“Exchanging words is the essence of psychotherapy.” Nor Hall
I met with someone new the other day. When I meet with a new patient, I always have a slight anxiety before this new person arrives — anxiety and also anticipation Will we “click”? What new doors will open through this person and our work — because this process changes both of us, though not to the same degree. So there is that tingle of the new and unknown as I answer the door. And then, once in my office, whether in person or on the screen via Skype or FaceTime, we sit down and I ask, as I always do, “What brings you here today?” and we begin.
It is a curious process, therapy is. I have no visible tools. No questionnaires. No workbooks. No pills or potions. I bring with me 40+ years of sitting and listening in the same way plus my own life experience and a lot of reading. The journey is never the same with any two people. Which is why I never get tired of it, never weary of starting again with “What brings you here today”.
When psychotherapy works, it is not magic. For me, the experience of seeing therapy work is like a miracle. I go about my business, and I know how to attend to my work. I observe. I listen. I take in. I accept the person as he or she chooses to present in my office, with as little or as much as they disclose. I attempt to the best of my ability to bracket my own issues and unfinished business, my own insecurities, trusting myself to the moment and the occasion of our meeting.
Then, I describe what I am observing and experiencing in the presence of this unique person who has come for help. It is to me a signal of transcendence that that simple process can change things.
Freud wrote,
“Nothing takes place between them except that they talk to each other. The analyst makes use of no instruments— not even for examining the patient—nor does he prescribe any medicines. If it is at all possible, he even leaves the patient in his environment and in his usual mode of life during the treatment…The analyst agrees upon a fixed regular hour with the patient, gets him to talk, listens to him, talks to him in his turn and gets him to listen… It is as though he were thinking: ‘Nothing more than that?… ‘So it is a kind of magic,’ he comments: ‘you talk,and blow away his ailments.’ Quite true. It would be magic if it worked rather quicker. An essential attribute of a magician is speed—one might say suddenness—of success. But analytic treatments take months and even years: magic that is so slow loses its miraculous character.”