26 Mar 2009
Eyes roll: Group Hug anyone?
Mention therapy to most Londoners and eyes roll.
You might as well be talking about house prices.
You might also have noticed that here in Europe during the Bush regime many Americans called themselves Canadian or North American. Thank God for Obama. Bush added more coal on the fire of anti-American feeling that has lingered in these fair isles over the last Century, growing fiercely during World War 2 when wallet thick Yankie soldiers invaded our shores much to the chagrin of hard – up local lads. Hence the clarion call of Yanks being " Over-sexed, Over-paid and Over here ". During the flower power sixties California became the breeding ground for New Age, Free love, Sonny and Cher. The only survivor being Cher. Free love comes with a price and New Age refuses to grow up. Cher thinks ahead ( or ahead of her surgeon ). In fact many Brits can’t abide New Age, huggy huggy philosophy – it’s too Hi you Guys, OPRAH for them, and during 20 years of creating flyers for my work the most popular and the most successful in response terms was one for GROUPWORK which said as it’s headline " NO Drumwork, No Chanting, No Group Hugs. Promise. " The subhead on the flyer was " other groups do this so much better than us ". Most Brits loathe American openness as much as therapy, maybe this is why the words SELF HELP gives us the willies.
The flyer was not denigrating Drumwork or other shamanistic activities it was simply looking at the market and here in London Personal Development is seen as wacky as vegetarianism was 25 years ago. London’s critical mass thinks New Age is for hippies and therapy is for nutters. You only seek therapy in silence telling no-one, rather like visiting a prostitute model on the 3rd floor in Soho. Some years ago one of my clients, a man with a stonkin’ salary, intelligence, style and wit said " You don’t think I TELL anyone I’m coming here do you? " such was the shame of admitting that his personal life was in disarray.
The performance we give off in our work lives is so different to the dishes in the sink at home, and the coke we use as fuel to amuse, ignite conversation and stay up till dawn on the net. These are the urban addictions that could be addressed by therapy but first the issue of therapy needs to be addressed.
I never understand why traditional forms of counseling ( with masses of letters after their names for credibility ) use language no one understands in their marketing. If you’re in the shit with coke, a crap relationship or depression " person centred " or " rogerian therapy " isn’t going to mean a monkeys fuck. Can you help me? is what they ask and what they need to know. This is why I am glad I never took this route and doubly glad I never became a drug worker in a treatment centre always having to refer to supervision and a fixed way of working. The old ways of therapy have value to many but for too many others the traditional weekly 50 min session no longer holds swank. This is why I do fortnightly 3 hour coaching sessions to dig the dirt, normalising the process of therapy with no clock or spider plants for distraction.
Instead I offer a moroccan tea salon at home or a walk in the park, but thats my style. Shifting the paradigm of therapy is vital in the evolution of healing. A lot of Personal Development material seems to be preaching to the converted anyway – whereas I am much more interested in demystifying therapy attracting first time viewers.
Therapy needs a rebrand.
During my 3 year training as a LRT Relationship Coach & Breathworker I worked through my own stuff first before I worked with others, and before this training in 1988 I had 2 years of weekly 50 min therapy ( 1984 -86 ) plus a minimum of three 12 step Programme groups a week for 6 years. You can’t give away what you haven’t got.
Sondra Ray, founder of The Loving Relationship Training ( LRT ) always encouraged me to be authentic, intuitive and bold. In 1989 we had 150 people on a 4 day Relationship Training, 36 Assistants and 4 logistic Managers, of which I was one. Sondra would always ask " Are there any psychotherapists here? ". Immediately hands shot up ( very important people on the planet ). " Well, IT"S OVER " she boomed out of her 6’2" amazonian frame as egos were shot down in flames. By the end of the training they knew why.
What she meant was that the old textbook training was finished as we needed to move into more emotional approaches to healing like Breathwork and resolving addictive behaviour with personal experience, not working from a manual. In my view a therapist should offer their own experience as much as hearing the client, this process not only avoids the therapist being set up as " expert " but allows the client to drop shames quicker. I never use gobbledy gook therapy terms, plain language will suffice, expletives even better. This is how we normalise therapy. A Course In Miracles ( ACIM ) talks about " the unhealed healer " and I am aware that many therapists are codependent on healing the pain of others and dependent on fixing clients for approval which is why the work I do is so confrontational. All I do is assist the client to heal themselves. If they don’t do the homework they don’t get results – it’s not my stuff.
In 2005 I led a weekend training with 30 doctors in Venezuela, none of them really understanding what codependency was. That was a mind blowing weekend for all of us as they recognised their own need to fix in order to be valued, acquire status and the right to be right. Humility was something they avoided at Medical College.
It is unfortunate that most Self Help material is still American in case studies and tone, all of which ( for reasons above ) stops a lot of Brits reading it, passing it off as Californian fooey.
Here in London reading Harry Potter on the tube is much more acceptable than flaunting " Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway " so I suggest that this weeks task is to carry a self help or inspirational book book like Conversations with God, Women Who Love Too Much or Oliver James’s excellent AFFLUENZA onto the tube, the bus, desk or gym bag.
Leave it lying around and await conversation. If they don’t ask you to lunch, don’t blame me. They’re just not ready. If all else fails try Brett Kahr’s riveting study SEX & THE PSYCHE : Revealing the true nature of our Secret Fantasies from the largest Survey of its kind.
SEX always provokes interest. . . and the book is BRITISH.
Nice one Madge. Time to rant…
A few years ago I was sitting outside a coffee bar and got into a conversation with two psychotherapists/psychologists. When I told them I was waiting to meet my ex-girlfriend for coffee, they were very surprised. I explained we were still good friends and the only comment one of them could muster was “God, I didn’t think it was possible to be friends with an ex.” Wow, sign me up for a session at 50 euros an hour!
What we need is authentic teachers and guides in life, the more authentic the better qualified they are to help. And you Madge, hats off to you for telling me the other week “I can’t help you there, I have no experience of that” is what I mean by authentic.
droid
March 26th, 2009 at 9:31 pmpermalink
I agree that past experience & recovery in the person guiding someone else out of that morass is a more valuable, practical & easily digestable tool than theories from a book. While they have their place in supplying ideas & new ways of thinking, it doesn’t help the ‘therapist’ relate.
Have had similar conversations with 2 friends this month. They were complaining they wanted help with their lives but couldn’t seem to get anywhere. Turns out the ‘style’ of help being offered was the client talking and the therapist asking ‘how did that make you feel’… ‘what do YOU think it means’…. ‘what do you think you should do’
For pity’s sake – you could have that conversation yourself, at home. Cop-Out Theraphy?
Ever think about writing a book on this Madge?
Lafang
March 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pmpermalink
One reason people aren’t too keen to talk about their therapy or to read self help books may just be that they are tired of being seen as being in need of help – as if there is something constantly wrong with them that need fixing.
Did you know that all the syndromes that psychology is full of, is a direct result of the American (non-existing) health care system. Unless a ‘patient’ can be labled in accordance with their bible for psychological disorders (compiled by insurance companies) that lists a large number of syndromes, their health insurance will not pay for any form of ‘treatment’.
So rather than rightly concluding that we all are different and simply trying our best to deal with life as it is thrown at us, we are constantly being compared to some imagined norm of ‘normality’. A standard usually set by churches and other authorities in our societies to fit their needs, not ours. Aimed at making us comply with the demands from society by dishing out guilt for not being ‘normal’.
Although this sounds like relics from the dark ages, only this week there have been examples in the news of how therapists are trying to ‘cure’ homosexuality or how the police somehow still find it difficult not to blame women for being raped. All in the name of some weird standard for ‘normality’.
So not wanting therapy or hugging yourself to a better life can be a very healthy sign.
Even better than therapy may be to have a good old rant about what the world has become – where you dear Swarmite is setting a very good example for all of us.
Keep up the good work. We all need people like you if we are ever going to become normal.
Swedish chef
March 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pmpermalink
We love a rant Droids . . but we love recovery even more!
theswarmite
April 7th, 2009 at 8:42 pmpermalink
LOL LaFang – I have had so many people on my back the last 10 years ( no pun intended ) telling me I have to write abook.
I tried several times and it didn’t gel so I thought this BLOG route would be more comfortable AND IT IS. Who knows where it will all end but at least I am getting it down on proverbial paper.
Love your story above – it verifies my own thoughts.
theswarmite
April 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pmpermalink
Well the SWEDISH CHEF – Happy now? LOL.
At least I have started writing. ( *sigh of relief from the Swede )
I found your comments on the American HealthCare system very thought provoking – it explains a lot. Maybe they need to start RANT ANONYMOUS or NORMAL ANON. Please keep commenting though I do apologise for less than speedy response – an astonishingly busy week.
theswarmite
April 7th, 2009 at 8:52 pmpermalink