It Takes Time

Joseph Burgoin
Social Behavior
·
The Psychotherapy Relationship
57

One of my clients tells me that I should have a neon sign on the wall behind me that reads, "It takes time." She says I could simply flip a switch and turn it on instead of saying those words myself, which I obviously do quite a lot ... for example, when someone asks me, "How do I learn to deal with these feelings in a better way, then?" It takes time. Any kind of meaningful growth takes a long time. I don't think I've ever had a client who liked this answer, but most of them come to accept it.

I have a friend, an accomplished tennis pro, who once told me that in order to become a highly skilled tennis player, it might take ten years of lessons. He didn't see anything unusual or objectionable about that. In order to become highly skilled at anything, you have to work hard at it for a long time. I spent four years as an undergraduate and six years in graduate school. After earning a B.S., a would-be surgeon then spends four years in medical school, followed by a long internship and residency, in order to qualify. You've probably heard about the 10,000 hour rule: it takes that many hours of practice to become expert at something.

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When the Therapist Falls Asleep During Session

Joseph Burgoin
The Psychotherapy Relationship
47

I dozed off for about ten seconds during a session today. Over the last 30 years, this has happened to me three times that I recall. The first time was with an elderly client, benignly psychotic but disengaged from the therapeutic process; briefly dozing made me realize I'd come to feel that I couldn't help her. The second time, I had just returned from abroad and went back to work too soon; I was jet-lagged and nodded off during what would have been night in my former time zone. Today, it happened with a client of long-standing. I'd finished another session immediately before this one and did not feel tired. It was mid-day and I'd slept reasonably well the night before. Just prior to my eyes closing, my client had told me she was feeling so tired she just wanted to drop off, fall to the ground and go to sleep.

I've experienced this kind of sleepiness before, with several different clients -- a sudden, out-of-the-blue feeling that my eyelids are so heavy I can't keep them open. (I've also felt tired on many other occasions -- my own fatigue, from stress or too little sleep the night before -- but not dozed off.) Usually I'm able to tell the difference between them, whether it's my own exhaustion or a ... well, a kind of communication. On the woo-woo scale of things, I'm fairly skeptical, but I do believe in something like ESP -- a capacity to perceive through a sensory apparatus other than one of the five usual suspects. I believe good therapists are highly sensitive in this area. In broad terms, you might think of it as a kind of countertransference response or a form of empathy.

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Video #3 – “The Transference Begins”

Joseph Burgoin
The Psychotherapy Relationship
53

I've now uploaded the third installation in my series on psychodynamic psychotherapy, which you can access through the video frame below. This one covers early manifestations of the transference and includes a lot of examples from recent sessions in my practice. It's a useful counterpart to my earlier post on the subject, fleshing out the ways that an understanding of the transference can shed light on a person's "outside" relationships and internal dynamics.

Can I ask a favor? I know that everyone dislikes receiving endless email notifications from all the websites we visit, but the number of people who subscribe to my channel has an impact on my standing in the YouTube community and how my channel ranks; if you watch the video and like it, would you mind subscribing? Many thanks.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Video No. 2: The Early Weeks

Joseph Burgoin
The Psychotherapy Relationship
22

This is the second installment in my video series about what to expect in psychodynamic psychotherapy, focusing on what happens during the early weeks. In addition to developing a deeper understanding of the client's past and current emotional issues, these sessions involve a fair amount of education about the process itself: how it's the job of the psychotherapist to make the unconscious conscious; encouraging clients to begin thinking of themselves as a collection of parts, more or less like distinct individuals cohabiting and relating to one another; and explaining what kind of change is possible and how it occurs.

Following the advice given in one of the comments to my last video, I bought myself a clip-on mike, so the sound is much better now. There's still an occasional glint of reflected light in my glasses ... I'll get all the kinks worked out eventually. I'm enjoying this new mode of "just talking" a lot more, and surprisingly, getting something that I like in only two takes (I had to abort the first one in the middle because a gnat kept flying into my eyes). Next video will be about the early phases of the transference.

Why I’m a Therapist

Joseph Burgoin
Relationship Issues
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Shame/Narcissism
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The Psychotherapy Relationship
83

When people find out I'm a therapist, they usually assume I chose my profession because I want to help others. While I derive a deep sense of satisfaction from doing just that, I mostly chose to become a therapist because it was the only line of work I could envision that would support me and a family, while at the same time holding my interest for a lifetime. Human beings are deeply intriguing to me, at least once (if) you get past the veneer, and I can't imagine a more fascinating job. During my last vacation, I thought more deeply about the work I do and the ways it satisfies me. I came to some new insights about myself and how I feel about my clients which didn't entirely surprise me, but that shed some new light on the way the practice of psychotherapy "feeds" me. I believe many therapists feel the same way.

For the most part, I find social conversation and even many friendships to be a less-than-satisfying experience. If you've read my post on narcissistic behavior, you already know how I feel: most people regard parties and the making of a new acquaintance as another opportunity for self-display, to talk about their own amazing experiences, success stories, etc., to elicit admiration from other people and make themselves feel good. Because I'm deeply curious about other people, I'm often eager to hear those stories; but when the narcissistic self-absorption feels too intense, I get tired. It also feels very lonely when the other person shows absolutely no interest in getting to know anything about me.

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