Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Staying Away From the Talking Cure

By Kevin Murphy
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist,
Dublin, Ireland.

As I was saying last week, there are reasons why people should not do psychotherapy. And while it may seem counterproductive for a psychotherapist to say so, I am outlining some of those reasons in order to help people who do choose to enter into therapy to do so with a greater sense of purpose. Last week I mentioned the concepts of relationship, commitment and change that are inherent in the process. I said that if people had difficulty with any of these areas then it might be a good idea for them not to do therapy.
This week I wanted to look at an often overlooked area: speech. It might seem like an obvious thing to say but psychotherapy is a talking therapy. The phrase comes from Freud who essentially invented it and it has been taken on since then in many other forms of therapy. But as the name suggests, the talking cure, as it was known in Freud’s time, is about, well, talking.
It is always interesting to notice how many people do not do much talking in their lives. Naturally we can’t go around talking about how we feel to total strangers. Even friends and family can get tired listening to us if we talk too much about ourselves. But, as an exercise, try and notice next time you opt to say nothing when there is something important you want to say to people you know well and you would otherwise be comfortable speaking to.
The art of speaking, at least from a therapeutic point of view, is not about knowing exactly what you want to say or having the words to describe deep or complicated ideas about ourselves. The first thing people are asked to do in psychoanalytic psychotherapy is to simply talk about the first thing that comes to mind. We are not referring to buried things, or deep things, or complicated things, or meaningful things. We are simply referring to whatever is foremost on one’s mind.
After that, it is about allowing oneself to follow on to the next thing that comes to mind, and then the next and so on. The experience, generally speaking, is that by the end of the session we are usually on to a subject we had no idea we were going to speak about and one that engages our interest fully. And it is all done by not directing the person to talk about anything in particular.
Now this might sound like a simple process but there are people who have difficulty with this very simplicity. And, in fairness, it is easier to understand how it works once one has done it a few times rather than explain it in cold print. Be that as it may, it can pose a problem for some people. The freedom of speaking about whatever one wishes can be too much. The requirement to speak about whatever comes to mind can often be problematic for some, despite its simplicity. And so if the business of speaking – and remember, the act of speaking requires us to put ourselves into the forefront of what we are doing – is too difficult or too onerous then psychotherapy might not be the ideal choice for you.
And finally on this subject, we come to the notion of freedom. Without going in to it too obscurely or too deeply there are broadly two types of freedom at work when it comes to psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The first kind is the kind I referred to a little earlier and it is the freedom to speak about whatever comes to mind, in whatever way you wish. By this latter point - in whatever way you wish - I mean that it doesn’t have to be in a formal beginning-middle-end style of narrative. So, you see, this first type of freedom is quite extensive. Psychoanalysis allows us to speak about things that come to mind in whatever loose order they happen to come. There doesn’t have to be a big point at the end of it. Stylistically speaking, we don’t have to begin in a flourish and marshal all our points to an overwhelming conclusion.
Once we are speaking out the things that come to mind, as they come to mind, then we are doing it properly. Again, this is easier to do in practice than to explain in print. But if allowing yourself the freedom to speak without having to come to neat conclusions about everything, or have a definite reason for choosing to speak about something in particular, might not be for you, then you might want to reconsider doing psychotherapy.
The second form that this freedom takes is the freedom that comes when the mistaken illusions under which we operate begin to lift. This takes place some time after we have begun the work properly and it is first noticeable in small ways. We stop seeing things in exactly the way we always have and it is first brought home to us when we experience the sensation of having a completely new and refreshing take on something ordinary. This is a sign that a new freedom is emerging in how we view the world and our place in it.
Naturally, such a shift can mean giving up on old illusions we have had – I can never succeed, I will never be loved, I will never change – and with it comes a degree of resistance. Why? Because, paradoxically, we might want to change but we might also want to remain as we are. I touched on this when I spoke about the concept of change and here I am simply broadening it out to include the notion that freedom from old ideas is the ultimate form of change. If, however, you think you might have difficulty with that kind of thing, then maybe psychotherapy is not for you.
So the conundrum exists that although people might opt for therapy in order to change themselves or aspects of their lives, they can resist it at the same time. Some even believe they can change parts of themselves as if they were somehow unconnected to the totality of who they are. Psychotherapy works best when it approached with a degree of open-ness and honesty. It does not work when change is sought while holding on to and refusing to give up on old ways of thinking about ourselves. Why? Because the old ways of thinking about ourselves are usually the reason we seek out therapy in the first place.

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