I have a tag on this blog entitled "Psychotherapy reflections" and I will be writing regularly on psychotherapy based on Irving Yalom's book, "The Gift of Therapy." If you are interested in psychotherapy either as a client or a provider, I invite you to read along.
The first chapter in The Gift Of Therapy is entitled "Remove the Obstacles to Growth" and Dr. Yalom reflects on the work of Karen Horney and the other interpersonal psychotherapists of the mid 1900s.
The gift of these interpersonal psychotherapists was a shift in perspective from the intrapsychic to the social context. This was the beginning of a systemic view of emotional functioning rather than a reductionistic, analytic view.
Rather than focusing on deficits and psychopathology there was an interest in the social world of the patient and what was keeping him/her stuck. What were the obstacles and barriers to growth, development, and improved emotional and social functioning?
As a professionally trained Social Worker, my chauvinistic view is that these analysts became social workers and came to appreciate the "person - in - situation" model of human behavior.
In my professional practice I usually formulate my thinking about people's complaints and situations around the question of what is keeping them stuck? What are the barriers and obstacles to their growth, development, and functioning? It is such a simple question and yet one that is powerfully illuminating.
It is common for me, after the client tells his story, to say to me, "I don't know what to do?" I often gently reply, "Yes, you do." They often look more anxious and say, "What? I don't know." and I say, "Guess" and they do, and they do know 9 out of 10 times. Where does this intuitive knowledge come from? What blocks it from awareness? How come they hadn't been aware of it before?
Love is blind. Anxiety is blind. Fear of disapproval makes us blind. Fear of rejection makes us blind. Fear of having to risk to improve our lives makes us blind. Change is scary, so scary that we are blind to the circumstances and factors that stand in our way of growth, development, and improved functioning.
What people need when they are scared and blind is a witness. They need not so much reassurance as a catalyst which will illuminate the darkness so they can see. It is a form of grace, amazing grace, that saves the wretched who were blind but now can see. The grace does not come from without however, it usually comes from within, and what it needs to emerge is a mid-wife. Psychotherapists are mid-wives, they are obstetricians who assist in the giving birth to new life.
This is article #9 in a series on Psychotherapy Reflections.
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