When the patient walks through the door…<\/p>\n
When the patient walks through the door…<\/p>\n
When the patient walks through the door into the consulting room will I be ready to meet\/discover them?\u00a0 Who are they today?<\/p>\n
If I am not, then I will meet the patient I saw in the last session and in the session before that ad infinitum.\u00a0 Same problems, same patient, different day.\u00a0 Like the patient is\u00a0one of the\u00a0chairs in my waiting room–never changing, always there, always the same.<\/p>\n
I had a supervisor in graduate school that said that every session had to be “minted” anew.\u00a0 Each session was fresh and had to be discovered–like starting from zero.\u00a0 I didn’t understand that back then, but I think I do now.<\/p>\n
There is a scene from the movie “The Natural” where Robert Redford realizes that his pitcher is throwing the baseball game.\u00a0 So Redford tells the pitcher, “Give ’em the real stuff”.<\/p>\n
Here is a scene from the consulting room:<\/p>\n
He starts twice-weekly treatment complaining of anxiety and depression.\u00a0 He eventually reduces treatment to once weekly and then will end treatment.\u00a0 From the outside looking in every session appeared to be all the same.\u00a0 Same complaints, same problems, same lack of movement or progress.\u00a0 I could see that he was different from session to session, but I was unable to have him allow himself to discover that he was different–that the same complaints and problems were really all a way to hide the “real stuff”.\u00a0 He was so desperately afraid of discovering\/revealing the “real stuff” that he ferociously clung to his unchanging problems, complaints and feelings.<\/p>\n
I imagine that when we are babies we discover a lot–sometimes\u00a0what we find is terrifying, sometimes joyous, and everything in between.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then we grow(?)\u00a0, the process of discovery\u00a0frequently is ignored or becomes calcified and hardened.\u00a0 We prefer to discover the latest technology, what’s on TV, what’s playing at the movies.\u00a0 But the discoveries of ourself\u00a0are left in the dust sometimes to be triggered by a shock-wave from life that\u00a0inadvertently\u00a0gives us a peek at\u00a0the “real stuff”.\u00a0 Perhaps this is what drives\u00a0people to enter therapy.\u00a0 They are shocked at the discovery and want to understand it or make it go away.<\/p>\n
I understand that discovering the “real stuff” is a painful and potentially dangerous process. We all need to balance our sense of security and identity with the process of uncovering the “real stuff”.\u00a0 Too much “real stuff” can upset the apple cart.\u00a0 It can lead to divorce, a breakdown or breakthrough or a sudden change in our lives.\u00a0 There is a certain security in believing that we are constant.\u00a0 That we are who we are.\u00a0 That there is no more to discover about ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0We all desperately cling to our unchanging life circumstances as a sense of security, even if our lives are dull and unsatisfying.\u00a0 There is a certain sense of security in knowing that this is\u00a0the way it’s supposed to be.<\/p>\n
Another view is that life is not constant, nor are we.\u00a0\u00a0That there is an endless supply of the “real stuff” waiting to be discovered. And that the only\u00a0constants are objects–chairs, trees, etc.\u00a0 But hurricanes\u00a0quickly destroy this notion, for a brief time.<\/p>\n
But if we are not constant, if we are not finite, if we are not pieces of furniture, then what?\u00a0 Where are we to get a sense of security from?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am always in awe of couples I see that start every session with the same argument they have been having for years.\u00a0 I usually get the courage to tell them how I marvel at their ability to keep their relationship in the very same place.\u00a0 I also will tell them that a relationship is alive and it takes a great deal of energy and persistence to keep it from growing and changing–to avoid the discovery of the “real stuff”.\u00a0\u00a0 While this avoids any growth or change in the relationship, it also provides a sense of security.\u00a0 The security that comes from knowing the unchanging landscape of my life is a never-ending argument with my partner.\u00a0 But then what would be the cost of changing this?<\/p>\n
Most patients, at the beginning of therapy, tell me that they are willing to do anything to get rid of their problems and change their lives.\u00a0 I believe that consciously this is what they want–anything to remove the pain.<\/p>\n
I also believe that the “anything” that may be required is to discover their “real stuff”, and these discoveries will be mightily resisted.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Brody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the patient walks through the door… When the patient walks through the door… When the patient walks through the door into the consulting room will I be ready to meet\/discover them?\u00a0 Who are they today? If I am not, then I will meet the patient I saw in the last session and in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}