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They Swore To Tell The Truth… Just Not The Whole Truth · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, and this is the final episode of the series entitled The Psychology of Emotional Deception.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my hope would be that the preceding episodes have helped you to recognize something, and that in this final episode, I want to encourage you to listen carefully because there is considerable meaning in the words that follow.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is extremely hard to be caught in this kind of incredibly psychologically wounding state where you have been treated in a way which sometimes dramatically or sometimes slowly comes to light.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is really about a kind of recovery and a kind of integration of what's happened that leaves you in a position where you don't lose trust in other people, but you understand the importance of making decisions that are born of discernment, that you've been able to identify how it is possible to be deceived, but it's also possible to avoid it, recognizing some of the inevitable clues along the way, which unfortunately become only too clear afterwards.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't matter because when you're caught in situations like this, it's incredibly hard to see the wood for the trees, so to speak.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is about closing movement, it's about consequence, pattern, and resolution.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there is one final recognition that often marks the turning point in your recovery, and you can recover.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the understanding that the behavior of the deceiver is not without consequence, and it's not always visible and it's not always immediate, but it is inevitable.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if a life is organized around distortion, it requires a constant psychological effort.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So reality has to be defended and narratives have to be maintained, and somehow the contradictions and the hypocrisy has to be managed.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But over time this erodes depth, it constrains authenticity and fragments relational truth.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what appears outwardly as control or avoidance often carries an inward cost.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a kind of quiet disconnection from emotional reality and sometimes from yourself and who you really are.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the most powerful shift occurs not in the deceiver, that is very unlikely to happen, but in the one who has been deceived.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the moment when confusion gives way to recognition.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: In a previous series, I talked about the three stages of recognition followed by the reckoning, and then finally the recovery.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now that this doesn't happen as a single event, and we very often, when we stand back, realize that what has happened was not an isolated lapse.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly and worryingly, what we see is a pattern, and sometimes that is a stated pattern, a repeated structure, and a continuation of behaviors that are cyclical.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes deceivers will tell you things which draw you in.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: They are somehow always the hapless victims.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded of something I said in a previous podcast which had to do with truth and openness.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what came to mind was the idea of the deceiver in the dock saying, I promise to tell the truth, but not the whole truth.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is something that we are left holding, that the person hasn't told the whole truth.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is the nature of deception, because such people aren't open for whatever reasons.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And once this pattern is seen clearly, something decisive happens internally.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: The search for exception ends.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: The hope that this time was different dissolves.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the mind stops negotiating with the contradictions.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens instead, of course, is that clarity can arrive and replace confusion because you no longer attempt to reconcile incompatible versions of the person, you see them as they are, through their behavior, through repetition, and through relational structure.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: You see that here is a person whose words and actions just don't match.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what you learn is that such people are not telling the whole truth.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: They are controlling the narrative through deceptive behavior.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to say that this recognition isn't about bitterness, although, quite understandably, people who have been treated in this way will feel a whole range of things.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about bitterness, but it is about resolution.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is that it allows a kind of self-compassion without illusion, a kind of understanding without self-abandonment, and an important and necessary distance without hesitation.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reminded of the comment that I heard when someone told me that a friend of hers had said, My therapist said you're not good for me, and said person then just disappeared.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the therapist was obviously right.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And with that clarity comes a final steady realization.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're no longer trying to understand why it happened, you're just left understanding who you were really dealing with.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't your fault because your integrity kept you there.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that they had none has nothing to do with you.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And from that point forward, your sense of self and your energy returns to its proper place.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not organized around the deception, not invested in trying to extract recognition, and not entangled with distorted and dysfunctional narrative, but grounded with yourself.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a victory, and it's not vindication, it's something quieter and stronger.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's psychological resolution that frees you from the incredibly damaging situation you've been in.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And resolution results in freedom.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, interestingly, we sometimes need to make decisions about withdrawing from this kind of incredibly enduring experience and make decisions about what is right for us.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what is right is only something that we as individuals can decide.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, the counterpart to this is identifying what and who is not right for us.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Once we identify these things, it leaves us open to what and who is right for us.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It means that we are informed, we are clear, we have emotional and relational boundaries, and when we come into contact with those behaviors which may question that or compromise that, we're reminded you've been used before, you don't have to be used again.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: This has been quite a hard series to produce because it touches many things.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, I hope that this contribution is helpful, whether you are a man or a woman, the deceived or the deceiver.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that there is clarity in what I've communicated, and the single most important message here is that regardless of what has been done, you can be okay, and it wasn't your fault, because being deceived when you have integrity is a human frailty, not something to give yourself a hard time about.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you well, and I will come back shortly with the next series.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.