“It’s Not You… It’s Me”

A long time ago I started to research an idea for a book. It started with the premise that therapists and other clinicians often struggle to grasp what when wrong with a therapeutic encounter.  Diving into research and theory, I found there was quite a bit on this topic.  So much I thought, “hey..,. I think I will write a book!”

So I set out on this journey only to find this something therapists and clinicians didn’t really want to think about. There is not a whole lot of money in going around telling clinicians they might be ineffective. Going  “on the road” with it a couple of times, it was presented as a two or one hour presentations (still available to come to a conference or webinar near you). I had the privilege of adopting it to those who work at crisis lines. Recently revisiting this, I wanted to restart this challenging conversation.

So I am headed back to my therapy roots (for a bit) to dig out what was going to be Chapter 1 of my book. Written about four years ago, I thought no one should be deprived of this work. I have this vision of you reading this chapter and talking about it with your supervisor and colleagues. This discussion about how complex therapy is warrants discussion.

When presenting on this topic before, I often include this clip from Seinfeld as a warm up to where I want to go…

When you are a therapist (or any other clinician), you are entering a “relationship” with some one. Granted it’s not as complicated as dating or marriage but when things go wrong we ask questions. These questions can make us uncomfortable. Especially asking ourselves as helpers, “Was it me?”

The below E-Chapter explores that very question. How does the interplay between a therapists perception of the client and client’s perception of the therapist effect this often complex relationship?  What questions can we ask ourselves before, during, and after the therapeutic relationship? How can we measure this relationship is working?

If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into these questions, please consider purchasing my E-Chapter called “Transference, Counter-Transference, and The Therapeutic Alliance”…..