Healing Moments in Psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by Daniel J. Siegel

Author:Daniel J. Siegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

SESSION 3: OPENING MINUTES: “I HAVE BEEN EXCEEDINGLY GOOD”

PATIENT: (open face, bright smile) . . . I think I have been exceedingly good since our last session!

THERAPIST: (Laughs with pleasure, amused by use of “exceedingly.”)

PATIENT: That good mood that was in me when I left last time lasted the whole time. And it was especially nice because I went skiing with my brother over the weekend and I was in a rare mood. Whatever happened last session put me into a different phase of feeling and mood and . . . things have not seemed so bright for a very long time.

THERAPIST: Wow!

PATIENT: It really did something. I think the key was the realization that . . . there is a good aspect of all of that suffering I went through.

THERAPIST: Yeah . . . wow!

PATIENT: You know, it’s very painful to think of yourself as broken. And when you, like I did, when I got an impression that I wasn’t so broken, that it was a matter of all of these defenses pushing me into an area where I couldn’t see that I was still OK. . . . I had a very powerful impression at the end of our last session that these things happening inside of me were all adaptive and all . . . just the way things should be under the circumstances. . . . That simple thing just really meant something to me.

THERAPIST: It is a very deep thing to not feel broken . . . to feel that your self is intact [empathic reflection and elaboration].

PATIENT: That was an amazing insight . . . just amazing to me. . . . I felt I got boosted over a rut and boosted into completely another phase of thinking where things don’t seem quite so bad [patient articulates subjective experience of quantum change]. . . . I am very proud of being in possession of all of these defense mechanisms that, whether they’re malfunctioning or not, they’re all there and they’re all pushing toward all good things . . . always.

THERAPIST: Right.

PATIENT: Amazing (laughter)!

THERAPIST: It makes me so happy . . . and you’re beaming [affective resonance, intersubjectively shared delight].

PATIENT: Uh-huh. Absolutely. . . . I just had this experience that everything is OK. And I also just had this feeling of kind of like . . . security (encircling gesture) . . . which kind of held me within certain limits. . . . Really was amazing . . . yeah. . . . And very nice . . . after such a long time of having so many problems, for me to just feel like (shakes his head, like a dog shaking water out of his fur) this feeling of liberation, that things aren’t so bad, it’s terrific.

THERAPIST: Indeed. . . . So take a moment and go inside, and notice what’s inside as you’re sharing this with me [dyadic mindfulness to the somatic experience/felt sense of transformation in the context of the dyad].

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