Hi there. You wonderful folk out there in listener land. This is the Therapy Natters podcast. Are you new to the show? If so, where have you been? We've been here for months. Glad you could join us. Pull up a seat. I'm Richard Nicholls and my cohost Fiona Biddle along with me is hopefully gonna answer some questions about all things therapy for you. Hey, Fiona, that seems to have tickled you.
Yes. Well, that was quite well. Yeah, your intros are always amusing, but that one, you, you pushed the boat out there a bit. Didn't you maybe the sun's getting to you
I've not a chance to see it, but we are in the height of an English summer so quickly, look at that great big ball of sun in the sky. It's just quick look at it, but don't look at it. You must never look at the sun.
it always affects us. Doesn't it. . Richard: I do you feel a bit what,
a bit wampy.
what does
You never heard that phrase a bit wampy. That's not a west Midlands thing is it to be wampy maybe that's a west midlands thing.
I don't know. What does it mean?
Wampy? Ooh, like a ditzy dog, I suppose, that just keeps walking into stuff, you know, Oh, I can't be the only one that uses the word wampy. Apparently it's not a word. I just made it up.
it, it fits though. Doesn't it? There's a ditzy dog making up your own words to explain how you are
Listeners, if you use the word wampy, please do email in. Contact forms on the website link is in the show notes. Do you use the word wampy? Hashtag wampy. We'll put it on social media.
Well, one thing's for sure is we never know where this conversation is gonna go do we
No, if there's something I've learned about myself in the last few years is that I'm probably not as neurotypical as I thought, but that's okay. I'm, I'm okay with these strangely intrusive divergents and, and things that pull me in another direction. It's my personality. It makes me who I am.
Well, that makes me wonder if there is anything really typical about neurotypical this, or is everybody everybody's different? Nobody can know what's going on in somebody else's head really. Can they, so.
That's right. And, and the, the problem is with a lot of diagnoses, we medicalize them and there's a phrase. I've always said one of my catch phrases, nothing's a problem unless it causes problems. To medicate somebody because they're, they have a personality trait, which isn't that popular or common. Well that sounds like something Hitler would do. That's not good.
Indeed so many. I mean, we've talked about labels before and we've used the phrase about problems and I'm sure we will continue to do so because it's so important, but there are character traits that are not helpful in certain contexts. So then it's about finding the context in which your own personality traits are helpful.
Yeah, but then what is personality? Is it, is it based on our values, which could be cultural? Is it based on something that's biological, something that is ingrained into us at birth. And that brings me onto one of the questions that we've been asked, we try and group a few questions together if we can. So we can drag the episode out for a full half hour. Although there are some topics we could easily talk about for a couple of hours and it wouldn't be a problem.
Shall I read them both out, so people know what's brewing today. So we've got two questions that we're gonna try and answer today. One is from Lou. Lou says, is it a good idea to have therapy with the intention of trying to fill voids in your memory? I'm middle aged now, and I worry that I can't remember my life before I was around eight years old. Is this because of trauma or just a bad memory. I've heard the mind blocks out bad things. The fact that I don't know makes me anxious.
And then we have another question. Uh, Fay from Sheffield, Fay says I was interested in your admission that you both cry with your clients. I have been unable to cry for more than 15 years. Although I used to cry at sad things and happy things and silly things, I can't really pinpoint when it started, but I did have some health issues around that time, but nothing that would cause my tears to dry up. I'm just going through a divorce and feel that a good cry would help.
Do you know of anything that could help? What interesting questions, Lou and Faye. Thank you very much to both of you for writing in
As we prepared, not that we do really prepare very much, we have a moment or two conversation and then we natter. And on this one, the nattering was really around the fact that we don't know the answer to these questions. And I actually rather liked not knowing the answer to questions. Because, the thing with this is it's so individual and that's where it sort of ties in with that neurodiversity. And so on.
We can't know for either Lou or Faye to any remote degree of certainty, what the reasons are for gaps in memory or not being able to cry. There could be a whole range of things. So in the therapy room, if they were sat there, It would be a question of investigating that one person's experience and, and the meanings behind what they've experienced, their interpretations of what they're, what they've experienced. And then, trying to reach some sort of conclusion.
If indeed they decide that a conclusion is what they want to reach, because it might be that one or both of them gets to the point where they say, well, this is just how I am and how it is. And that's okay. I've got a person at the moment, who has been wondering whether there is significant stuff that she's forgotten from childhood.
And a phrase that I used with her was that this is like looking for a needle in haystack of needles or possibly looking for a needle in a haystack when you don't know if there's a needle in it.
Yeah. It's, it's trying to answer a question that, do we really need to ask it, but the meaning behind it is This Troubles Me. If I don't get an answer to this question, I'm gonna continue to be troubled. Well, that's the problem. It's the, it's thinking about that, that's the problem.
yes, it's, it's being troubled by something that both Lou and Fay are thinking. Is there something wrong with me? Isn't it? That what they're, they're sort of thinking. Should I be different? Should I be or behaving in some way differently? So am I okay.
Yeah. And the answer might be, yeah, you're fine. You're doing fine. Is this affecting you? Memory consolidation is hugely complicated and we're psychotherapists, not neuroscientists. So please don't ask us too many questions. We are lay people in this respect, but I'm quite fascinated. I'm quite interested. So I have spoken to neuroscientists over the years. I remember speaking to a neuroscientist called Dean Burnett Welsh guy from Cardiff, lovely guy. He written some great books.
One called the idiot brain. One called the happy brain one for teenagers called why your parents are driving you up the wall and what you can do about it. Something like that. He's a great guy, really funny guy. And I remember speaking to him about memory. And, it's so complicated. 20 seconds into a conversation with somebody that knows what they're talking about. And you realize just how little we really know. But what we do know is that it isn't always fact, our memories.
That we can't trust them. That actually, when somebody says, oh, I have this fantastic memory. I remember everything that's ever happened to me. They don't, they really don't, but memories can feel real. In fact, there have been people over the years who have said they claim to remember experiences of being literally days old.
Well, they can't, well, at least when they describe those experiences, they're describing them as if they have a completely formed visual ability that they can see everything. You can't see for about three months of your life. The first 12 weeks your blind, pretty much. And yet they're describing, oh, remember my mum's face. And I remember that cot. No don't. But, memories can feel real, whether they are real or not.
And that can be a little bit troublesome when somebody says, is it a good idea if I go back into my past and try and recall some memories, because what could come up is a metaphor that feels real. That helps explain something. And isn't that kind of what past life regression probably is outside of any ideas about reincarnation, if it is just your brain coming up with stuff to try and help you in the present moment, it'll create a story.
And I've helped clients with that, whether they've believed in reincarnation or not. We've used hypnosis and hypnotherapy to give them these little stories and they go, oh, I see. So I starved to death in ancient Egypt. That's why I have a problem with food. Okay. Well, that's put a better spin on it. Now I see the food and go, ah, makes sense. But it's not really, for me. That's my old ancient self. I'm gonna get a glass of water and a banana. And that's really helpful for them.
What's funny about a glass of water and a banana.
Nothing's funny about it, except it was just where that came from as opposed to anything else that you might have said
Well, there might have been thirsty and not really hungry at all. And if they were hungry, they probably need a banana, who doesn't?
Nothing wrong with a banana. Um, I, I mentioned in the last recording that I was at a wedding recently. But I'm going to mention it again, because I was. It's now two weeks ago. And this is my son's wedding and he and Louise and Louise's mother all mentioned in their speeches about how the two of them met. Not absolutely the first time they met, but the sort of more important time that they met, which was on a water slide in France when they were 14.
No, the thing is that those three stories were all different. They had different phrases that were said, different timings, different elements to them. And the thing was, I was actually there. I was at the top of the slide with Louise and Greg. So I was sitting there saying, I know the truth. I know exactly what happened, but maybe mine isn't right. And one of theirs is. Or maybe none of them are right. But in my mind, it's really clear.
Not all of it's exactly clear cuz obviously I didn't know this was going to be a significant moment. I was just sitting at the top of a water slide. You don't expect that to be a significant moment in your life. Now that's of course also a factor with memories is how important it feels to you at the time that it's happening.
Which is why when you get into, uh, watching court cases or any police, procedural stuff, real ones, not dramas, you see that people don't remember necessarily because, well, it wasn't important what car that was or how many people were over there or what, because it didn't have any significance attached to it.
We've seen the research from Elizabeth Loftus is probably the most famous one for the research she's done into, into debunking the idea of eyewitness testimony that it really shouldn't be used in court to prove or disprove whether something happened or not. But that's what we've been using for generations. When somebody stands there and says, I saw that man. Well guilty then. You saw him as a witness.
But genuinely memories can be tricked very, very easily based on expectation based on being led until they feel real. And Elizabeth Loftus was easily able to convince people that they'd committed crimes purely as an experiment to see if we can trick people as long as there was somebody else to say, yeah, that did happen. They began to generate memories and other experiences. Here's a lovely one. A really clever one. Apologies.
If you've heard me talk about this before, cuz it's one of my favorites, but one of the things that they did is they got people as they were leaving Disneyland and Disney world, just to take part in a little questionnaire, would you like to be contacted just about your experience today? You might get, you might win a Teddy bear, whatever. So they go back to them a few week, a few days later, maybe it was a short space of time. First, just to say, answer these few questions.
So, did you see, um, Mickey Mouse? Yes. Did you see, um, Minnie Mouse? Yes. Do you see goofy? Yes. Do you see Pluto? Yes. Do you see Bugs Bunny? Yes. Just ask these questions, then they go back a couple of weeks later again. And go, we wanna ask you a bit more detail about some of these things. Uh, you sent here that you saw Bugs Bunny. Just tell us a little bit about that. They pull out some photos and they go, well, here's a picture of me with, with Mickey Mouse.
Here's a picture of me with Minnie Mouse. So I've got no pictures with Bugs Bunny because, um, I don't think the camera was working or something like that. And they go back a few weeks later and they ask the questions again. Now. Bugs Bunny isn't at Disneyland or Disney World, cuz it's a Warner Brothers character, not Disney, but just by saying, did you see Bugs Bunny?
Yes. It creates the memory and they can see it in their mind and go, but I know it, I can see it and they did some things with Photoshopping people who were inside, um, hot air balloons and things like that. And go tell us about that experience you had when you were 7. They look at the photo and go, oh yeah, I re oh, I remember now, then the create a story. S'been photoshopped. It was just a trick, but, but they will say, but I remember it.
And even when you tell them afterwards, yeah, it was a trick this is just photoshopped. They were like, I still remember it. Yeah, we know you do. That's how the brain works. And because it's got these abilities to, to create stuff. We know that it's plastic, it can change shape. We know that it can be molded and changed. And also, for whatever reason, sometimes memories disappear.
Either because they're not worth remembering or sometimes because it's a defense mechanism that the brain says that you don't want to remember that. It's not that it wasn't worth it, cuz it didn't create an emotion. It wasn't valuable to you. It was actually a dangerous one. So we wanna forget that so that we are not traumatized by it, which is a great ability. And it's kept people sane for thousands of years, if not millions of years. So whoop dedoop that's great.
but either way, does it matter. Is it a problem?
There's also a factor, I think, that a lot of people think that other people remember things in a lot more detail and with a lot more clarity than probably most people do. So when Lou isn't it, Lou is saying that she doesn't remember certain things. If Lou was sitting here and I'd like to say things like, well, do you remember your first day at school? Do you remember, your best friend when you were five? Do you remember the sort of thing that you would have for tea in the evening?
What was your bedroom like? Chances are, she'd be able to answer those questions, but they're not at the forefront of her mind. I mean I'm jumping to conclusions here, but chances are that she thinks that she should be remembering more detail. And most people don't have huge levels of detail of memory. They, they might, as I said earlier, about the things that are significant. So people will often remember holidays more than the day to day stuff.
They, they will remember some bad experiences at school. You know, when you were made to feel like a twit by the teacher or you're told off, or somebody said something. That upset you. Remember those sorts of things. Remember horrible things about pets, dying, and nice things about pets as well. But it's those sorts of things of what people remember not the day to day.
Yes. And what we do know from brain scans is that those, that claim to have these super phenomenal memories and they, and they have this great recall, cuz some people they do remember lots of experiences that they've had and they go, yeah, I remember that day. It was a Tuesday, even though it was 30 years ago and oh, how we had steak and chips for tea, cor blimey. You remember that? Those people do exist. They're very, very rare.
That's why very few studies can be done because there's so few of them, you need a big number. They have a, they have a larger amygdala, which is the area of the brain that is partly responsible for emotion. And we know that memory consolidation is based on emotion. That if something is memorable, then it's because it created an emotion and the brain goes, oh, that's valuable I'll remember that. But short term memory, which lasts like. 60 seconds.
And that's all we've got, literally you don't go over a minute with short term memory. People often talk about, oh, my short term memory is quite good. I remember a shopping list from this morning. That's long-term short-term is literally the stuff in the last 60 seconds and you can walk through a doorway and be reminded of something else and go. The hell did I come in here for? We do that all the time. The doorway is a transition, which is part of the reason as to why that happens.
But also we just gets distracted. Something pops into our head. Oh yeah. I've forgotten about that thing. Then we think about that just for a few seconds. Too late now. Your 60 seconds are up. So what you were, what you were gonna do has gone now and you gotta go back to where you were and go. Sure. I had something to do. And then you pick up where you left off and see the tab open on your screen and go, oh, I was supposed to be putting a kettle on.
And then you go off and put the kettle on, for example. So we know that the brain is quite a complicated thing and memory is important. Cuz we wanna be able to remember where the berries are so that we remember the bush next time and evolution and natural selection means yeah. Remembering the bush. That's good.
So, are you saying that with the people, with the phenomenal memory that because the amygdala is larger, there is more often emotion attached to the thing. I was actually this morning talking to my family about potentially going on holiday. And I found an Airbnb in a particular place that I've been to before. And I said to them almost the only thing I remember of this place was a salad dressing at a particular restaurant.
Wow.
Ellie said how do you remember a salad dressing from 32 years ago? I said, because it was just that good. It was a multi-course French meal as they do, you know, six courses or something for a set price. And one of the courses in between main course and cheese, I think was a, was a salad. And it was basically just lettuce, an ordinary lettuce with this phenomenal, dressing, which had breadcrumbs in it. And I have tried to recreate it and I have not succeeded.
I've made ones that are all right, but not matched it. But that's why I remember it because it was just that good. There's actually nothing else about that place at all. But that was the, that was the important thing about that holiday.
There you go Yeah. We know we can keep memories alive if you keep going back to them. And that's one of the reasons why traumatic stuff can be so difficult for people because they keep going back to it. Cause their brain says that's important. Remember that. Never let that go. But good stuff can be remembered as well, but we've gotta keep going back to it. And I think the next generation of people will find that a little easier because we take a lot more photos nowadays.
We used to take 30 pictures. We went on holiday with a roll of film and we'd take a few pictures of the holiday. We'd come back home and there's still three left and we'd just take a couple of pictures of the dog and then we'd send it to snappy snaps, and then we get them back and go, oh, these
Yes. Half of hadn't worked. So yes, it will. But then there's also the fact that memories as you replay them, get filtered don't they, they get changed. So if you reexperience something, you, you think about it, different factors will come to the fore. So even then you can't be sure. And even with the level of photography that we've got now, you're still only getting a snapshot of a time. You, you can't record in a photograph, how you're feeling.
So those things easily get changed as you go through.
So, what I would say to Lou is if this isn't causing a problem, then it's nothing to worry about. If you have other problems and you want to address those. And maybe that might, if there is, for example, somebody can come to therapy and say, I have some insecurities, I have some troubles in my relationships I'm always scared of abandonment, stuff like that. And they can't remember much about their childhood. Well, what do you think, do, do you think that your parents had a lot of time for you?
Do you think that they didn't? Were they busy? And they go, well, actually they separated when I was six and you know, my dad was very busy and my mom was always at work and no, I kind of brought up, well, actually I brought up my little sister, you know, I was sort of the parent. Okay, well this explains why you might have some abandonment trauma and why you feel that you're always about to be disappointed or let down or rejected or whatever. And that's it.
We don't need the actual memories and experiences themselves. Like you've said before, deep down people know whether they had a, a loving and nurturing and atuning experience growing up or not. And that can be talked through with a therapist and that might be all people need sometimes.
Absolutely. So what about Faye and the tears? I find the, the whole thing about crying absolutely fascinating. I'm one who can cry at the drop of a hat, but I've, I did wear waterproof mascara at, at Greg's wedding and I didn't need it. I did not cry, but I felt exceptionally emotional. Um, but it didn't need to come out in tears. So that was, that was nice. I didn't want to mess up mascara.
It goes to show that there are no rules, are there? Faye mentioned the idea of having a good cry we do know that a crying is linked to the parasympathetic system. So in the long term, you know, after the cry, ah, there can be a calming influence, but in the moment it can be upsetting for
And I, I think there's, there's, there's very different types of crying. Aren't there. I mean, you know, if I was to, uh, a good cry that at a wedding would not be appropriate, it's not culturally appropriate to, um, sob and ball and, we, and yell and scream. But, sometimes, yes. If you have that, that sort of a cry, that phrase that people say is let it out, let it all out by doing that, which is, is a very different sort of thing.
And you know, just to have times when, if you're feeling sad about a particular situation that's happening and you find that tears are just running down your face, that's, that's a very, for me a very therapeutic thing, but as to why that's not happening for Faye anymore,
Mm-hmm
I mean, she said sort of health issues that couldn't have affected it, that suggests she's thinking. Sort of physically biologically it couldn't have affected it, but psychologically, maybe there was something at that time that clicked in her mind of crying's not good.
There's something there that says I've gotta keep this to myself. For example, why that's happened, who knows? But correlation does not employ causation. It could just be that the last 15 years there's been every day, that's gone by there's been other things that have gone on. Actually, she talks about going through a divorce.
Maybe the last 15 years have been a little bit, she's needing to be a bit stoic for some reason who knows there's lots going on and it could be nice to explore it, but does she need to cry? Well, evolutionary psychologists would say that it's useful to communicate. This is how I'm feeling. And we know from, from studies that one of the reasons why women will cry more than men or find it easier to cry is just because of the culture that says it's acceptable to share our emotions with each other.
So women will cry together and men don't have that culture yet. There's some pockets, but on the whole men have been cultured through society to, to hold back. And if, if a woman is crying, then our culture of, well, I need to do something about this. Cause I'm the man. So I need to fix this. And of course we can't.
Well, maybe we can, but what, what, what somebody's saying when they're crying is I'm feeling something I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling disappointed, or I'm feeling angry, whatever it is, I'm feeling something. And that's all, they're just feeling it. And they want to share the fact that they're feeling it and we need to be okay with that. Let them feel it and not have a culture that says it's bad to feel.
Yes, of course sometimes they don't want to be showing it, but it comes out anyway. That's the, that's the times when it's, it, it feels embarrassing to, to cry.
If you're under pressure from your boss, for example, and you know that they're, they're already quite a sexist character anyway, which crops up a lot. And you already know that, you know, if I show them that I'm upset over this, this just gives them more ammunition to say that you don't even belong in this organization. So I better keep this to myself.
Yeah. So women, as well as men can be judged for crying and be seen as a sign of weakness. But as to the thing you said about fixing, I think every situation's different and every person's different. I know that probably most of the time that I'm crying, I'm perfectly fine with it. This is just, this is just an emotion that I'm feeling and expressing. So no problem, but there would be sometimes when a big hug and to be told everything's okay. That would be nice too.
So could be a mixture and there's nothing wrong with somebody saying, what response do you want to this? Is there something I can do? Or do you just want to be left alone or do you want a hug?
Nice, that's sweet. There was some research into triggers. What triggers people to cry and, and it's something that we as therapists we were already aware of this because one of the triggers is a box of tissues. That if somebody can see in their vision there's box tissues there, it gives them permission to let it out because it doesn't need to be said. It's, it's an unsaid thing. It's okay to cry. Look the box tissues there.
But then also on that I've heard it said in therapy circles that offering somebody a tissue is a suggestion that they need to stop.
Oh often. Yeah, point. I do remember a CPD event once where the presenter said one of the good tricks about helping people to stop crying is to, is to look up. So if the client is crying, they can stand up, have a little walk around and they just look up to the ceiling and I sort of raise my hand. Why do you want your clients to stop crying? And, and, and he said, well, you don't want your clients to cry in, in the session. Do you, it gets in the way.
Now this was a hypnotherapy, uh, C P D. So maybe that could get in the way of some information gathering, ready for ready to construct a hypnotherapy session. So I, I, I understand that, but even back then, when I was, when I was only doing hypnotherapy, there was still that part of me that went, no.
Sounds like that person's issue to me is that, that he or she was uncomfortable with the client's tears rather than thinking it was a problem for the client.
Strange one. And it just goes to show that we have a culture with lots of different mixed beliefs about crying. About what it means. And it goes back millions of years to, but it's pre-verbal we made these noises to communicate to our humanoids in our tribe. There's a problem. I need something. Whether cuz they've been physically hurt or something's happened, that's made them sad. They need something. And that was a way of communicating it. And that's why it's so closely related to laughter.
Laughter and crying they're gonna use the same neurons in the brain. They're using some of the same muscles they're using the diaphragm. you know, you're, you're doing that same movement, whether you're laughing or crying, which is why sometimes people will cry and they'll be laughing at the same time and why sometimes they can be laughing so hard that they cry. The, the, the brain's a complicated thing. And to say, what's the answer. I want the one answer to this question. There isn't one.
That's just made me, wonder whether Fay can laugh. Mm-hmm Fay, can you laugh?
Yeah. Let us know Faye. How good are you at laughing? I'd tell a joke, but I'm not very funny.
You have been quite funny today. You've made me laugh.
That was unintentional. Anyway. I hope we've done our best here, Fiona, to, uh, answer Lou and Fay's questions to
Well. I think we've done our best. We can hope that that was good enough.
Yes, we've done our best. Of course. It's good enough. Cause it's our best. There might not be a conclusion to it, but. We did our best in 30 minutes, we'll probably touch on something similar to this, cuz I, it did cross my mind to bring this into an episode about defense mechanisms and that's a few times we've mentioned defense mechanisms.
let's do that soon.
Shall we do that next time? And I'll ask some questions to my patrons that says how can we bring this into an episode? What sort of defenses do you put up? I've done my own episodes about defense mechanisms before, so my patrons are quite familiar with them probably. So they've heard me talk about them. I'll ask if anybody's got any particular ones.
Okay. And I'll, I'll get the theory sorted out. Ready?
You do that? That sounds great. Well, that's gonna be next week folks. You've had a sneaky peak into what we're gonna be doing, So we better love you and leave. You have a super, sunshiny week. If you need anything, you know where to find us. And if you don't need anything, then, um, well we're still here. Whether you need us or not, but, you know, go and listen to something else. If you want to you, you're welcome to do whatever you like. I've gotta be honest. Take care folks have a super week.
Bye everybody.
I do ramble don't I
You do, but it's good.