psychologist-in-a-bottle

[psychologist-in-a-bottle]

Bottle #4 - Could you survive a silent retreat?

Within therapy, so often I discuss a client’s relationship with other people. However, arguably, I think the most important relationship one can ever have is the one with themselves; If you don’t get along with yourself, life becomes extraordinarily difficult (and I can attest to that from personal experience). Indeed, I’ve frequently seen people go to extreme lengths to avoid being alone with their own thoughts or emotions.

Sometimes, people, particularly those who ‘don’t believe in all that spiritual/psychology crap’ are quite sceptical of the notion of having a relationship with one’s self. I think that’s understandable... after all, when we are taught about relationships, we are typically, in the West at least, taught of a relationship being a phenomenon which occurs between two different people. However, as we develop, our use of language changes and we start to use the term “relationship” to describe our interactions between ourselves and things other than people e.g. “My relationship with food”.

In reality, we can have ‘relationships’ with anything, including ourselves. I suppose the biggest difference between a relationship with ourselves versus, for example, food, is that, just as with a real person, we can respond. Just as someone may be given the ‘silent treatment’ in a relationship, so can we ignore ourselves. Just as we can insult someone who annoys us, so can we insult ourselves with the names we know hurt the most... and, thankfully, just as we can reassure and soothe a friend in distress, so too can we reassure and soothe ourselves. That is, provided we had experiences growing up which taught us how to, or were later taught a different way.

If you don’t like yourself, then the good news is that modern society basically ensures you’ll be distracted from reflecting on the relationship you have with yourself for about 99% of your day. We have chores to do, children to feed, Netflix series to watch, books to read, work to do etc... and we talk to other people about the ongoing drama of our lives... Not a lot of free time for examining what thoughts arise when you turn your attention inwards, unless you deliberately do so...

However, on a silent retreat, that all changes.

You may have guided meditations or activities now and then, but gone are the distractions of modern life. That shield, separating you from the thoughts, memories or harsh judgements you reserve for yourself, vanishes. You are exposed to ‘you’. Prolonged silence without distraction means that, often, for some people, they are alone with ‘themselves’ for the first time ever and, understandably, this can be a significantly uncomfortable experience. It is for this reason that some silent retreats actually post disclaimers on their websites stating that people currently experiencing psychological distress may be unsuitable for their retreat.

So, do you think you could survive a silent retreat, time spent without being distracted from yourself?

How long do you think you could manage?

[psychologist-in-a-bottle]

Bottle #3 - The assumption of emotional literacy

Interestingly, for both adults and children, we assume people know what we mean when we talk about specific emotions. However, I find that, actually, this is untrue a lot of the time. Some children are never ‘formally’ taught about emotions, but instead learn what they can from their parents/carers or friends about what to call their various internal experiences. Sometimes this is sufficient to develop a rich vocabulary by itself. However, other children may not have the opportunity to learn about (or even express) certain emotions in the context of a safe and loving environment. When this happens, our knowledge of and ability to label these physical states accurately can become impaired. Additionally, when we consider the way we use language in every day society, some of the most common and persistent confusion is completely forgivable.

Take jealousy and envy, for example. Often, people will say things like “I’m jealous of her looks”... but this is incorrect, the person in this instance is actually expressing envy. To experience jealousy is not only to desire something, but also to fear the loss of something you already possess. For example, an accurate report of jealousy might be a person who sees their partner talking to an attractive stranger. This person may not only desire their partner, but also fear losing their partner to the stranger, hence the emotion of jealousy is aroused. This emotional state then motivates us to do something in order to relieve this unpleasant feeling and to secure what we possess and fear to lose (e.g. the relationship).

Envy, meanwhile, tends to occur when we are striving to gain something, or conversely, wish to remove the gains of others. If someone I really dislike buys a new car and I experience envy, it might motivate me to work harder to obtain enough money to purchase one myself; we could actually see this as a fairly constructive use for the emotion of envy. However, instead, I might simply vandalise their car, ruining its appearance so that neither I (nor anyone else) will desire it; I now have nothing to feel envious about and my envy decreases.

It might sound pedantic, but understanding different emotional states, how it feels to experience them and being able to appropriately label them is actually vital to the therapeutic process. One of the biggest traps that trainee therapists fall victim to is that they (along with basically every other adult) assume ‘emotional literacy’ is common and equal among all people. This is why, when someone tells me they feel, for example, “guilty”, I find it helpful to ask them to describe not only the situation in which they first felt the emotion but to put into words what it actually felt like in their body. Sometimes, there is a mismatch between either the appropriateness of the emotional response or the label being used to describe it.

[psychologist-in-a-bottle]

Bottle #2 - The child is not the problem

It’s very easy to blame parents/carers for their child’s difficulties… and I do, frequently, because, at least in my experience, about 90% of the time they’re the cause. However, This Be The Verse n’ all that... 

Still, it’s remarkable how many parents are in denial and simply refuse to entertain the notion that they could possibly be implicated in the difficulties their child experiences in any way.

Honestly, much of my family work is navigating the fragility of the parents. I also frequently need to find delicate ways to express responses to the following:

“But she’s had a lovely childhood!” – Well, unfortunately, you’re not the one who gets to decide how she experiences childhood... or anything else for that matter...

“Oh we don’t have any secrets from each other.” – Yes you do. I know this because your son spent the last session in tears telling me all the things you dismissed a year ago.

“She’s my daughter, she should hug me before she goes to bed!” – Why, because it makes you feel like you’re not doing a poor job as a parent?

“Will you prescribe us some-” - Nope! No, instead, we’re going to have a conversation that’ll involve both of us feeling quite uncomfortable... but often I think parents/carers have been comfortable for too long at the expense of their children.

[psychologist-in-a-bottle]

Bottle #1 – returning to the river

After possibly a decade, I’ve decided to start a new blog to both reflect on my clinical practice and also because I hope some of the things I get embroiled in amuse others as much as they amuse me.

I considered several different platforms but, in the end (and perhaps due to nostalgia if nothing else), I chose Tumblr.

However, like a millennial salmon returning to its ancestral river only to realise it’s been drained by a local McDonald’s, Tumblr in 2022 looks wildly different from how it did back in my emo days - where’s all the porn!?

Still, never mind, as long as I can type up my half-coherent thoughts and throw them into this digital sea I’m sure It’ll do the job. Who knows, perhaps someone will even read them.