Saying Everything

I am reading a lovely new book, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves. It brought to mind the reality that we ultimately behave with the therapist the way we do with most important people in our lives, with the same kinds of assumptions about the therapist and about ourselves. And we do so unquestioningly.  It is also true that it is difficult for the therapist to respond to feelings and issues that the patient does not talk about. All rumors to the contrary, we are not mind readers! This underlies the basic therapeutic dictum that the patient should say whatever comes to mind. In one of the vignettes in Grosz's book, he and a friend have this exchange about the friend's analysis. His friend was feeling bad that he had concerned himself with so much minutiae and petty complaints. He set down his cup. ‘I must have been an analyst’s nightmare.’ I stopped him. ‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘It sounds to me like you did exactly what you were supposed to do. You went in and told her what you felt. I don’t think it was too difficult for her to spend an hour a day with you.’ ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but that’s bullshit.’ ‘No, it’s not.’ I said. ‘A nightmare is the patient who doesn’t tell you what’s on his mind. He drinks, secretly. He slaps his child, but he can’t – or doesn’t – tell you about it.’ Grosz, Stephen (2013-05-28). The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find O...
Source: Jung At Heart - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs