How Are You? by Therese Rosenblatt

Author:Therese Rosenblatt [Rosenblatt, Therese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychology, Psychotherapy, Counseling, Interpersonal Relations, Couples & Family
ISBN: 9780795353154
Google: jUV4zgEACAAJ
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2021-07-20T05:11:31+00:00

1. First, be human, be curious, be interested. Ask questions when important. My curiosity facilitates the patient’s desire to talk and share and to feel safe in the knowledge that I want to hear them.

2. Think developmentally. What made people the way they are? What happened in their development to influence them? What level of development does their behavior correspond to now?

3. Empathy is not a technique. It must be part of you. Fortunately, most of us possess the quality of empathy, though we may need to develop and hone it.

4. Prioritize the flow. One of the most important processes to access with a patient is free association. Not interrupting the flow of a patient’s free association process is one of my top priorities. This means that, if in the middle of a flow, a patient asks me a personal question that I would normally not answer or deflect, I might decide to answer, for the sake of preserving the flow. I will still, of course, wonder why the patient wants to know where I went on vacation or if I have children. When a patient is not in flow, I might pause and ask them about the impulse behind the question. As much as a patient may think they want to know a bit of personal information, it can be overstimulating. One of the crafts of my work is to assess whether a patient can handle the answer. Why have they asked? What is their fantasy around the answer? But, above all, I ask myself, what is the most important goal at this moment? If that goal is the flow, I may privilege its continuation and answer the question—depending upon the question.

5. My Socratic method. As I’ve mentioned, I am influenced by all the lawyers in my family and among my friends. Even when I think I already know the answer to a question, I know how much more valuable it is for the patient to arrive at the answer themselves. So I ask what may feel to me to be leading questions, posed as if they are completely open-ended. My aim is to lead my patient (yes!) to the awareness that is at the edge of their consciousness. I am, in a sense, building a case on my patient’s behalf, knowing that this bit of awareness will lead to an important conclusion. Unlike a lawyer, though, I am utterly comfortable not getting the answer I expect. It rarely happens, but when my leading questions yield an unexpected answer, the new insight is always interesting and important. I ask in the spirit of being open to pivoting in an unexpected direction, including continuing in the direction of not knowing the answer, or at least not knowing it at that time.

6. Answer questions, if only to explain why it would be better to not answer the question or not answer it at that time. It feels rude to answer a question with silence.

7. Caring is critical to change. Do not hide my warmth, yet be restrained in the expression of it.

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