 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 92 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones, and the wonderful Mr Bob Cook. And what we're going to be talking about this week. It's a bit of a mouthful, this title, Bob, but it's a good one. The use of curiosity in the search for connection in the therapy process. Oh, what a lovely title. I love the titles that you're, you're in charge of the titles. I'm here as your sidekick. I would say most of the titles don't I? I love the titles that you bring. And I have no idea what's going to come up when we start talking about them. Oh, gosh, yes. Curiosity is a good one. Curiosity. I like that. Yeah. So I think connection, attachment, relationship, they're all very, very important in terms of enabling the client to feel safe, secure, and attached. And without that really, therapy is much harder to achieve. Yeah. Curiosity to me, quite a gentle way of inquiring. That's what I think about when I think about curiosity. It's not like the third degree. It's not putting the spotlight on them. No, I hope not. I think curiosity is a lovely world. And this is a, this is a gentle description, I think. It needs to be, how can I explain this? I think therapists need to cultivate the curiosity. And if they haven't got curiosity for the human mind, the human spirit, the changes that people need in front of them, the understanding of the human condition, then they're in the wrong job. Yeah, I agree. And then think about curiosity as well that says we haven't always got all the answers. We need to be curious. We need to be curious and we need to explore. Yeah. We need to inquire. We need to account for the person in front of us. And it's no wonder I like that as a value in therapy because I'm a detective addict. Now, you can put me through Mrs. Marple, Shirk Holmes, Hercule Poirot, you know, all the detective people and especially I'm an Agatha Christie person. And I go down to Torquay almost every year. And we go up the Darts, the River Darts. And as you go up there, you've got Agatha Christie's house on the left-hand side. So, and down there in Torquay, they do Agatha Christie trails. And they, in the theatres, they have Agatha Christie plays, usually Hercule Poirot or something like that. And I'm a detective by nature. And I think what's really to do the job as a therapist, you need to be a detective. You need to help decode, help the client decode what's usually understandable for them. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it, is to decode things. Help them. You usually be aware of what's so challenging of them to be aware of. And it's usually understandable to them. Yeah. That's that's past the Scrabble Word. I know Scrabble Word is, when I was younger, I used to play with my mother Scrabble. And we used to have 12 letters. So it would have fitted a seven. So it would have fitted into an understandable fitted into the Scrabble process. But seriously, you need to help the client decode because they are so stuck in their stuck in their script or their default way of surviving. They need somebody who is a breaker of codes. Yeah. And I think as well, because we're detached from things, we can see the code a bit clearer. I know for me I can't decode my own stuff a lot of the time because I'm too emotionally involved or attached to it. So I need somebody outside to look in to point things out to me. Absolutely. And I think therapists define difficulty in cultivating curiosity are the therapists that get caught up in a rigid way of thinking. And they think this is the only way that change can happen. Or this is the only model you can use to help the client change. And if they get stuck in what's right and what's wrong, they lose the art of spontaneity and curiosity. Is that when our ego gets in the way, Bob? That this is the only way that? Yeah, yeah. Get to cure or whatever. Yeah. Or when they get very yes, the answer is that or when the therapist gets very precious with the model they've been trained in. Yeah. For example. And they don't are unable to see that there's another way to help the therapist. Yeah. Or there could be other ways. So and as I said, the problem with that is it blocks curiosity and blocks spontaneity because the therapist gets fixed in a certain outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Because every client is unique. They might come with the same issues, but they're upbringing and they're experience and everything is unique about them. So we need to be able to look at different things. Yeah. Definitely. Flexibility, spontaneity, curiosity. Yeah. The most important qualities. Because if you had a tool bag for your 38 year career or however long your career is, Bob, what would be in that tool bag? Because for me, if something tweaks my interest and I want to learn more about it. So, you know, everything apart from the kitchen sink is in mind. Oh. Oh. And, you know, it's an evolution through my career to pick up and do different things. But your tool bag must be overflowing. Yes, it is. But, you know, it's a lovely metaphor for you to have that way of thinking that shows that you have an abundance of curiosity. Yeah. Yeah. If it tweaks my curiosity, then I want to learn more. And, of course, you know, we need to be curious about the person in front of us. We need to want to understand what's brought them to the therapy office. What's, what is it that they want to change and how come they haven't been able to do that already? Yeah. We need to, you know, develop that quality of curiosity. And nothing about curiosity is that the client will feel accounted, you know, accounted by you, that you're on their side, that you see them as valuable, that you are willing to go the extra mile and invest your own heart and passion into the work in front of you. Yeah. Because you're taking the time to be curious and to inquire. Oh. And if there's something else as well about not making assumptions, if we're curious, we're not making assumptions about what we think they need or should do or all those sorts of things as well. No, you're right. We're checking things out. Yeah. You're right. And the worst thing for a therapist to get caught up in is black and white thinking, right and wrong, certain way of being, and you mentioned it, by the way, assumptions. Yeah. Very hard for therapists to train themselves to move away from assumptions. But if you get caught up in that process of assumptions, you will miss the client in front of you automatically. Yeah. As you were talking then, I was thinking, I can understand, and I probably did do it when I was newly qualified, being quite rigid in what we were going to do in the sessions. And, you know, if they're coming with anxiety, then we need to do X, Y and Z, because I didn't have the confidence to be curious or to look outside the box or to explore anything else. But as you get more confidence in it, it's easier to say I don't have all the answers. Yeah. I think you've got a very good point. And it's a developmental point. Yeah. It's a developmental perspective. In other words, when you start off as a beginning therapist, usually you start off with the placement and training, and you get clients through the placement. Secondly, you then go on to go into private practice and build your practice up. So in these early years as you are evolving, it's very normal that the therapist gets very wedded to the psychotherapy model they've been trained in. Yeah. And to rights and wrongs. Yeah. What's right and what's wrong? Yeah. And kind of following a manual, if you will. This is what we do. Yeah. So it's like therapy by vote. Yes. Because you know, I think the reason is it's because it soothes the anxiety of the therapist. Yeah. Yeah. It did with me. I can remember having sheets and pages and pages of things, you know, in preparation and talking to other therapists who were much more experienced would just walk into the therapy room. And I can remember being in awe of what with nothing's planned. You've not got anything planned. You're just walking and they were like, yeah. And that has to come with experience. Yeah. It's developmental. You can't just suddenly get to that place, you know, experience, confidence, the ability to develop curiosity, the freedom from anxiety, all comes later in your practice as you develop and get the experience and solidify, you know, security in yourself to allow yourself that freedom. Yeah. So curiosity, I think is a developmental quality in the sense that you need to be free of anxiety to allow yourself to have that sense of spontaneity, often to be curious. Yeah. And I know we've touched on it in the past. And I think it's one of the titles that we've got coming up about, you know, making mistakes, you know, being curious and, you know, having spontaneity and everything. We've got to be open to getting it wrong sometimes, you know, asking questions and being curious, kind of make sure, and like you said, checking in, that we're on the right track with what we're doing. At the beginning therapists usually are mortified if they feel they have made a mistake or if they've got things right and wrong. Yeah. And again, it takes experience to move away from that position. I can remember in the early days, you know, and I don't know whether it was you or one of the other trainers in the Institute, you know, being really worried that I was going to damage the client. If I didn't get it right 100% of the time, I'm going to harm them in somewhere. And it was a real fear of mine in the early days. I think it's very common with early therapists. Yeah. And the real truth, of course, if you've got a good working relationship where the client feels valued, accounted for and validated, they will be able to cope with most ruptures in the psychotherapy process. They're repairable. The relationship, you know, the therapist can grow from any mistakes if you want to put it that way if the person makes. But again, I think it's a developmental process where the therapist needs to be, to have grown in that process to feel confidence, to allow themselves to be free of anxiety and to be spontaneous and to inquire and account and allow their curiosity to really have free way. Yeah. I think that's so easy at the beginning. But you see, that's true. On another side of this, in my experience, you get some therapists who are much more curious almost from the beginning. It's in their nature to be curious, to be adventurous, to take risks, to explore, to want to understand the process. And we'll ask many, many questions from a curious place. But other therapists, for example. Yeah. So I think even though the developmental perspective, you have to be able to see that the therapist comes from that sense of passion and curiosity rather than therapy by rote. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, like you said, being curious kind of allows for connection between the therapist and the client as well. Yeah, that's why I'm going with that. Because if a person feels accounted for, validated and valued and feels that the therapist is on their side, the therapist has got passion for the client getting better and they're curious to find out what went wrong, then connection is much, much, much more likely to happen. And once you get connection, you'll get relationship. Once you get relationship, that will foster template of security and safety. And once you have security and safety, that will foster trust. And the relationship will be much more solid for the journey ahead, if you like. Yeah. Yeah. And if a rupture does occur, that, you know, potentially you can mend it if you've got all of that in place, you know, along the way. So all those things that we've been talking about aids connection and connection is the building block for a good relationship. And a good relationship is a building block for effective psychotherapy. Yeah. So they sort of all go together. Yeah. And again, I know we've touched on it in the past, but we have an innate need for connection with other human beings. I often say to clients, it's not that, you know, it's nice and it's, you know, it'd be good if we add it. It's a need in us to have a connection with other people. Yeah, we have a need, an innate need for social relationships. Yeah. Well, the human person is by definition, social. Yeah. And unfortunately, any connection is better than no connection. Well, yes, that's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Even by, you know, how can I explain this? We search out negative connection. If there's no, it's better than having no connection. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, I think, I think it's very important for therapists to think of therapy, you know, in terms of connection. Transaction analysis is why training is a contact and connection oriented model. Yeah. On curiosity, I think builds the connections. If you're not, if you're not curious, if you don't inquire, if you don't have the passion to look at what brought, you know, how come the person came into your therapy room, then the client will feel less valuable. The connection will be harder to foster. And when you were talking earlier on about being a detective, that's sometimes what it's like because for the client, they know everything about their life. So it's like, it's very mundane for them because they've been a part of it. Whereas, you know, for us to inquire and to be curious and to peel back the layers and to work out the little nuances and everything, that takes time, like you said, you know, to foster the connection and the relationship. And curiosity is a quality which needs cultivating. Yeah. And the therapist needs to put energy into that. And it comes with passion. And it comes with the desire for social connection. And it comes with the desire to understand how come the person sabotages their own life. And they all go together. If that's not there, usually the client will feel the therapist is not interested in them. Yeah. That's a big thing, isn't it? Well, do you want a therapist? Does any client want a therapist that's not interested in them? And in fact, the clients that stay with a therapist that they feel is not interested in them will be the clients who have had a history of caretakers that has not been interested in them. And they have a script where they believe that that's their norm. And of course, that is no template for change. No. It's a template for repeating history. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, in life, I would, you know, none of us want to be with somebody that isn't interested in us. That's correct. Unless, as I've just said, you've had a history. But caretakers have not been interested in you. So you've switched off, you've dissociated, you've tried to cope in another way, and you don't know any different. So you may then pick people who have the same pattern of disconnection or pervading, you know, disinterest. And therefore, you may unfortunately expect or not be surprised when your therapist does the same process. However, I think that that will not lead to effective psychotherapy. No. That will lead to a repeat of history for the client. And actually, probably a repeated history for the therapist as well. Yeah. I can't imagine a scenario where a therapist would not be interested in their client. I can. I'll give you. And actually, what should happen in the training is that the person who starts off from that position is persuaded to go to therapy to explore how come they have chosen a profession, which they're not interested in, which is really may often be the case, or then don't realize that they are putting over an attitude of disinterest. So the therapy is the first call. The second call is that the trainers need to, you know, help the prospective trainee to be aware that they are putting over an attitude of disinterest and why that is. So hopefully, and usually, a trainee therapist won't finish the course from that position. Yeah. And they'll then go and look at, you know, the therapy process and how come they come into a profession, which, you know, needs the therapist to have some passion and change. I suppose there's a fine line as well in curiosity. As you were talking, then I would think, I'm too nauseous to be disinterested. But then there's a fine line in being curious and being, you know, nauseous and wanting to know everything about every part of the client's life and intrusive. Well, that's a different thing, isn't it? I mean, you're now onto an important thing to mention. If the client feels that you're intrusive to the extent that you just said, they probably will feel overwhelmed and switch off. So even though curiosity and the culture of energy and curiosity, I believe to lead to an effective relationship and therefore an effective road to change, there's a difference between the enteral curiosity and inquiry to intrusive processes or whether the other person feels interrogated. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a difference in those two processes. Yeah, definitely. The person will, if they feel, if they feel interrogated, if they feel their life isn't been intruded on without a contract or without some sort of process, then effective therapy will not happen either. Yeah. And for me, you know, I can think of times in the past where maybe I have gone past being curious, but I've picked up on a change in the client's behaviour, you know, then maybe being more defensive or the disconnect happens because I've obviously overstepped the mark and they didn't want to talk about where I was heading or something. Yeah. And another good way to look at this is think about personality adaptations or personality traits. Yeah. So for example, somebody who's withdrawn as a default process or as a way of surviving the world or coping with the world is very different from somebody who's paranoid as a way of coping with the world or someone who's hysterical or sees the world through feelings as a way of coping with the world. And I think you need to take into account the clinical aspect of the person in front of you. Yeah. When we're talking about you know, your levels of curiosity. Yeah. Because it may be too much for the person who's you know, got a process of withdrawing or feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. I'm thinking when you're talking about that, the client and I have had them in the past that dip in and dip out. They can connect for a period of time, but then they withdraw and then they come back and they kind of yeah, constantly dipping in and out. So I think you need to think about whether your transactions may be too overwhelming. Yeah. Even though you may think they're simply curiosity questions, they may actually be too many or too intense or they may be transactions which aren't contracted for. Yeah. All those things. So I think we need to think clinically as well. You know, when we're talking about the quality of curiosity and inquiry, we need to think clinically. And there's a point to it. We're not just being nauseous. No, no. No, you're completely right. You would do some educative therapy, but you know, so you do have to think clinically. And I still think that if a person feels accounted for, validated and feels they are of some value, effective psychotherapy and connection is more likely to happen. If they feel that the therapist is disinterested in some way, or doesn't want to understand them, or I don't know, intellectualizes rather than goes towards the heart of the matter, they may an effective psychotherapy is far likely to happen, I think, because the relationship would be much more fragile between the therapist and the client. Yeah. In TA, they've got that whole theory about strokes, positive strokes, negative strokes, conditions, strokes. For people who perhaps don't know, positive stroke is a stroke of recognition. Negative stroke is a stroke, a unit of negative recognition. So you've got positive recognition, negative recognition. And people thrive on positive recognition. Now, if they feel unrecognized by the client, then effective relationship building becomes much more harder. Yeah. And again, you know, it's what they're used to in their past as well. If they're used to getting negative strokes as opposed to positive strokes, you know, when we start to give them positive strokes, it can be overwhelming at times if we're, you know, piling them on. So it's about being in the moment with the client and noticing any changes and then being curious about how did that make you feel? You know, when I said that to you, I get a sense that you're not used to hearing positive statements. And again, just be curious about it. Yeah. Absolutely right. And also a positive intention to understand the process with the client is important here. Yeah. And again, the client's going to feel accounted for. But you are right. That's a really important tip. We've been talking about it for the last 10 minutes, is we need to think clinically and check out if we think we're overwhelming the person in front of us. Yeah. Because we are all different, you know, and like you said, if you know, the default is to withdraw or to not have that connection all the time. I know for, you know, for some clients having eye contact can be quite overwhelming, particularly when they're talking about, you know, quite deep things. They'll look away. They'll look over me or decide of me as opposed to looking at me because that's too intense for them. So quite rightly, you might check out what's happening for them. Yeah. Yeah. That particular time or at least help them be aware of the process that's happening in the room. Yeah. Without shaming them or anything which again could be quite a big thing in the therapy room. If we point something out, we need to be mindful of doing it gently, which is why I like curiosity because it's not intrusive. It's just being curious. Yes. That's, that's in our dialogue between you and me. Hopefully a lot of podcasts. We all know what curiosity means. Yeah. But it's easily mistaken, I think, for other things. So for example, a therapist who always asks a lot of questions may think that's being curious. And actually, the client may feel it as interrogation. So curiosity for one person might be different from another person in terms of definition. But I think that it is a general transaction. It's a transaction of inquiry. It's a transaction aimed at understanding. Yeah. It's a transaction aimed at relationship building. Yeah. I think we could, in life in general, we could all do with being a little bit more curious rather than making assumptions and presuming and all those sorts of things. I think curiosity would take us all a bit further in connections. Yeah. And I think checking out the person in front of us, what's happening if you feel them moving away from disconnection, from curiosity, because they might actually be sensing or feeling, you know, curiosity is intrusive. If we're checking out the person in front of us, helping be aware of their own process, then that's leading to building up an effective relationship, which then builds up to effective therapy. Yeah. I hope the people that are listening to this can kind of get a sense of what it's like to be a therapist. One of the criticisms that I hear a lot about therapy as opposed to counselling and coaching is the length of time that people are in therapy. But when we're talking about the different layers of connection and taking into account, you know, the client and their experience and everything, it does take time. What's behind the criticism? You said you hear a lot of criticism. Yeah. Yeah. That's behind the criticism. I don't know. I always get a sense that, you know, we're money grabbing and once they come in the door, we don't want to lose them. And that's why everything takes so long. And it's like, yeah, you haven't got a clue really. Well, you know, I understand why you're coming from there. You know, but you see, I think that for, how can I, I think for quite a lot of the time, maybe even up to a year. So that's going to be, I don't know, 50 sessions, maybe. Use that approximately. We're often seeing or experiences their behaviors. And we're often dealing with the impact of their behaviors on us or how the behaviors have gotten in the way of change, or we're dealing with the adaptations. And that takes time to deal with, plus the fact takes time to understand a person's, how a person's got to the way they've got to take time for us to, you know, pass that on to the client. So all these things take time. Now without that time being spent, then a person may feel all the things I've been talking about in this podcast, and the relationship may not be built and robust enough to challenge, to deal with the challenges that come underneath the behaviors. See, that's the key for me is what's underneath. That's right. Unless you deal with that. Yeah, you can get to the surface stuff quite quickly. As soon as they walk in the first session, you can get a sense of it, but it's what's underneath that. You're absolutely correct. Unless you can get to that, and it takes time, there's no other way around this, because these are well-constructed behaviors and defense systems that have worked for many years for the person to survive, even though it isn't perhaps the way that they want to survive, or it might be unhealthy, or they may continue repetitively to do the same things. Unless you can get underneath that, if you just simply, I don't know, tell the person to change different behaviors and put lists of positive things on a fridge and follow those lists of things on the fridge. If you just stay with those behavioral changes, what will happen is the plaster will fall off. In other words, it's what's underneath the behaviors, what's underneath the plaster. So you need to get to the plaster, which has been the sort of way that people have survived by putting a plaster on the herd that wound the trauma. And like you've just said, you need to be able to get to what's bubbling around and underneath all that, which is where the healing is. If you don't, behavioral change without anything else, in my opinion, will last a very short time. And then what happens is they'll either carry on in their unhealthy mechanisms, or they'll come back to therapy again, because the wheel processes haven't been touched. And therefore to do that, you need to have time. I agree. And be curious to get underneath the, you know, the defences, I love that word, that's what we do. We lay traps and put defences up because we've learned to do that, to protect ourselves. It's all about survival. So it takes time to, I don't want to say knock down those defences, but to allow the client to take them down in a safe and secure way. It takes time. Yeah. Now, one of the podcast titles I haven't zoomed over to you, but it would be challenged at therapy, really. And that is therapy of middle class profession. So in other words, when the challenge comes, people say, oh, you're just interested in money, and if they're there a year or whatever, it's very expensive, and we can do this in six sessions and XXX. In essence, that's true. Because A, we have to live. B, we spend a lot of money on the training. And C, you would just, we have to pay use for private practices and all the things that go with that. So unfortunately, you know, the therapist's time will, yeah, and they're qualified, will cost. And there's no way around that. If you, and therefore it will accumulate over time. And that's why I said I was thinking about podcasts and middle classes and people have got money are available, sorry, are able because they've got, you know, they've got that type of access to the financial process that are needed for psychotherapy. By definition, we might want to say, unfortunately, this type of therapy is open to the middle classes more. And maybe that's a good podcast for us to do. I mean, I went to low cost clinic, as you know, but I only managed to do that because the people who are training will give their time for voluntary for 50 minutes as a way of learning their, you know, it's like a prentice style, a way of learning their craft. And there are therapists who in private practice will have four or five of their clients maybe at a lower price. So it'd be a very good podcast to do. So, you know, I don't know where we go with this, except that therapy is by definition quite expensive. The longer it goes on, of course, it's more money. But you know, Jackie, in the end, some things are priceless. I agree. I agree. Yeah. And you're paying for the skill and the training and the continuous professional development and, and, and, and you know, that's, that's what costs the money. Yeah. Yeah. So it's another podcast I know because I could talk for another hour about it. But I think there is some truth by people who perhaps attack long-term psychotherapy to do with finance. But I don't think that a majority of therapists go out of the way to lengthen the psychotherapy to simply get money. No, not at all. It takes time to build a relationship. It takes time to look beyond the behaviors. It takes time to understand the person that we're actually dealing with. And you know, change is a process, never an event. Yeah. So Bob, we'll leave it there. Do you want to do that as the next topic? Not this minute, no. But I would like to have it sometime. We will, I've written it down, so we will use that. So what we're going to discuss next? Well, let me just say one other thing, because I felt I was getting on my sort of preaching box there. I mean, 50 years ago, I did a politics degree. So I've always been interested in politics. Psychotherapies where art and science meets. So I have an investment in doing that podcast. I do want to end though by saying that I do believe curiosity leads or that quality leads to trust, to authenticity in the relationship. And as the relationship gets more robust, therefore, effective psychotherapy will happen. And by definition, that is long-term psychotherapy. Mm-hmm. Hard to do in six sessions. Yeah. I mean, curiosity can carry on in six sessions. But the relationship, you know, in six sessions. The connection is a relationship and everything. Yeah, definitely. So it's a podcast I would like to do. But I hope the listeners can see the importance of cultivating authenticity, trust and curiosity in that process. Until next time, Bob. Yes, we didn't ask you a question. What do you think the next one is? What we're doing next time is understanding transactional analysis and how to use TA in the therapy process. Oh, you and I will love this. I hope the listeners, I hope the listeners enjoyed as much as probably we will talk about this because that's our major. Be prepared. So if we can't pass some tips about TA on the next podcast, we never will. No. So until next time, Bob. Yes, certainly. Okay. 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.