 Excellent. 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 to episode 40 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the different approaches to therapy and how that guides our work. Interesting discussion. There are so many different approaches. Well, Wendy Dryden, who's a really well known therapist. I mean, he's a CPT therapist and is that right? I don't want to get that wrong. But anyway, I think he was or maybe still is. But he went into writing books, psychotherapy books. And I thought that's what he's really well known for now. And I can't remember the title of the book I'm going to talk to you about. But basically, it was looking all the different approaches of psychotherapy came ups. This is three years ago, 625 different types of therapy in the United Kingdom. Oh, my life. If 625 approaches, I mean, different schools, however you want to talk about it. And of course, we can classify them in humanistic school. We can classify them in psychodynamic school. We can classify them in spiritual schools. We can classify them in body oriented psychotherapy. We can classify them in existential psychotherapy. And they all have different approaches and different outcomes. But what I'm going to briefly cure is the central outcome at the end of the day for all these different approaches. One of the ways I want to talk about it is that I do all the assessments of the issue that I founded and work at, because I don't work clinically anymore. And so clients will come in for half an hour and then I'll pass them on to a third of the choice. I would say maybe 80%, which is a lot, I'd say 8 out of 10, have no idea in the different approaches. So they've been recommended because their friend has used the services of therapist MIP and got good results. And they may or may not and usually don't have any idea of the approach that therapists use. I think it's important just to say that and to say that different types of therapy, of course, have different ways of thinking. Cure, I hope, is at the end of the day is there. But there are different approaches. Yeah, it is a conversation I usually have with clients in the initial chat that I have with them as well. I asked them, have you had therapy before? And if they say, yes, I'll ask them what kind of therapy was it and they haven't got a clue. No. I usually say, was it CBT? And they'll say, oh yeah, I think it was that. Well, that's the one favourite by GPs. That's the popularised one for often, I think, you know, there's more research into that methodology is economically more viable. Yeah. In terms, you need, I think it's 16 you can get 16 sessions and the research can make it more observable and evidenceable. But there's many, many other types of approaches. And I think in certain cases, much more suitable. Yeah. But the majority of clients don't know what approach it is. It was just somebody local to me or things like that. Is it important for them to know? I always tell them that I'm trending transactional analysis. I always make a point of saying what I'm trending because I think that is important. It's important to me. It's important that they know because I do do. Educative therapy. So when I'm talking to them, it is all TA based. Yeah, that's transaction analysis. I also think it's important in terms of ethics and contracting, mainly because of accountability. So the client has a sense of, you know, your professional psychopurpose and a sense of accountability. If there's something what they wanted to complain about, for example, the part of a professional body that you, you know, you there is there is an avenue of accountability. Yeah. So I think from that point of view, it is important to say that that I'm a transactional analyst on part of the UK CP or whatever body you're part of, whether it be ACP, UK CP, psychological department or whatever. So they know there's an accountability pathway. Yeah. So I think contractually from that point of view. And also, if you want to use TA from, I say an a, an executive part or whatever other discipline, then that's also something which would be perhaps important to point into the mix. Yeah. When you say that there's kind of over 600 and how, you know, the approach guides the way that we work. I think there's there are quite fundamental differences in the approaches and how we work with clients, whether it's directive or whether it's solution focused or whether it's like so relational or whatever it is that there is a mark difference. Yeah, so far more directive than others. Yeah. And client centered psychotherapists, for example, would be less directive than a transactional analyst. Yeah. So they would believe in I can explain this if the core conditions are actualized that's empathy, sense of mutuality, sense of unconditional regard, then through those conditions, the client will achieve a sense of actualization and cure if I want to use it that way will happen. It's different from the way a transactionalist might look at things. They're much more directive. I heard, and we've said it many times in this podcast that you like diagrams and you like. And then TA there's loads of diagrams. Yeah. Example. Yeah. So if you're going to use different techniques like that, then you're going to be more directive as a therapist for example. There's no classical transaction analysis. One of the aims, if you like, is helping the person having a more robust adult, which means they think and feel the ace they are, and more highly functioning adults so there's, there are different, I think, aims, depending on what modality we're talking about here, because, you know, it's like, let's take existential psychotherapy, or even gestalt psychotherapy, and I could talk about more of them. They don't necessarily have a personal model with that as a saying. Yeah. So, for example, the person's more in touch with themselves externally and internally, then that would be a sign of health. Yeah, so people have different depending on where you've been trained and what you believe in, have different ways of thinking. Certainly, I think, affect the outcome. Yeah, because I think it's important that it's a good fit for the client. I don't know whether I need to take that back because sometimes the client needs to be encouraged out of their comfort zone maybe. In a therapeutic way, if that makes sense, you know, if, like I'm a very logical person, I like diagrams and things like that, so if I went to a therapist who was more focused on feelings and emotions, I probably wouldn't fit comfortably with that, but therapeutically that might be of benefit to me. Who's to say, of course. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. If we go back to, you know, 30 years to sort of 1990s, we had what was called in the literature, the relationship turn. And that followed a big piece of research that came out called North Cross. And I don't know how many people how many therapist people were in their research. What came out of the search was that the relationship between the therapist and client is more important than the actual theoretical model. Now that was often quoted to me in training. And, you know, in the last 30 years, we've had a huge movement towards what we call called relational psychotherapy, as being the, and the relationship being the major vehicle for transformation and cure. Yeah. Before 1990, 1980s, that was not, that was not the case at all. You know, and you only have to go back to nine before 1950s 1940s. And the Freudian psychoanalysis or Jungian psychoanalysis, where the preaching would be to keep out of relationship, not be in relationship. So we had a complete change about the last 30 years and a very different type of psychotherapies emerged to where we are in 2022, where the relationship is seen as the vehicle for cure, and backed up by research, rather than theoretical models. Yeah. So, you know, I would, you know, I would call myself a relational psychotherapist, but then I expect a lot of therapists will say, Well, I've always been a relational psychotherapist. So, or they might say which relationship we're talking about, we talked about the Transventional Relationship, we talked about the relationship in the room. We talked about past relationships. We talked about being a relational psychotherapist. But I still think where we're trained and the training model that we trained into has it does have an impact on the so called relationship between therapists and clients. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. So, so I can only talk about the training that I had, which is what I tend to say to clients all the time. I know a little about a lot of other ones. I only ever see it through the eyes of my transactional analysis training. That's right. However, if you, I trained as a TA therapist in 1985. And I think if somebody has said to me, you know, what makes up a TA therapist in 1985, it will be very different perhaps for what makes up a TA therapist in 2022. And that would be because the trainings that you go to in 2022 are often very different style of training than 1985. And if we go back to 1960 when Eric Burnett was the original TA came along, created TA, his major focus was almost like a CBT approach of, as I said, helping person create a more robust adult, rather than going into the developmental industry, where whereas a TA therapist today are usually more trained into the relational working with the child eager state and the developmental part of transaction analysis. So, what's the next big shift, Bob? I don't know the next in 22 onwards. I think Malaysia is going to be focused on a lot, but I think we're going to have more talking on spirituality. Yeah. More towards spirituality and how spirituality plays a part in psychotherapy. I think maybe the rise more of the embodied body in psychotherapy. Maybe also neurobiology and neurodiversity and, you know, if we go even further, we're in the robotic area, we've hit the robotic era. So, the part that technology and robots play in psychotherapy and neurobiology and neuro is another whole story. And we think spirituality is going to come more and more and more into it because I see that happening and I believe that will happen more. Even though I do also see, as I've said, the rise of neurobiologists and neuro therapists and so it'll be interesting where we go. Because I think it's right that therapy and therapists do evolve rather than being fixed. It's quite good that there are different stages that we've come through from the psychoanalytic sort of 30s and 40s through to the 60s and 70s and beyond. 21, yeah. I'm glad I trained in the relational part of it. I'm quite glad I'm hit this part because I do truly believe that the therapeutic process is what leads to cure in a therapy room. Which is why I always say, you know, if it's not working for you with the therapist, don't poo poo therapy. Try a different therapist. That to me is really important. Which bit particularly that people don't give up on therapy because the therapist that they're seeing isn't what they thought or expected or it's not working or whatever it is. I think often they think it's therapy that is no good as opposed to my relationship with the therapist wasn't the right therapeutic relationship for me. I agree on with that. So it's an interesting age we live in, but I think that we are heading towards, you know, the areas I've just talked about being important. But I also am a great believer in relationships like therapy and the importance of relationship and the importance of the client and the therapist being the whole of themselves into the relationship process and also an awareness clinically what that means at a transferential level. Yeah. Yeah. See, I suppose, you know, the robotic era like you were saying and things like that and I know we have touched on it in past podcasts and everything, but online therapy and text therapy and everything else, you know, my 17 year old son's generation will probably find that. Okay. Well, I'll do I don't know it's going to be interesting. You know, if we go 10 20 30 40 years where every GP of GP's surgeries around which I don't think they will be I think they'll be like portals and stations on computers might rather have a three dimensional four dimensional robot that will be assigned to talk with the person about depression and learn temporary you could be programmed into that robot and various other things so where technology will take us is another story. That's a scary thought Bob. That's that's proper sci fi stuff that is yeah. They were far away from about holograms and, you know, I was in Grand Canary the November and I went into a. He my mascot and I popped a hologram so you know what about Apple watches and they've all got now I've got the latest Apple watch in front of me which is the Apple watch seven. What has it got built into it. They've got mindfulness built into it. Yeah, yeah. But that's what I mean it's kind of an acceptable part now isn't it it's yeah. Yeah, do I have a relation with Apple Apple watch. Yes I certainly do have. And you can program it to, you know, come up with quotes to remind me to breathe at a certain time to, you know, the mindful exercise so we can go on. So the use of technology think is really important in many ways. Is it a secure part of a secure object to me probably is. Yeah. I love the way you think about things Bob. I know I believe this is the way we'll go. And we're going to know more and more about newer biology in other words what's happening at the top. I was talking to Steph who really, you know, has gone into this lot she said she's quite happy to do a podcast on that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be great because she knows a lot about it. You know, that's that's, it's fascinating really. But I think there's more and more past that technology will play. Now, I really do hope that that isn't at the sake of dismissing the relational aspect between two human beings. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what my fear would be in like I said my my younger son's generation. And you know that the pandemic and all that that's done with, you know, the younger generation being isolated and working from home and missing out on lots of social experiences I think it kind of becomes the norm to a certain extent. It doesn't. I hope these psychotherapy training training programs do insist on a reflection and understanding of the self of the therapist because there is a movement towards much quicker psychotherapy training programs within six months nine months to a weekly and a movement away from probably, yeah, I think this is true. I can say it on there. I think much more moving to a way towards not so much reflection on the self by many of these different courses. So for example, you can do course counseling courses in six months and get a diploma and that you can go on many counseling courses where they don't ask you to do any real reflection of yourself and no understanding of yourself. And I think those types of programs or that type of emphasis misses out on the importance of knowing yourself in the relationship so that you don't merge with your client. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, I think there are some looking at the different approaches. I went on a training at MIP once. I can't remember which training it was but there was somebody that was quite high open. I think it was NLP or so I don't know. They didn't have a supervisor. It wasn't part of the, you know, it didn't matter how many clients they were seeing, they didn't have a supervisor. And I can remember thinking. How odd. Yeah. What do you talk to about issues that you're kind of. Yeah, I'm part of. I don't know about NLP, whether it's NLP or not, but I do know that that's a different, different ways of thinking. Means that some of these training programs are moving away if you like, from understanding the self of the therapist. Yeah, that's where I went to with the supervision. If you're not being trained, you know, on that part and you don't have supervision, it's literally just learning from a textbook type thing. This is a process, go do it. Yeah, it's mind blowing. It is. So that's why I think I hope, alongside the robotic ear it comes the, the emphasis more on the spiritual side of the essence of the human of the human and I often think that our culture culture is a spiritual wasteland. And I'd like to. I would move away from that. Some people listening on may not agree with me at all and that's fine. And I still think we're going to see more of a rise of spiritual therapies alongside maybe the rise to the rise of a lot of the technological input into psychotherapy. Yeah, especially in the mindfulness area. I love mindfulness. I also like a bit of mindset stuff as well where it's kind of solution focused on goal setting. To be fair, it depends what mood I get up in in the morning Bulbas, which, which one I go. Well, I love gratitude. I love, you know, that sort of. Well, I was a teacher, a lecturer before I was a psychotherapist. And I remember those days when you know in the PGC that's postgraduate certificate education. People talked about education in terms of generalists and a generalist is something that knows a lot about a lot of things, rather than an expert and the importance of generalists and the importance of experts. What you know is the clients do want their therapist to be trained well. Yes. Yeah. Whatever training we're in. Yeah. So what's your thoughts on generalists and experts. In those days we have the sort of, if in our terms of paradox of terms general term of integrative therapists people call themselves integrative therapists were actually often think they're really called themselves generalists they know a little bit about everything and not much about anything specific. And I'm a bit unkind about that because there's some very good integrated courses. It's just, you know, people often can do a course module here and a module there and a bit out of that and a bit out of this and then call themselves integrational psychotherapists. And in my day, perhaps I would call that a generalist, rather than somebody who's been, you know, four years in the training of one particular discipline. I'd rather, this is a personal view, I'd rather somebody was trained well in one discipline and have that as actual template and then go off and learn about lots of things. That's what I love because that's what I did. I'm just curious about anything. I love transactional analysis but I'm not precious about it. It's not that I won't entertain anything other than that. I'm curious to learn as much about as many different things to widen my own horizons as much as in the therapy room. I always refer back to transactional analysis. It's my foundations for everything. But I like learning about other things too. Well, I'm saying I did a TA training then an integrative training. And I've done many smaller trainings on the way. I've done Reiki. I was interested in Reiki. I've done an online course at EFT and tapping. If it tweaks my interest, then I want to know more about it. So I think it's all, but I would like somebody, but again, it's a personal personal viewpoint, perhaps to be well trained in one discipline and then go out from that particular sort of particular secure base. Yeah, I'm able to learn about other things and then they'll incorporate that into their own identities as a psychotherapist. Yeah, I completely agree. I don't think I would have the confidence to hold a client in a room for 50 minutes without a firm foundation of something. You know, whatever, whether it's CBT, whether it's TA, whether it's still psychotherapy, existential psychotherapy, whether it's some of the body oriented therapy, some of the spiritual psychotherapies. As long as you've had a good grounding, whatever good means, but a certain amount of time, you studied that and been part of that. And hopefully you have an understanding of yourself. Then I think that's a good start. And I think that's a really important message that the only way that you can get a sense of self and a good grounding is the process of self development and time and I don't think you can do that six months. I did my training with MIP thinking there was absolutely nothing wrong with me at all. And as soon as I started personal therapy, I realized, well, yeah, actually there are some stuff I need to work through. Yeah. I think because trying to try and attempt to do these things in a short amount of time. So as it is a very good question, we said a long time ago and I will come to the end of this podcast, which is where the world of psychotherapy goes now. I've said what I think and I suspect many people listening here will have their own different thoughts of where psychotherapy, the world of psychotherapy will go. I really hope they don't. We don't lose or people don't lose listen to this. That psychotherapy is made up of, you know, human beings and a sense of humanity. And then we don't lose sight of that. I just had a random thought when you were saying that Bob that this this podcast could be played in 50 years time. And what will they think listening to the two of us talking about the things that we're talking about. I think they'll think we're very strange animals. We have to go back to I'm 71. So if I went back, if we went back 71 years, I know you're a lot younger than me, but I've went back 71 years. We were way before the birth of a laser psychotherapy and a lot what we're talking about to and existed and psych analysis was still probably the dominant models, and they really wouldn't understand what we're talking about much. Yeah. Just projecting totally into the future. Will it be an unknown thing for two people to be in a room together for 50 minutes. Discussing. We're on zoom is times, but you know, I hope I really hope that we know that we don't lose that aspect of what healing and psychotherapy is all about. Yeah. I'm talking about that being on zoom maybe me you should do one face to face. I'm very much up for that. Over a table with a microphone in the middle and we'll do it like the older. Was it griff, Reese Jones and somebody else used to do it. We'll do we'll do that one week in the old days in the good old days. Yeah, face to face. Thank you again so much for this Bob. Thank you for whether we know what we're doing in the next. Well, I was looking at some of the lists and people have asked for one of them. What a few people asked for is how do we, how do we work with angry clients. Yeah. That's another one. How do we work with delusional clients. I've got a whole list that I'll send on to the people have asked about. But if you want to think of where next one particularly for a fortune visit or 40 first. Yeah, 41 may 41 maybe working with angry clients is where you can start the next one. Yep. Sounds good. Okie dokie. Well, who angry ball that's one that's one I can do. You'll be able to talk about that. Yeah, I can do angry in the therapy room. Okie dokie. Have a brilliant week. Speak to you soon. Bye bye. Bye.