that's how I felt when I was feeling certain emotions that I would never come back from it. So I think I kind of took that into it. Yeah, now I suspect what happened when you went through your own therapy or in supervision dealt with your own what we would call counter-transference, then you would have not only helped yourself in life but been a much more complete therapist. Definitely, yeah. Yeah, and it's okay. I learned, you know, I know we've spoke about it but quiet, I don't like quiet either or I didn't used to like it as much. But it's okay to be alongside somebody having, you know, quite big emotions and not have to do anything with them. Oh, yes, often just to be with them. That's it, yeah. To let them feel whatever it is that they're feeling and come out with the other end without having to actually do anything for them, yeah. That in itself may often be emotional regulation because, you know, it's a really big part, isn't it, emotional regulation where the child hasn't had a parent that helps them regulate their emotions. Yeah, yeah. The child doesn't actually know how to do it. Yeah. Yeah, which in a therapy room is really powerful to be there and to, whether it's modelling that to them or allowing them to work their own way through it or whatever, that's really powerful in a therapy situation, yeah. I'm glad you said somebody's ringing me. I'm glad you said modelling, by the way, because I think modelling is a really big part in terms of emotional regulation. Yeah. So that the client actually can see in front of them how the therapist actually, you know, deals with emotions. Yeah. Because they often haven't had that type of education if you like around emotions. Yeah. And holding that safe space for them to express their emotions is, again, it's quite powerful. Extraordinary part. They're not going to overwhelm us. You know, we can cope with whatever emotions they're having at that time, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was quite happy to share if we could go back way back in history when I first went to therapy, I certainly didn't know anything about emotions or how to express emotions. And there was part of myself, which actually got to eventually, which had a process around, well, if I really, how can I explain this? If I really express my emotions, I'm going to lose it. Yeah. And I've heard somebody else. Yeah. So I had to keep everything in because not only do control things for myself and not feel vulnerable, but also, you know, if I really let go, then I'm going to go crazy or I'm going to, you know, hurt someone else. So there was a double pressure. Yeah. To not express feelings. So it's the belief systems that we often have. But if I get really angry around here, I'm going to go crazy or something like that. Yeah, yeah. But it also buys into the system. Yeah. It's, it, the feelings are a minefield for. They're a minefield because we're not, they're a life of a lot of reasons. We don't talk openly about them, do we? So, you know, I know what I feel, but I don't necessarily know what somebody else feels. And it's, it's that void in between the two. You know, if I say, I'm feeling scared, I know how I feel scared, but I don't necessarily know how the other person feels when they're feeling scared. That's why therapy, and I think therapy groups as well, by the way, are so powerful here. Yeah. Because you can, you know, invite people in the group to express, well, you know, what's the impact, you know, their thoughts on what's the impact when somebody shares feelings. Yeah. The person hears what the impact of the other person is. And usually it's the opposite of what they think. Yes. Yeah. But I think, you know, groups are very important or can be therapeutically here. Yeah. I'm not saying you have to go into group to look at all this, but I don't think groups can be very important in this interpersonal sharing, if you like. I think that's really valuable. Yes, it's good to have individual therapy, but, you know, to be with a group, I think you do get it on a different level. Yeah. It's completely different. The therapy isn't, I don't think you can compare the two. We had a podcast about it all, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. Groups of individual therapy, but in the terms of what we're talking about here, sharing emotions or not sharing emotions at an interpersonal level, there's nothing which quite beats the person hearing the impact of their sharing or not sharing how it's on the other person. Yeah. Absolutely. You're right. It is a mindful, but it's a, that's why I said, it seems ages ago now in this podcast, I said to the therapist, if I had to give one tip around working with feelings, whichever way it is, it would be to tread lightly. Yeah. It's a mind field. Yeah. You can see the lines all over the place. Yeah. Well, I can erupt. Yeah. And, you know, yes, tread lightly, but it's also, you know, about being really self aware of your own. Transfers. Transfers and what's going on for you and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Another wonderful podcast, Bob. Yeah. And also just before we dash off, what you were just going to talk about that. podcast but I just want to mention it here about the therapist may choose at the right time to share their own feelings but it must be in the service of the client. Yeah yeah I've done that I have you know said in the session that what they've shared or what's happened has really moved me or I feel a certain way when you shared that or whatever just to acknowledge that I had made a connection to it or them in some way yeah. Good wonderful subject I feel very if yeah happy yeah yeah happy I feel very happy that we've been talking about this because I don't hear many podcasts around or discussions around where therapists talk about you know how we handle feelings. I think you know in society as a whole and families as a whole and groups of people at the home I think if we if we can sort of give permissions or models to talk more about feelings I think that's wonderful. Do you know Bob I think our podcast is amazing with the topics that we talk about because you talk about a lot of different topics. Well on different levels as well you know you're the font of all knowledge and my guru and mentoring everything and you've got all that side of it but then I think we share our own experiences as people and therapists as well yeah. I think we both of us share our wisdom as well yeah both of us have fears of experience that we can pass on and I think we also pass on not I would pass on our wisdom our skills our techniques but hopefully we can actually pass on how can I explain it the therapy the therapeutic process is not something to be afraid of. Exactly yeah and I can you know even just in this podcast talking earlier on about being frightened of people showing their feelings when I first started when I look at where I am now to to to then we do we get there in the end it's a really scary thing to be a therapist when you first walk in that room with your first clients yeah. It's a good thing to remember that you know the clients are as scared as you are usually. I can remember you saying that to me when we first started you know to me and it was like yeah and it's okay I think it's a good thing to go in there with some some interpretation or whatever if you went in thinking you knew everything about everything and you were really confident and I'm not sure that that's a good thing when you're starting off. No definitely not because it's not true. Yeah and I'm not sure it's true after 34 years but it certainly isn't true when you first start. Yeah so I don't know what we're going to do next time Bob. I think you only asked me to you know send on several topics and I will and there are so many so I'll send you some topics in the next three or four days so we can so we'll leave it as a surprise for the next one. It'll be a surprise for all of us when we do the next one Bob. Until then speak to 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.