Hello, fellow humans and all those pretending to be one. This is the Therapy Natters podcast, where two psychotherapists talk about all sorts of psychotherapy and mental health related stuff. For no other reason than to simply share with you what we know. It seems daft not to I'm Richard Nicholls and here is Fiona Biddle too. How you're doing Fiona. What you been up to?
you. And yeah, I like the humans and those pretending to be, what about ones who aren't pretending to be? So maybe dogs or cats who are listening, they don't have to pretend to be human, to listen.
Somebody did ask me once. Can you hypnotize animals can hypnotherapy work with animals and I, I must have pulled a face. A querying face. And she said, because my dog loves it, she said. That I press play on one of your recordings from the YouTube channel that you have subscribers, please go, listen. It's there links me in the show notes. Um, she said, my dog, would recognize what I was listening to, and then they'd come and line next to me and, and they would relax as well. And they loved it.
Is my dog being hypnotized. Was the question, the short answer? I dunno, but
There are horse whisperers, aren't there. So actually I did. There are dog whisperers. Aren't there? Yes.
So yeah, you can try and get attuned to an animal. Maybe that's kind of what hypnotherapy is cause it's quite a vulnerable thing to close your eyes and relax in front of a practical stranger. And I do wonder if part of the reason why we have the success we do with hypnosis is this person gets me. We're back to those foundations of the relationship being really important in therapy that you are using their words back at them.
That you've obtained from them in the first half of the session, when they sat down and you're using their words back at them. When they're in a vulnerable state, the eyes are closed. The heart rate's slowing down. They're nicely relaxed and you are there for them. And the message you're relaying is I get you. I see you. I see you. Something that yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. Something that maybe during those formative years of life, they didn't have. I do urge everybody.
If they wanted to see a hypnotherapist to go and do so. I think it's great. I, I think it's a really useful thing to, to, to do in your life at some point. It's great skill as well. You know, it's, it's good to learn how to relax your mind. Switch yourself off. Great for falling asleep skills skills for life. It really is.
The aspect of it that I think is often missed in the. Going to hypnotherapist is the learning self hypnosis. Learning to communicate with your own unconscious to create the relationship between your own conscious mind and your unconscious mind or subconscious, so that they, the two can work well together. We talked about it in one sense in, in the episode about. The shadow persona in real self that was along those lines.
And we've talked about the unconscious and Freudian terms, but to get that relationship really working well within your own head, it was a great thing to do.
Yeah. I recommend it to you get to learn a little bit about what makes you tick. I, I can't be a bad thing. You'll see how you fit in. With everybody else then, and become more differentiated. You you're able to work out the difference between your thoughts and your feelings. And I think that that's really important. Differentiation was, um, I think it was Murray Bowen, who first used that phrase.
I always associate it with Murray Bowen anyway differentiation, and he used it for two different meanings to differentiate yourself from other people. So you're not so enmeshed with your family in the family system, but also to differentiate your thoughts from your feelings and all these years later. Cause I was in the seventies. How popular is that as an Instagram poster of social media cliche, that you are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings, your, your feelings are not reality.
Your thoughts are not reality. It's all about differentiation. I think it's quite useful.
I'm impressed. Really impressed Richard, because you've done the segue into our questions. Haven't you sneakily?
I'm a bit sneaky like that. Yeah, it,
I, I wish our listeners could have seen the look on his face when he did that. Cuz it was, it was it was look what I'm doing.
I blagged that at the last second again. And I didn't plan that. I didn't plan that, but I knew what we were gonna be
And it did it worked, worked. So I think we need to share the questions. Would you like me to do the honors?
read them out? Yeah. One
Okay. So we've got two along the same lines as each other. So the first one is from first job Felicity. Her question is I have just recently started working and it's my first job, although I'm very grateful. I am feeling overwhelmed by the power dynamics at work. I have spotted minor microaggressions, some favoritism, and noticed that there are some cliques at the top. Why do I feel so triggered by this and feel a compelling need to win everyone over?
I am already dreading work, even though it hasn't been a week. Oh, I feel sad Felicity.
Yeah,
We'll come back to it, but Steph's question second one from Steph, can you make a podcast around dealing with office negativity and gossip? We're slowly returning to the. And it's apparent that there is a lot of gossiping and a lack of leadership. Can you cover this in one of your podcasts? So yes, we can. We are doing now, there's this few things in this that all sort of come together and I want to see if we can pull them apart a little bit.
We've got from Steph's, we've got gossiping and lack of leadership, which are different, although. Gossiping might result, result from, lack of leadership in that they're allowed do it. But then in first job, Felicities there's a lot of extra elements to it, including her own phrase of why do I feel so triggered by this rather than just noticing that these things exist and what to do about it, something there about her own feelings. Being triggered.
So how does this tie into the differentiation you were just describing Richard?
Well, even back when Murray Bowen was first looking at this as, as what he then termed family systems theory and how, for example, he was, I think he was gonna, he was gonna be doing things for social workers and, and there were problems with the behavior of a child, for example, but the, the problem wasn't the child, the problem was the system. It was the system. That was the problem.
And we do often find that if parents having problem in their relationships, they need, they need a scapegoat, potentially they need a re another reason for there to be problems. And there is this sort of triangulation.
And what Murray Bowen was noticing is that if somebody had those problems in their family, Those feelings when that child then grew up a little bit, or even if they hadn't, the problem is still going on because these things don't end, you know, they carry on throughout our adult life cuz you know, our family's, the system is still the same. That person takes those feelings into the workplace with them.
So actually they're transferring the, the way that they feel at home into the workplace and their brain is being primed for. So let's see where, why I'm the scapegoat here? Why am I the problem here? For example, that's, that's some of the things that jumped out at me when I read those.
And if you take that theory and see that it applies to everyone, because everybody has been part of some sort of family system, whether it's just two people, a parent and a child, or a guardian and a child, or right up to, you know, massive families with loads of, cousins and all rest, you know, there could be a huge variation, but everybody's part of some family system. And everybody has a role within that family system.
If everyone is taking that into the workplace, Ooh, that's a bit complicated. Isn't it? So in Felicity's case, she's got these things that she's aware of. So she is differentiating because she's seeing herself separate from that system isn't she? But, um, I suppose one thing that just screams out at me from this is, well, duh there are going, there are, I mean, I'm sorry, Felicity. I don't mean to say, make that sound really.
little belittling there.
I mean to make it sound like that. Well, yeah, there's going to be, and I I'll give you a hug, as I say it, there's going to be, microaggressions and not just micro. there are going to be, people battling for power.
Most people have got some sort of agenda.
Yeah. Well,
really do.
has agenda because everybody's there for their own reasons.
And being able to step outside of that and see. that person's got their own agenda. It's not necessarily a negative one. It's not necessarily a positive one. It just is one. Maybe their end goal is I just wanna pay the bills. I just wanna be happy. I just wanna overcome some of the insecurities I had when I was 15, whatever the reasons are, why somebody does what they do and saying is what they say. We've just gotta accept it to a degree. And not take it personally. That's the thing.
This isn't about you.
It's, it's the not taking it personally. And there's a little element and I hesitate to say this, so please hang on till I finish anybody who objects, what I'm gonna say. There's a little bit of playing the game. And by that, I mean that if you are able, as we're suggesting to differentiate to step outside it and see to look at what people's agendas are then to help each one where reasonable. obviously anywhere reasonable with their agenda.
So if somebody, is clearly using work to, uh, feel some level of competence, which in Deci and Ryan's world is one of the things that you, you need for self determination. If you, if somebody's doing that, needing to feel competent, then when you notice that they've done something well, compliment them. That's, that's a nice thing to do. But on the other hand, if somebody is the workplace bully, then that doesn't mean applauding them on their bullying.
That would be helping the person not to need to bully and helping any victims to not feel that they were
Targets
well, they might be targeted. So you wanted them to not feel that they were to, make them feel that
it's still
not about them. I remember years ago in a workplace where I worked with somebody, Who was being targeted by the workplace bully. And this was before I did any psychotherapeutic training, but I had been bullied when I was a kid. So I think I naturally got some. Awareness around it. And that's what I did. I, I sort of diffused what was coming from the bully. I mean, to a very small extent, this was not a major thing. Just little bits here and there to diffuse some of that.
And to boost the self-esteem of the person who was being bullied. Oh,
Well, what Murray Bowen would say is that because of this triangulation, There needs to be somebody else playing a part. And so an aggressor, a bully, however, it is a critic they're going to want somebody on their side, a. And that might be you, that they approach, hence the, hence the gossip, hence some of the negativity. I want you to join my opinion so we can gang up maybe on that other character and we have a choice. Don't we in those situations, do we, what role do we play?
Do we, do we join in with them? Because they're looking for somebody to support their ideas. we not in an ideal world, not I hope,
That brings me to that word cliques, which first job Felicity used. And it's a, it's a, it's a very interesting word because it has such a negative connotation because it sort of seems to presume an exclusion. If there's a clique, then other people aren't allowed in it. Somehow nobody says, Hey, we've got a lovely clique going on here that doesn't sort of happen. It's it's, they've got a clique. societies divided into groups.
You know, we couldn't have the whole world in, in one group and everybody be equal and
able to hear yourself.
it would absolutely impossible. So I suppose my thought is start with a presumption that you are not excluded a group. And if you do feel you're excluded to think for yourself as to why that might be, is it you or is it them? Are they excluding you?
the differentiation this is, these are my feelings, but is it my reality? And I remember when I first joined an amateur dramatic society , some of those, those members that I started with back in 2003, some of them are still there. Hello to you you're listening. Cause I'm sure they do. They're my friends and. I was relatively young, one of the youngest in the group. Now I'm one of the oldest I'm okay with that. That's what happens.
But back then when I was, you know, one of the youngest and there was maybe one or two that were younger than me, people did congregate in groups that were because they had things in common. The ones that were under 30 hung around together in one, on one table and talked about what they watched on TV. And they talked about the plays and they talked about the rehearsals and then some of the older folk would be at another corner.
And I remember somebody saying, I'm being pushed out, you're pushing me out and got really quite upset. And I'd done my hypnotherapy training back in those days. So I was able to sort of look at the reality a bit more and, and, and rather than cause everybody else was, I think a little bit angry, how dare you? How dare you. We didn't push you out. Which of course then makes people feel more excluded if people are angry at each other.
So I was able to step in and go, you know, you're just as welcome here. And. Joining the conversation is absolutely fine. It's just, it is what it is because we're talking about, well, I can't remember what it was. This was nearly 20 years ago and those same things still happen now, as I think about it, that must have happened on Wednesday. When I went down there and we did split up into groups and me and two of the other guys, we're going out for a Curry next Tuesday, because we are mates and.
We're going to a conference on Sunday, cuz it's the national operatic and dramatic association west Midlands regional conference in Droitwich, be fun. Got looking forward to it, a bit of a giggle and, and there's only a few of us going, is that another clique? No. It's to circumstances. It's the meaning behind it?
Yeah. And of course, one, one thing. If, if people are new to a particular situation or an organization and other people have been there for years, then it will be natural to feel excluded because they don't have the history. They don't have the In jokes. They don't have the oh, you remember when of that. So I think, I think it's, it's really important to recognize, the reason why people could group together.
And it is not necessarily, although it could be about exclusion, but it's not necessarily,
What we wanna make sure is that people don't exclude themselves because they're expecting to be excluded. And maybe that maybe self-esteem has a part to play. Maybe, like Felicity was talking, but she used the word triggered.
Yes.
Why is this so triggering? This triggers me triggers. What, what does that trigger? That's a question to ask. What does this remind me of? I been here before somewhere else in a different system. Does this remind me of home
Oh, school.
Yeah.
Yeah. Cause she referred to cliques at the top. so I wonder if there was something, obviously I'm just guessing, but I wonder if there was something at school when there were the older girls and boys, maybe, but something about where they were together and she wasn't allowed to join in, could be older brothers and sisters.
She was excluded and, you know, I think that's, that's actually also an important point to recognize of, you know, I I'm the little sister and my brother was pretty good, really about, I mean, I, I couldn't expect any better from, in terms of being allowed to join in, but I wasn't always allowed to join in. Could he say, why would he want me to join in. I mean, seriously, why would he want his little sister to join in with everything he did?
And I, I think that that was, reasonably well handled, but I do remember times of feeling I want to join in. but that's natural. That's part of how life is, and it can't be any other way. And if you've got a, a, a business hierarchy where you've got the bosses who are responsible for everything that goes. Then it does make sense for some sort of separation to a degree. So I think, I think the triggering thing is, is really quite, quite, um, significant.
She also says, says though, she feels compelling, need to win everyone over, which is again, her own personal process. And, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I'd, I'd rather somebody wants to win people over than says don't care too hoots about what anybody else thinks.
But a compelling need?
Mm. Yeah. It's, it's a bit strong. Isn't it?
Look at that urge. Look at why that's there. Yeah, because I think we all have a preference to be liked if there's a choice and there's so many people will say, and I've heard them even they'll come to therapy and they'll say it and they'll say, oh, I don't, I don't need, I don't need people to like,
Yeah, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
me. Yeah. I don't care what people say about me. I don't care what people think really are you sure? And I, I think that's, that's a defense mechanism. If the, if you can convince yourself that you don't care what people say, then it doesn't matter what they say and defense mechanisms, like we said, the other week, they, they can be helpful. They're there to protect us. Nothing's a problem, unless it causes problems. There's that phrase again? Oh my God.
Two points from Steph's I think we need to, to cover specifically are gossiping in the workplace and lack of leadership. And let's start with the latter. If somebody's in a workplace and feeling there's a lack of leadership. I'm tempted to say be the leader but not everybody can do that. Would want to do that. And then it's also, what does lack of leadership mean? It could mean, well, what do you, what, what do you think? What could it, what could lack of leadership mean?
It varies, doesn't it from situation to situation, but it could be somebody allowing people to run amok, they're doing what they want, or there's a lack of responsibility. That's what jumps out me, particularly that lack of responsibility. Where do I go with this? Who owns this problem?
I suppose for, for me, if, if we're tying it into, which I think Steph is to the gossiping, something about not having control. And so people can run a mock and not do the work, which that's not likely to be very successful in any particular business. Is it if you're in a workplace where there's little leadership and you can't take leadership because of course that does give you opportunities. If you can, that will, would be a good thing. Wouldn't it?
If you wanted to be a leader and there was no leader, you've, you've got your, your in there, haven't
got a chance of a promotion there
But if you haven't, I suppose it's just either move or just do what you need to do and ignore everybody else. I remember somebody I worked with one time who, part of her issue was that she would spend time gossiping at work and then didn't get her work done. And so in the evenings, When she was supposedly trying to sleep, she couldn't because she was worrying about the fact she hadn't done her work.
And that led to a discussion about compartmentalization, I E, doing what you're supposed to do at the time you're supposed to do it. So if you're at work, work, if it's rest time, rest. This gets into an old fashioned Mars bar, advert work, rest, and play. If you go on holiday, Be on holiday. Yes. Okay. You know, you might need to check your emails, but do it, you know, half past four and that's it .So compartmentalize fit everything in. And for that client that worked really well.
She, she, she, and was able to do the work while she was at work. Cuz you know, doesn't necessarily mean you can't gossip at all, you know, spend 10 minutes. With your mates, we'll do it at lunchtime and, and, you know, you can still have the relationships and so on. , but, and then, then I think not worry about what other people are doing. Oh,
I think problems occur when that gossiping is triggering
course.
When it's not just chatting over the water cooler. It's not just having a little, having a little, chinwag putting the world to right, spending 10 minutes doing it instead of two. And you really should be getting back to work. It's the negative gossiping of She was late. What's she doing? You see what she's wearing? Oh, what's going on there? You know, all that sort of stuff that does go on because of the need for it within a system sometimes. We have to raise the question.
Why does the system need that? Why does it need a scapegoat? Because it, it shouldn't, and it wouldn't, if there was no problem. And the problem is the system in, in this make believe fantasy situation that I've just created the problem isn't with the one employee that says, I feel crap. This makes me feel triggered, upset, anxious. I don't wanna go to work, whatever it is, and it all needs looking at, but when you can step outside of it and go, this isn't about me.
Maybe sometimes you do need to ask why does this bother me? Why is this bothering me? Why can't let 'em gossip? Oh, I don't get paid any less.
and I suppose it, it does really depend on how you interpret the word gossip and we don't really know what Steph meant by that, but you know, this, this morning, , When I knew we were going be talking about these things, I had taken my father to a dental appointment. I take my father in, they know know me by name. I know it's just ordinary dentistry, nothing, nothing major. I'm not there that often.
they asked how my Ukrainian family were they asked me about my son's wedding, and they were thrilled to see photos. I thought, oh God, I'm just boring them aren't I, but no, and to the extent that I then went out to the car park, cause I have to go in and tell them when I'm back so that he doesn't wander the car park.
Yeah.
he'd probably be fine, but I'm not risking it. So I go, I go and sit in the car, wait for him. He comes back, says. Oh, Megan, Megan, didn't get to see the photos. Can you come back in now? This to me, that's that's in the sense is gossip because them looking at my son's wedding photos is not part of their jobs, but they are. So I suppose it's sort of client centered. They're so about making the clients comfortable, but it also clearly makes them feel happy.
So you can see it, you walk in their, their face is light up. It's genuine. So it's a lovely place to go. And whoever it is, who's creating that environment is doing a really good job,
they're like you say, they're being person-centered.
leads back to the leadership.
Yeah, cause it's working there. And we do see problems when there's an issue at the top and attitudes get passed down layer by layer level by level. It does get picked up further down because certain behaviors, certain attitudes get accepted as well, this is okay. And that starts at the top of government. I'm not gonna name names, supermarket brands. I'm going through all the gossip that I've picked up over the years from clients and friends who work in different professions.
And yeah, they will often say there's a problem at the top and it just gets passed down.
the sort of the problem at top, but the company ethos as well. There's somebody I'd be working with, who has worked for a major corporation. I won't go any further than that. Where the, the, the ethos is you get in first thing in the morning, you do not leave until way after six o'clock, you know, All hours you holidays were, I suppose you can take a little bit, but you might be allow this amount, but no, you're not taking it sick. What?
No. And the pressure immense, whereas somebody else I know works for an equivalent corporation where it's yeah, you need that time. Fine. Yeah, you, you are, you are a human being. You need your, you need your holidays at six o'clock off you go. And well, if I was able to say which these two were, which obviously I can't, they're equally successful. I mean, both, both majorly successful corporations, but if you've got two that are equal one with. Negative ethos. One with the positive ethos.
Yeah. And I, I I've desperately tried to find evidence of this study that, um, remember Martin Armstrong prior, great guy. He lives in Scotland
huh? Yes, I that's indeed. Hello Martin.
Hello Martin, maybe he listens. Oh, I'd be nice if
be
All right, mate, long time. Don't
seen you pages, Martin.
Scotland's looking great nowadays. Might be joining you. He was talking about what he thought was, um, a study that was done in a, steel Foundry in Cincinnati, but I, I can't find the original study that was done. And, maybe it's just one of these urban legends who knows that said that they were looking at productivity and. One of the ways of measuring productivity. Cause it's quite hard to measure productivity. How do you tell what you're producing?
Well, some people their job was simply shoveling coal into a, a furnace and they could see how much coal somebody would be shoveling in a day. And let's say it was, I think the number that Martin came up with was, um, was eight tons in a day. So that's, that's a lot and they did some experiments where. Every hour, somebody had a break just for a minute or two, just lent on the shovels, sat a bit of a break, and then they went back to work.
And doing that rather than just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and then have a lunch break and go, oh God, gotta get back to work. And then they go work, work, work. Supposedly it went from shoveling eight tons to shoveling 14. They were able to do so much more physical work because once an hour they'd just stopped. Maybe they did lean on the shovels and they'd chat to. Chat to their colleague. And we see that in street workers all the time. And we see it in a lot of builders.
Nobody complains about the builders that are working, that gets, gets filtered out. No, I don't even see those, but the ones that are just standing there doing nothing, drinking tea, look at these lazy folk. Get on with it. Will you get on with it? Oh, when are they gonna be finished? Well, you don't let them rest, they won't be, or maybe the work will get done in the same amount of time, but with a lot less backache.
And maybe those two corporations are producing exactly the same amount of work, but going about it in two different ways. And one's gonna have more staff turnover. Geez, really is.
Indeed. That was a really interesting topic.
It is isn't it. When those questions came through and I thought. Hmm. When am I gonna put these? Cuz they were came. They came. Hello? Both of you, both of these two listeners, they came in at different times. I've been waiting for a place to put them and, and there was another one that was kind of related. I'm like, aha. But is this really therapy? Turns out we can certainly turn this into some sort of. psychological theory easily talk about it. Absolutely.
So if you have any more questions, whether it's work related systems related, family related mental health related in any way, shape or form the link to submit a question is in the show notes and we need them. We can't do this without you. Otherwise it's just me and Fiona having a chat, which would work but it's quite nice to get some audience participation. So thanks to everybody that's been contributing so far. We've still got some questions to plow through, believe me, but we want more.
We wanna do this for the rest of our lives, if possible. So shell, we love him and leave him for another week. Fiona.
fine. Look forward to next time.
Indeed. We'll be back next time. Have a good one. See you
Bye.