Dear Shirley:
When I was very young something bad happened to me. I had forgotten about it until recently. My current life situations have brought those issues to the forefront. I have never felt comfortable talking about my feelings before. It has been suggested that I get involved in psychotherapy. I have always had a negative attitude about seeing a psychologist, therapist, counselor or any kind of “shrink”. What do you recommend?
Not Quite Psycho
Dear N.Q. Psycho:
Individuals engage in therapy for any one or more of these three reasons; 1.) coercion; 2.) pain, or 3.) behavioral change. Does your motivation fit into any one of these three categories? People do change in effort to alleviate intolerable psychological pain or social turmoil, find value and caring in a reciprocal relationship and/or to feel understood, heard, become autonomous and affirmed.
Recent research on the processes (technique and relationship) and participants (client and therapist) positively support the value of psychotherapy. This evidence based practical study indicated that ‘some is better than none'. It was recognized that some treatments have the potential to be more effective, whereas others may be potentially harmful. Success is often based on a combination of interventions and the relationship of the client and therapist (American Psychologist, pg. 39, 2010).
This is the way it is. When you are ready the right relationship will present itself. Therapy is a commitment and requires work. The key to success is the relationship, which evolves through the development of rapport, building trust, being valued, showing care and offering reciprocity.
Personality theorist and Behavior Therapist, Edward Eysenck (1985) stated; “Therapist empathy or the lack thereof in the clinical relationship has been identified as a factor responsible for treatment success or failure.” Carl Rogers (1951) speculated that most cases of treatment failure could be linked by the inability to build a therapeutic relationship.
A skilled behavior therapist can conceptualize problems behaviorally, interpret needs and interact in a warm and empathetic manner. This therapist puts a priority on establishing the relationship before implementing specific tasks and appropriate techniques for change. Therapist traits or characteristics that tend to be damaging to good therapy are the tendency to be domineering, pompous, authoritarian, detached, passive, over-submissive, an excessive need to be liked or admired, perfectionism, creative inhibition, poor sense of humor, a low level of personal integrity, or restricted self awareness (Freud, 1910/1958).
There is no denying that to talk about what you are feeling is healthy. Confronting demons of the past gives you the freedom to release those emotions to become a happier person. You will be stronger and more grounded when you are able to understand how past experiences may influence your current decisions.
A term often referred to in therapeutic relationships is transference. It is defined as the unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. What happens: Someone or something reminds you of your past. An emotional time warp occurs that transfers your emotional past and your psychological needs to the present. In such cases, you may react to someone in terms of what you need to see; not what may really be. Your fear arises from what you have seen or experienced in the past and is projected to what is happening to you now even though what is happening is really different than what has happened to you in the past. You are interpreting all this and what happens without really knowing why you feel the way you do. It is common for Individuals to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or to their children (Racker, H., 2001).
Unmet emotional needs, abandonment, neglect, seduction or other types of relational abuses that happened when the individual was younger cause transference reactions. In some forms of psychotherapy, the therapist will intentionally create or allow transference to form. When done properly, this helps a therapist to understand and find a connection between the clients past, how the client misreads the present and may be ineffectively reacting. Once the transference pattern is revealed to the client they can choose to respond in terms of what is really happening instead of what happened 20 or 30 years ago. Unfortunately, most individuals caught in this pattern are unable to identify the difference between the past and the present and continue the cycle, finding themselves back in the same messed up relationship or dealing with the same problems over and over again (Conner, M.G., 2001).
A good therapist always relies on the fact that in the event that the client is responsive to positive change, the “client is never wrong”. The client is encouraged to take risks. Allow yourself the opportunity to know yourself better.
“Ask Shirley” questions can be focused on any topics involving life, health, fitness, mental training, competition, clinical issues or addictions. All questions will remain anonymous. Please, email your questions to Askshirl@gmail.com. Shirley K. Durtschi is an Applied Sport Psychology Certified Consultant (AASP-CC), Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Chemical Dependency Counselor Supervisor (CDCS) for the State of Alaska.
