Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Therapy Just Feels Like Chatting With A Friend

Transcript

When Therapy Just Feels Like Chatting With A Friend · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:04
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to be talking about a reader
• 0:10
  question. That was kind of like why does
• 0:15
  it feel like just chatting with my therapist?
• 0:17
  And is that okay? And I don't really feel like I'm
• 0:21
  being challenged but maybe this is right.
• 0:24
  Like I don't know and this is like a really common question
• 0:27
  that people have and it's honestly why I get so many
• 0:30
  referrals. Why so many people want to see
• 0:32
  me is because they feel like they just kind of Stalled out in
• 0:35
  Prior therapy and it just felt like chatting with a friend.
• 0:38
  So we're going to be talking about why it feels like chatting
• 0:41
  with a friend and if you've been in the situation I'm sure that
• 0:45
  that resonates with you, the whole like kind of casual.
• 0:48
  We're just shooting the shit Vibe where you feel real
• 0:51
  validated but you don't really do anything.
• 0:54
  But before that please do subscribe because I have awesome
• 0:58
  episodes coming out. The most recent one was about
• 1:03
  what was it? Go do not going to sleep.
• 1:04
  Angry and whether that's viable and healthy and I have loads of
• 1:09
  other ones, including which I haven't mentioned for a while,
• 1:11
  the oral sex on women, which is worth the price of admission
• 1:15
  alone, okay? So, anyway, moving on to the
• 1:19
  topic. So, there's a lot of reasons
• 1:21
  that people stall out in therapy.
• 1:24
  I had one podcast on people who feel they're too smart for
• 1:26
  therapy, nobody's too smart for therapy.
• 1:28
  I mean, you know, you just got to like, open your mind to the
• 1:32
  fact that you're not the smartest person in the world,
• 1:34
  which Something that you're tackling in therapy.
• 1:36
  Nobody's a smartest person in the world, you know, except for
• 1:39
  me, no, but but but anyway, there's plenty of really smart
• 1:44
  therapists. And there is really smart
• 1:47
  clients, and there's a people of both clients and therapists who
• 1:52
  are not so smart, I'd be like, there's like a whole fucking
• 1:54
  bell curve of everything. And that's kind of the issue
• 1:58
  here. When people say, like just
• 2:02
  hanging out with my therapist is like hanging out with a friend.
• 2:04
  Well, there's a personality and I talked about personality with
• 2:07
  parenting, you know, sometimes you just don't have a good fit
• 2:11
  with one of your kids and that's like, taboo to say, but it
• 2:15
  shouldn't be because like, if your kid is like a super loud,
• 2:17
  extrovert your super quiet introvert.
• 2:19
  They're going to trigger the shit out of you and conversely,
• 2:23
  if you are an introvert with a kid who's an introvert, they may
• 2:26
  trigger the shit out of you because they remind you too much
• 2:28
  of yourself. So everything in this world is
• 2:31
  about temperamental fit, you know, in terms of Attraction
• 2:36
  between people. Now a therapist who's very
• 2:39
  similar to you. So I often see this happen most
• 2:42
  in situations where it's a very kind of people, pleasing
• 2:47
  therapist with a people-pleasing client.
• 2:49
  And if you're like but therapists are supposed to be,
• 2:52
  you know, very emotionally healthy.
• 2:54
  And I thought people-pleasing wasn't very emotionally healthy.
• 2:56
  Well, yeah, I mean, but nobody's perfect.
• 2:59
  You know, people have all sorts of fucking problems just because
• 3:02
  you're a therapist doesn't mean that you're a perfect person.
• 3:04
  Certainly Not, I'm not a perfect person, nobody that I've ever
• 3:07
  seen as a therapist as a perfect person.
• 3:09
  No therapist that works for me, is a perfect person because
• 3:11
  there are no Perfect People. What we're looking for is a
• 3:14
  goodness of fit. So frequently, if you have a
• 3:16
  conflict of her therapist partnered, with a conflict of
• 3:19
  verse client and the therapist identifies with the client and
• 3:25
  the client really ostensibly says that they want to be
• 3:28
  challenged but kind of one, they are gently challenge, they
• 3:31
  really closed down. Well then you end up in a
• 3:34
  situation. In where you might as well
• 3:35
  fucking be at Starbucks. You know, except that Starbucks
• 3:38
  would be cheaper and it's not cheaper than much but it would
• 3:41
  certainly be cheaper than therapy.
• 3:44
  So you got to really think about what your goals are in therapy
• 3:47
  and how you're showing up as well as the personality of the
• 3:49
  therapist. All of these variables are super
• 3:51
  important so you may think of yourself as somebody that likes
• 3:54
  to be challenged but in reality you are a people pleaser and you
• 3:59
  want to be a good client and you want somebody who basically is
• 4:04
  You know, an ego Stroker. And this can be very validating,
• 4:08
  especially if you have been struggling with self-esteem
• 4:11
  issues, it can be great to show up, and there's unconditional
• 4:14
  positive regard, which is, you know, a theory.
• 4:18
  You know, that that's actually like an approach unconditional
• 4:21
  positive regard with in therapy and particularly therapist that
• 4:26
  identify more supportive supportive listeners, they, if
• 4:31
  you just want to show up and get validation, And feel good about
• 4:35
  yourself, they'll do that. And that can be very healing for
• 4:39
  people who never experienced that before.
• 4:42
  Is it my Approach? No.
• 4:44
  Is it the approach of more challenging therapist?
• 4:49
  No, but it is a good approach for people.
• 4:51
  Everybody doesn't want the same thing out of therapy.
• 4:54
  So like some people don't really want to be challenged and so
• 4:56
  they click with somebody who's just a warm bath to talk to, you
• 5:00
  know, and they're just real easy and they let the Don't just
• 5:05
  talk. And and they give their insights
• 5:07
  mostly about other people. And if they do have anything to
• 5:10
  say about the client, it's really squarely situated in the
• 5:14
  clients family of origin and the clients current behaviors really
• 5:18
  not interrogated, very much. This is this can make somebody
• 5:22
  feel better and it can really make them feel supported and
• 5:26
  validated especially in situations where they don't feel
• 5:29
  like that by other people. It's not my Approach because I
• 5:32
  don't think that overall it You learn more effective ways of
• 5:36
  dealing with your issues, you know?
• 5:39
  And so, and I'm also just literally not that kind of
• 5:42
  person so it doesn't I don't act like that because I'm not like
• 5:48
  that. So there's a big overlap between
• 5:51
  the sort of approach that a therapist wants to do and their
• 5:55
  innate personality. Obviously, I mean, if you think
• 5:58
  about this, you know, for a second you'll realize that it's
• 6:02
  true in every single I'll knock you patient.
• 6:05
  Like if you like to argue, you become a litigator, you don't
• 6:08
  like going to a States and Will's, you know, like nobody's
• 6:11
  trying to like argue. They're as much as they are when
• 6:14
  they're like, Prosecuting somebody in a courtroom.
• 6:16
  So the type of therapy that you do is and is based on your
• 6:20
  intrinsic personality and if your intrinsic personalities,
• 6:23
  very conflict, a verse then you're going to go into
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  different sorts of therapy approaches and learn them and
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  that's what you're going to do with your clients and the
• 6:31
  clients that click with, you are going to be those who respond
• 6:33
  best to such an approach. Now over time, sometimes you
• 6:37
  realize that you don't want to respond to that approach anymore
• 6:40
  and that you're ready for more Challenge and growth and
• 6:44
  frequently you're ready to do this because you've been with a
• 6:47
  therapist for a long time, that's validated the shit out of
• 6:49
  you. And so then you're strong enough
• 6:52
  and you think that you're pretty good person and this person
• 6:54
  seems to like you a lot and now you're ready to be challenged
• 6:57
  more and so sometimes that's when people reach out to
• 7:00
  therapist like myself and they actually want to or look deeply
• 7:05
  and sometimes take a harsher look at their own behavior and
• 7:09
  the way that their own personality thoughts and
• 7:11
  behaviors perpetuates, the dysfunctional cycles that
• 7:13
  they're in and interpersonal relationships across the board
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  whether that's parenting couples or work or friendships or what
• 7:21
  have you or their own parents, you know like how they like what
• 7:27
  patterns are you getting stuck in that you don't see?
• 7:30
  And can the therapist kind of alert you to patterns like that?
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  Even and especially if you are kind of the issue.
• 7:40
  And I'll tell you, I've never yet met a marriage, where
• 7:42
  there's one good guy in one bad guy, and I talked about that all
• 7:46
  the time. It takes two to tango.
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  So another thing that's frequently brought up by clients
• 7:50
  is that they come to me after they feel like the therapist
• 7:53
  just allied with them during all of the couples counseling.
• 7:57
  And at some point they were like, well, as much as I would
• 8:01
  love this, to be true that my partner is always wrong.
• 8:04
  Being intellectually. I just I don't know like it
• 8:07
  doesn't seem right. You know?
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  And these are situations again therapists are people there's
• 8:12
  something called countertransference where a
• 8:14
  therapist gets kind of is personally triggered because
• 8:17
  they feel that the situation is too similar to things that they
• 8:21
  grew up in and or like how their own marriage went or something.
• 8:25
  So, like, for example, if you're a woman whose husband has ADHD
• 8:29
  and you have a therapist who's a woman, whose husband has ADHD,
• 8:32
  then it's going to be hard for her not To identify primarily
• 8:35
  with you and only doing her own deep.
• 8:38
  Internal work, can she get to be more unbiased and hopefully
• 8:43
  therapist do this, but everybody's people and like
• 8:46
  think about it even if a therapist sees their own
• 8:48
  therapist, once a week, they're also seeing clients for 20 hours
• 8:51
  a week. So it's like you can't process
• 8:52
  every session so you got to see. So what are some signs that
• 8:56
  you're not going to get shit done in therapy?
• 8:58
  Well, one sign is because you feel like you're just chatting
• 9:02
  with a friend and this can be again An affirming and
• 9:05
  strengthening at the beginning, but long-term, like, there's
• 9:09
  people who tell me they do this for, like 10 years, before they
• 9:12
  come to me, maybe you needed to, maybe you had a terrible abusive
• 9:15
  childhood and you needed somebody just to say that you're
• 9:17
  a good person. Pretty much and explore that
• 9:20
  childhood with you for 10 years. But then if you decide that it's
• 9:24
  kind of like boring and just like shooting the shit to go to
• 9:28
  therapy, then that's a sign that maybe you're ready for something
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  else. And somebody who is going to be
• 9:33
  more Um, you know, I don't know if the word is confrontational,
• 9:41
  but it kind of is somebody who's going to say, oh, what about
• 9:44
  this? Or what about that with this and
• 9:46
  that being things that you always had that you haven't
• 9:48
  already thought about. So that to me is the interesting
• 9:52
  goal of therapy is to be at in a place really where somebody else
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  can really be objective about your situation, but you have to
• 10:01
  present yourself as somebody open to This because many
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  therapists will try to do this and the client will be like, oh
• 10:09
  no, it's not like that, it's not like that.
• 10:11
  Let me let me explain to you again, why?
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  My husband is wrong. So then maybe the next day they,
• 10:15
  you know, the next session they start to try and then you say
• 10:18
  no, no, no it's not me. It's them so shit.
• 10:21
  After a while you know the person is going to conclude that
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  you do not want to be challenged and that apparently at this
• 10:28
  stage in your development, you know you can't be challenged
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  otherwise quite honestly, you'll leave therapy.
• 10:34
  Not forced to be there and therapist will conclude in the
• 10:37
  cost-benefit analysis. It's better to have this person
• 10:39
  here with the few little insights that they will accept,
• 10:42
  then to have them completely leave and repudiate me and
• 10:45
  possibly all of their be after what they felt to have been too
• 10:48
  harsh and invalidating and experience of challenge.
• 10:51
  So net, net. It just keep them in here and
• 10:55
  every so often, maybe I can make a little interpretation that
• 10:58
  pushes them outside their comfort zone, just a tiny bit.
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  And so that especially with a conflict of her This is the way
• 11:05
  that they will conclude. And if you say therapist are in
• 11:07
  Conflict averse constantly on my list, serve, I mean there's
• 11:10
  people that don't many therapists don't even work with
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  couples because there's just too much fucking yelling and that is
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  man. The only benefit of growing up
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  with a home with a lot of conflict as a child is it takes
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  a lot of fucking conflict to bother me and but if you are a
• 11:27
  therapist it's very quiet and conflict avoidant person and
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  you're going to work a lot better with a quiet client, that
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  does not really want. Challenge very much.
• 11:36
  So some people are then going to say, if you ask them what should
• 11:40
  I do, they're going to say, well you should tell the therapist.
• 11:42
  You should tell the therapist that you want to be challenged.
• 11:45
  Okay? You took therapist you want to
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  be challenged, does this mean the therapists becomes a
• 11:50
  different human being with a different style?
• 11:52
  No. But what it could do is it could
• 11:54
  lead to an interesting discussion about if you have so
• 11:57
  far, had these specific things that you want to work on, why
• 12:00
  have you not thus far brought it up, right?
• 12:03
  So then, Sometimes I'll get people, they come in and they're
• 12:06
  like, I've been seeing somebody for like, you know, x amount of
• 12:09
  years even and we just never talked about sex.
• 12:13
  And then you I see all your stuff about sex.
• 12:15
  So you'll talk about sex but it's like, you know, would you
• 12:18
  spend years? Not talking about sex for so
• 12:21
  like, I mean you got to like looking at yourself and say, all
• 12:24
  right, like if this is something that I really want to talk
• 12:27
  about, why am I not doing it? And for most people, it's
• 12:30
  because it's threatening. So you're using kind of your
• 12:33
  time to feel Stronger to get acclimated with the idea of
• 12:36
  therapy and then when you kind of understand what there are p
• 12:39
  is and you've gotten some things out of it, then you know, maybe
• 12:44
  you switch because you don't necessarily have the courage or
• 12:47
  confidence to bring up a new topic but you know, I mean bring
• 12:50
  it up see what they say. I mean if you just bring
• 12:54
  something up, that is new. You have yet no idea how this
• 12:57
  person is going to relate to it. Maybe they'll be a great sex
• 13:00
  therapist, you know, and maybe they just haven't been bringing
• 13:03
  it up because you haven't been ringing it up or any other
• 13:06
  example of anything. So, certainly, you can talk to
• 13:09
  the person to the therapist that you've been chatting with, and
• 13:11
  say that you don't feel like it's going deep enough for
• 13:14
  challenging you. But at least have like some
• 13:16
  things that you're literally saying, don't just come to them
• 13:19
  with, you don't challenge me because I mean, this is not like
• 13:23
  they're Houdini and they're pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
• 13:26
  Will you want to say, is like something like, you know, we're
• 13:29
  in couples counseling, but I seem to notice that we're
• 13:33
  focusing mostly on my Which feels very good but, you know,
• 13:37
  it can't be right. Really?
• 13:39
  Can it, you know, like it is it right that I'm a perfect person
• 13:43
  and probably they'll say no and maybe that'll give them a window
• 13:46
  into give you the observations that they have been here, 24
• 13:49
  holding back but doesn't mean they're going to change it to a
• 13:52
  different sort of person with a different style.
• 13:54
  So if you're looking then if you say then how could I decide?
• 13:57
  Let's say, I am somebody. Who wants to be challenged?
• 14:00
  How can I find somebody like this?
• 14:01
  So usually have something on their side.
• 14:04
  Lie about like I am a very active collaborative person or
• 14:08
  or what-have-you sometimes a literally outright say I
• 14:11
  challenge you you know, not everybody has an entire like you
• 14:14
  know, the website like me with articles but most of them have
• 14:19
  descriptors and profiles and you know, I mean you could always
• 14:24
  come to my people obviously, I haven't online practice best
• 14:27
  life behavioral health or me. But if you're looking in
• 14:31
  general, you look at their profile on psychology today or
• 14:34
  Ever and you try to find somebody that does not just say
• 14:38
  that they are an active listener.
• 14:40
  But rather that they are more, you know challenging.
• 14:44
  I mean they're going to say it in some way or another if
• 14:46
  they're not then don't waste more than really a couple months
• 14:50
  in therapy with somebody with whom you do not feel you are
• 14:54
  clicking or that you don't feel challenging you.
• 14:56
  If that is your goal for therapy which it may be and that is an
• 15:00
  admirable goal. I mean you don't want to stay
• 15:01
  inside your comfort zone forever and It also may be, by the way,
• 15:06
  if you have a conversation with your therapist, like the one
• 15:09
  that I said, they may say. So it seemed that, you know, you
• 15:14
  don't necessarily want to hear that kind of stuff.
• 15:16
  They may say that in one way or another like, you know, it
• 15:19
  seemed that, you know, we were focusing first on the things
• 15:22
  with your husband and then, you know, maybe we would get to you
• 15:25
  afterwards, like, you know, that kind of means.
• 15:29
  Like, I didn't think you were ready to hear stuff or whenever
• 15:32
  I've tried to mention stuff, it hasn't happened.
• 15:34
  Or it doesn't work well. And if you're looking for
• 15:37
  examples, as I said before, it's kind of just a defensive tone,
• 15:41
  like you may not be overtly like nasty.
• 15:44
  But whenever the therapist is like, well, I don't know, like
• 15:47
  do you empathize with such and such as perspective, you know?
• 15:51
  Or if it's individual therapy, they may say well I mean, you
• 15:54
  know, can you see how the other person might feel or something
• 15:56
  like that? And if you're like, well yeah.
• 15:59
  But you know, here's how I feel. Well then, like they're kind of
• 16:02
  going to assume that you are not ready.
• 16:04
  D to really open up and perspective, take and that you
• 16:07
  need more buffering and strengthening by affirmation and
• 16:12
  validation before. Perhaps, you can get to a place
• 16:14
  of, you know, more growth and it takes more ego strength.
• 16:21
  That's not ego in the colloquial layperson definition, meaning
• 16:24
  like egotistical, but rather ego or member, I'm sure people have
• 16:28
  taken psych 101. You got your ID, your super-ego,
• 16:31
  and your ego. And in the for, in Freud's.
• 16:34
  Three parts of the subconscious, right?
• 16:37
  And the ego is the one that is the more rational actor there.
• 16:43
  And so your ego, like the you your identity, you the, the
• 16:47
  identity that you acknowledge like that has to be strong
• 16:50
  enough to accept feedback and if a therapist thinks it's not
• 16:54
  because you maybe, you know, traumatized or you may have
• 16:59
  traits of a personality level issue or Myriad reasons.
• 17:04
  You're extremely depressed. You're vulnerable in some way.
• 17:07
  Then you don't have the basically you are not strong
• 17:11
  enough for them to in any way challenge.
• 17:13
  You otherwise you may just kind of explode or leave therapy or
• 17:17
  just Retreat or what have you and they may have tried little
• 17:21
  little interventions along the margins that have not gone.
• 17:23
  Well so this is not just a thing where it's like blame the
• 17:26
  therapist. Sure there's some therapists
• 17:28
  that are just phoning it. In the therapists are people no
• 17:30
  shit but there's also you are savior in the session that makes
• 17:35
  them think you are or are not ready or able to receive
• 17:39
  feedback and to work on more challenging aspect of the
• 17:43
  dynamic that you have with whoever whether it's couples or
• 17:46
  individual, there's you're always talking about
• 17:48
  interpersonal Dynamics. Anyhow, hopefully this was
• 17:52
  useful and you got something out of it.
• 17:55
  Please do subscribe, if so, and I will talk to you all soon.