 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 145 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors, with the wonderful Mr. Bob Cook and myself, Jackie Jones. And what we're going to be looking at in this session is the troubles and triumphs in the therapy room. Yes, what a wonderful podcast title, and I think I should write a book on that. Yes, what a wonderful title that would be. Yeah, yeah, problems and, in fact, I've got the site, my first, well, a book, there's three books in my head. One is the Psychotherapy Cookbook, which has to, I'm meant to start, oh, on Christmas when I got back to the podcast one also. The title of this one is Problems and Trials in the Psychotherapy Room. Sounds fantastic. Do you know something? I think there's a tendency, I don't think it's just me, but it took me a long time to move to celebrating my triumphs. Yeah. Much more likely to focus on all the troubles I have. I don't have the same with all psychotherapists. I get that, yeah. Yeah. I don't, I didn't, and, you know, after all my years and wisdoms I hope now, I often say to people, especially the people I supervise, how often do you celebrate your victories with clients? And unfortunately, a lot of them say, what, what, talking about all some sort of phase and tend to dismiss that process. But unless we do that, I think we don't feed our soul. Yeah. I suppose, for me, I don't see them as my triumphs. What do you see them as then? Their triumphs. You don't see them as a collective process. No. Even. I understand completely what you're saying about filling you, your own soul and filling your own bucket up and everything. And yeah, but there is that kind of narcissistic look at me type of thing connected with it somehow. Well, I think it was on the previous podcast I talked about a partner got into contact me after 10 years. And she'd written a lot of what happened to the therapy process. And she was talking about how should the therapy change the life of this stuff together. No, not only was it very moved, but I also thought, well, I didn't really celebrate at the time what would you achieve together. Yeah. And I felt a professional satisfaction. I allowed myself even though it's 10 years after the event to allow myself action that I've perhaps didn't allow myself to have all those years ago. Yeah. And that's good. We should allow ourselves that. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, certainly. Because we can't break confidentiality. We can't talk about what happens inside the therapy room outside. So it's not like you do a good day, you know, a good thing at work and you go home and you talk to your mrs or your husband about it and say, oh, I did a fantastic thing today and work because you can't talk about it. No, that's true. And when she wrote up some of the therapy and I was reading some of the therapy that I did and I thought, gosh, did I do that? That was one, I didn't quite say that was wonderful. But the professional satisfaction I got and also I think a personal professional together and how the therapy and of course she did it. I know, but I wouldn't just the journey and help a little bit. She changed her life around. Yeah. I don't think I took enough professional satisfaction at the time. I allowed it 10 years later, which is a great shame now talking. I didn't celebrate if you like, or I didn't really allow the professional satisfaction earlier on. It's a very privileged job that we have. That's very true. To see, you know, what we see inside the therapy room and to witness the transformations that we potentially see in each and every client. It's an honour and a privilege, absolutely. I think with triumphs, we could use a lot of other words, but for me a triumph can, it's usually around not the sort of technical way, particularly of a client, you know, achieving their contractual goals. But it's usually, it is around that, but it's usually around transformation around when somebody really makes that transform, transformational process in their lives and they turn their lives around or whatever you want to put it. That's a triumph. It's a collective triumph. Yes. That's probably a very good, better way of looking at it. Yeah. But I certainly don't want to minimise my part in the collective trial. And I think I did a lot of minimising the parts I played in the collective triumph of transformation. Yeah. I think I still do, you know what I mean? But I think it's the little things that happen that totally transform a client's life. You know, when they've not been able to do something and then suddenly they do it and it's a massive impact for them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's triumphs at the end of therapy. But what I never allowed myself to do much, I'm thinking about as I talk to you, is the triumphs as we go along. You know, just even from the beginning, where you kind attitude or whatever way you want to look at it, has such an impact on the client. They say, well, I've never had any eyes brought up on crumbs, rather than having a full meal. Yeah. Just in a way of that sense of healthy humanity could be seen as a triumph, or at least could be seen as when the, I mean, when the client actually talks about it in this way, could be seen as a sort of breakthrough anyway. But I could certainly look back now and think of the triumphs, lots of clients I've had, and it is all around their healthy movements in life, their transformational spirit, their sense of courage, their sense of staying in therapy, their sense of taking the steps to trust me, so we could do the therapy. Yeah. And that's a big thing. It is a big thing for them to trust us in the process. You know, for me, I think that most of my triumphs have been around, you know, something about giving them permission to just be who they want to be, and not feeling like they need to conform to anything. And you know what I mean, having a safe space and holding them for them to practice and to try new things and then to come back and tell you about it. To come back and tell you about it. Yeah. Yeah. And when you see the actual look in their eye and the look on the face when they have actually achieved something that they wanted to do that they never thought they could, you can't, if you could bottle that it'd be worth a fortune. So is that what you see mainly as what would indicate a clinical trial? Yes. Yeah. Even something simple as I can remember, you know, quite recently I've asked the client, you know, what do they want? What do you want to happen? And you know, you stopped them in the tracks and it's like, I've never been asked that before. I don't actually know what I want. You know, and for them to have a space where they can work out what it is that they want to do. Yeah. And those moments are very humbling, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking of another client who also got in touch with me and she was very important that I know how much or the part I played in her transformation. And the most important thing that seemed for her that I helped create a safe space for her to talk about her journey. Yeah. How you do, how you do that is perhaps another podcast, but I feel humbled myself when someone gives me that feedback. Yes. On another level completely, I think when I think of trials, it's usually really, there's many ways I can look at it, but actually, people staying with me in the therapy journey and not running away and not leaving or whatever is a personal and professional triumph that they've trusted me to actually stay in the process. Yeah. Is a triumph. When things get tough, they don't run. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But I don't think back and think of that. I can think of some clients where I can say, oh, that's such a success. That's such a triumph. But on a very different level, all the clients in the many, many years of psychotherapy I've done who've stayed the distance with me are the triumphs I think about, I think as well. Yes. Much more, in fact. Yeah. What about the troubles? Most of the troubles, you know, Jackie, are countertransferential. Yeah. So for the people who's listening to me now, I hope they understand what I mean by countertransfers. Most of the troubles have been when I have part of my own past has been activated by their past in some ways. Yeah. In the psychotherapy process, most of the problems come from when perhaps I've merged with the client because they identify on the opposite of me. So the major problems are not talking about the administrative problems. I'm not talking about the logistical problems, but the clinical problems are when, are basically to do with, yeah, when my past collides with their past. Yeah. And we don't know that that's going to happen until it does. That's the issue. You can't see that one coming. You can say so. I haven't done enough therapy in this area, which is usually I haven't done enough supervision, but it's usually a therapy. And the clients become gifts, in a way, because they indicate the therapy that I need to do. And I can only think of that. However, at the time, the challenges we're going to call the words problems is when my dysfunctional past is activated in the therapeutic process. Yeah. And then I have that in some way, usually, or we both have that in some way, so our adults become less accessible. Yes. Yeah. I think that's the origination of the difficulties I have. Yeah. And you're right. If I could have done the four, five, six, seven years of therapy I did before I started therapy, I think things would have been very helpful. Yeah. Of course, a lot of the therapy I did, I did as I went along, like, you know, yourself inside the training, you have to be in therapy or what type of therapy we do anyway. For at least, I think it's four years. But, you know, I continued to continue as we went along. And so some of my own journey of therapy paralleled my clients' journeys. Absolutely. I joked with my clients that I didn't think there was anything wrong with me until I started doing my psychotherapy training and then realised, whoa, there is quite a lot of stuff, though, that I need to be looking at. Yeah, absolutely. And even now, I'm still nerfing things. You just get into your adult quicker, I think. Yes. Yeah. I know when I'm in my script and I know when I'm out of my script and I know what affects me and what doesn't affect me. Yeah. And I'm much more aware of, I was very much in my head all the time. I was very much logical. I used to think my way through things, whereas now I'm a lot more comfortable having feelings and not necessarily having to do anything with them, just understanding that it's okay to have feelings. And that took me a long time to come to terms with. So if you think of it as a therapy profession, it's one of the professions where we learn on the job in a way. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the only way that you can do it is to learn on the job. Perhaps the clients should be paying us, or perhaps we should be paying the clients. I'm sure there's a few that I should drop the odd, you know, a couple of quid too, or whatever. Definitely. Yeah. They pay us, but perhaps we should also pay that. And hopefully we're just a bit of a bit of a psychological time ahead of them. But I think the problems and challenges for me have always occurred in the counter-transfers. I mean, there might be some logistical problems I've created, some admin problems I've created, or, you know, or some things, or even some things which were, I don't know, where I've taken, I've blurred some of the ethical boundaries in some ways. But they're sort of, you could say they come from a therapeutic class, but usually it's when the past or the dysfunctional part of myself gets caught up with the dysfunctional part of the client. That's where problems happen. Yeah. I think the only other things that have happened to me is when the client feels like I've let them down. And it's usually been around what you touched on then about ethics and my stance as a psychotherapist on what's acceptable and what's not, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense completely. That makes sense. I've had to terminate one and it was in the early days and I can remember taking it to supervision and feeling so uncomfortable, but knowing what I had to do. But it went against everything being a people pleaser and not wanting to upset people. But I had to terminate the contract because he wasn't telling the truth. He was lying and I didn't see how I could work therapeutically with somebody that wasn't being authentic. And it was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do, I think. So that's a very good example of what you just talked about there. Other problems, Jackie, when I haven't taken things to supervision quick enough or haven't used supervision effectively, and what I mean by effectively usually it's going to supervision quicker than sitting on the supervision reissue while dealing with it in supervision. When I haven't done that, problems can occur much quicker. Yes. Yeah. And if I had to give a piece of advice to the beginning therapist or even therapist who've been around a while, which I'm sure they know themselves, is use supervision because it's a support mechanism, which is really important in our profession. And in fact, when I haven't done that, problems have often occurred. Yeah. When I haven't gone to therapy quick enough, when I say quick enough, I haven't dealt with some of the dysfunctional issues which have come up. Or I've sort of defended against what I think I should have worked on. That can lead to problems because the therapy comes up in the therapy process. And then you have a challenge to deal with the clinical setting. So therapy and supervision, the use of it is really important. This is what I talk about all the time in these podcasts, Bob, when I say it's like the matrix. There's so many different things coming. It's our own baggage. It's the client. It's the therapeutic pro. It is just so much going on in that therapy room. Oh, there's so much. And also, I don't know if there's problems, of course, but continual CPD, I think, has been very important for me. And if I haven't got myself up to date in the various areas of different things, from neurodiversity to whatever, then those gaps often, funny enough, I'm not funny at all. But then clients appear in the very end. The universe has a wonderful way of doing that to us. And when I first started out, I always would think, oh, gosh, I don't know how these clients have got to me because they actually represent all the difficult problems I have in myself. Yeah. So therapy supervision, CPD, those are all the areas that I I did use effectively, but perhaps the times when I didn't go quick enough, problems often occurred. Yeah. A lot of them came from a counter-transferential place. Yeah, I think I probably agree with that 100%. Some of the practicalities, some of the you know, that side of things, but the majority of it is when I've been triggered or I've been part of the process. Yeah. It's something very, very true, I think, is when I haven't been aware of my script quick enough, and you said it, you said often we're not aware, we're in it. Yeah. That has led me to what I would call defensive side of therapy, which has then caused problems. Yeah. So I'm not saying it's straightforward to catch hold of our scripts or to be aware of them, but I think that as soon as we can, if we can act on that and be open to our own vulnerability, then some of these difficulties or so-called difficulties or challenges will be diminished. Yeah. And I think hopefully that, you know, the listeners to this podcast will take all the positives from this, that even you, Bob, who's been doing this for, you know, 40 odd years or whatever it is, none of us are fallible. We're all human beings who have, we go through the same processes, we all have a script, we all think it's happening in our life, whatever it is, that these things happen to all of us. Yeah. And if we can get in touch with our own vulnerability and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, then- 100%. I think the worst thing we can do is to think that, you know, we can do all things for all people and we can't. No, that's absolutely right. And if we go, if we go down that road, what you've just said there, well, I think we have many problems. Yeah. If you use that language, you know, it'll be a harder, pinnacle road for us. Yeah. And for me, you know, I think it's only been recently over the last two or three years that I've focused an awful lot more of my own personal attention on making sure that I'm the best version of me, you know, practicing a lot more self-care and a lot more self-compassion and all those sorts of things I think that are making me a much better psychotherapist now rather than just working hard at it, making it work. Yeah. So I was just going to say a little bit about, and that is sort of, I know we're centering on problems a little bit more than perhaps trans, but just sort of parallel process what we're talking about here. But I do think that unless we can do all the things you just talked about, which is compassion for ourselves and self-care and allow ourselves to, you know, open our hearts up more, then there'll be more challenges in the clinical setting. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I said so in this podcast that if we can allow ourselves to really take on board some of our triumphs and positive clinical feedback from our clients through that transformational process I'm talking about, our soul is more enriched. Yeah. Our soul is more enriched and more likely to have a more open psychotherapy process. Absolutely. To keep them really meat. Yes. Yeah. I'm thinking about training now whether we did anything on self-care and self-compassion and basically taking care of ourselves. And I think I could be completely wrong here, but the only thing I can think that sticks in my mind is that 20-80 rule about the, you know, the type of clients that you have that you don't take on too many, you know, disturbed clients and that, you know, obviously you only have so many clients in a week or whatever. But the actual practicalities of practicing self-care, whatever that is, you know what I mean. Like I know that you're adamant and you've done 20 years of retreats. You know, that should be part of being a therapist is that we map out time for ourselves to take care of us. I couldn't agree more. And of course, long-term developmental psychotherapists, which I certainly sort of title myself as, means all the things you've just talked about, which is only got my own heart, central women's vulnerability and allowing myself to be compassionate myself and other people and all those things, self-care and everything else, took me quite a time to get there. But I agree with you. Now, somebody who works in very short term, say six sessions, might say, well, this podcast anyway, all of those things aren't necessary. However, I think elements of them all. I can honestly say, I don't think there's one client that I've had that hasn't made an impression on me. But good or bad? Absolutely. Yeah. Some more than others. But I think each and every one of them has actually made an impression on me. Probably left an imprint on your soul then. Yeah. And I don't think I'd have it any other way because to me, that's the connection. That's, you know, to me, the therapeutic relationship. That would be a great title book, imprint, our influence on our soul. Yeah. But you've got so many book titles here, Bob, you need to get cracking with them all. You've got a library. So until next time, when what we'll actually be talking about, according to my list, is the importance of observational skills in the therapy room. Well, you know, I'm a real advocate of that. I believe all TA therapists are advocates of that because they've been taught from the beginning, the importance of observational skills with regards to eager states. Yeah. So it should be a good podcast. Orky-dork until next time, Bob. See you then. 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.