Look at that. It's only time for another episode of Therapy Natters. For listeners new, therapy Natters is a podcast series where two psychotherapists natter for half an hour about the theories and experiences of psychotherapy. One of those is me, I'm Richard Nicholls. And the other is Fiona Biddle, my cohost sitting right opposite me here. Hello, Fiona. How are you today?
Hi. I'm very well, thank you. How are you?
I'm super. You had a good week since we last spoke?
I have yes, I've been pondering whether I've been using my time wisely
Hmm.
because I haven't done enough work, but , I've started to put all my old photos into photo books on Canva,
Oh, nice.
so I've yeah, I keep finding reasons to do that instead of other things.
Is that productive procrastination?
Well, yes, and it does achieve something. I've actually got two books now. I've got my photos from the seventies and my photos from the eighties in actual books, and they're much better than photo albums. So I'm doing an advert here . But it's, yeah, so I've had, I've had fun.
For the last probably 12, 13 maybe longer years. Dawn, my wife, she made one every new year based on the pictures from the previous year. And it's so nice to flick back and look through the things that have gone on throughout the year. Cause obviously the only images you put in there are of the good experiences, and that's how we keep our memories. That's how we lock in those experiences. If you don't talk about them, or refresh your memory about them somehow. They get lost.
You forget that you did them and if you're not careful, you think you've had a really boring and nothing has happened life. Which is one of the reasons why I like to ask you what have you done this week? What's been going on so you can look through and look for your good experiences, Cuz that's, on the whole, what we wanna remember. I had a good experience. I, I went to a wedding last weekend, so it was quite a while ago now, so it's been almost a week.
But it was it was my wife's cousin's youngest son who is actually 30. The wedding was supposed to have been two years ago during the Covid times, but it was delayed and delayed and delayed. And so they did it last week and it was absolutely gorgeous. Really, really was nice. It was a lovely gathering of friends and family. Everybody obviously happy cuz it's a wedding and everybody's in good spirits and the speeches were gorgeous. It was just, it was just really, really nice and I behaved myself.
I wasn't too much of the silly extrovert on the dance floor, although I didn't come off it much. I've gotta be honest. I'm definitely one for you you know, you've seen me at conferences
yes, I've seen you on the dance floor.
You can't get me off
I'm usually there with you.
usually. Yes. And at the beginning of the night and at the end of the night still there dancing away. And I didn't have very much to drink cause I don't do that anymore. I'm a lot more sensible than I used to be. I try to practice what I preach, look after myself. But, I'm up there on the dance floor, dancing around, and somebody just thrusts a big bottle of Prosecco in my hand because they've been carrying it around for a little while and didn't know what to do with it.
Thrust it in my hand, and now I'm dancing with this massive bottle of Prosecco. And so I took a little swig from it for comedy effect. Oh, look at me. Got a bottle of Prosecco, and then, my wife's cousin takes out her phone to start taking some pictures, and I posed. Posed with the Prosecco, Took another swig from it and I'm dancing about, and then the next day my wife asks her cousin, Oh, have you got any pictures of last night? Wanna put this in a photo book. These were great.
The only ones she sent through is that one of me dancing around like an idiot with this flipping bottle of Prosecco. And Dawn's face was like, Hmm, that's you. Yeah, but that's out of context. You can't get an idea of who I am from just that one picture, cuz that one picture just makes me look like I'm outta control and that wasn't the case. But if you take things outta context,
It's interesting actually, cuz that is making me think, Cause I've obviously, as the only photos that I've got started around 1970, I don't have anything from before that. In those early days before digital cameras, I guess. Photos were almost always completely out of context because they were all posed. But now still we are, as you said, we select the ones to go in our photo books that we are going to keep.
I've still got to, I've got a box full, literally a box full of photos of the boys from the noughties cuz they were all organized till about 2000 and then it's just a box and then all the ones on the computer. So this is, this is a long project, but the context is, is important and we don't take photos of the bad things.
No, we don't. No, I mean who, unless you really like complaining and you take a photo to send it to points of view or something, or the equivalent. No, we just take photos of the good things and that's, that's nice. Although, I guess, was it a good thing me standing there posing with the bottle prosecco, it's not very professional. I wouldn't want my clients to, to see that cuz that they'd see that as outta context.
But you are just talking about it in a professional forum,
That is true. Yes.
So I, I think it's okay. You know, you're a human being. You were at a wedding, you don't claim be a tee totaller and your story hangs together. It wasn't anything bad Oh, it's fine.
not at all. And, and when somebody sent in a question about recording what we do as therapists. It did raise that question to me of, you know, would we behave differently knowing that this, that this is gonna get scrutinized? And I think people could, people do, if they knew, well, this is gonna get looked at. People are gonna judge me over this. I mean, I'm, I've got enough self-esteem now that I'll still leap about a dance floor with somebody's random bottle of Prosecco.
But you wouldn't be drinking it in the consulting room. That would be, context again, that would be a problem.
Yep.
I mean, hopefully you wouldn't be even if you were being video recorded. Obviously, we do adapt our behaviors if people are going to be scrutinizing it. I was talking to a client the other day who was saying, I used to care what people think about me. I said, Okay, you don't care now? Everybody cares unless they're psychopaths, basically, because that's part of living in society that we do care about being judged.
Something particularly ironic about the human condition is that nobody has the right to judge us, but they'll do it anyway and automatically do it and can't stop doing it. But they have no right to. Should we read the question?
Yeah, So that people understand what we're waffling on about.
This is a, a question from Mark from Humberside. And Mark says, What are your thoughts on me recording my counseling sessions? I've been seeing a lovely therapist for over three months, and even though I come away feeling lifted, I don't really remember exactly what we spoke about. I do wonder if I often go over the same things. I think if I had a recording of the session, I will be able to play it back and maybe gain even more benefit from the work that we do.
I worry though that if I told her I was recording it, then the sessions wouldn't be as good as she would be too conscious of it. What would you do?
Hmm. What? What do I do? First off actually in the UK it's not illegal to record somebody without telling them, but I think it's content to talk about. I think you talk to your therapist about this Mark and say, I come away feeling lifted from these sessions. And you explore what it is about the sessions, cuz it might not necessarily be the words that the two of you used. It's part of the relationship that you've created.
There's a lot more to therapy than one person talking and one person listening and then swapping over every few minutes. There's a lot of communication that's nonverbal, and if it's an audio recording and even if it's a video one you, you're only getting half of, it's not gonna be the same. I think if you were to read a transcript of your counseling session, you'd read it and go well, this has no value. These, this is, this is just rambling.
The two of us are just rambling at each other, I wonder. But the, but creating a relationship where there's little movements in the eyes and there's certain nods of their head and understanding of what you've said, it's those things that help people feel listened to and understood and safe. So that's one side. What are your thoughts Fiona?
Well, I'd like to go back to the idea of telling her or asking her whatever that bit was. The idea of doing it without her knowledge really makes the hair stand just on the back of my neck, because that's deceitful. Might not be against the law, but that in a therapy relationship that's not a good thing.
Yeah.
I mean, as therapists, we know that clients don't tell us the whole truth. It's not the court of law. It's not the whole truth, nothing but the truth or even the truth. But that's not because there's any issue with the client, it's because they're a human being. And so we, we understand that we're getting a, a view of things, but to deliberately withhold something that pertains to the therapist that no, that's very uncomfortable. But let's move on.
Let's presume that Mark talks to his lovely therapist. This is a quite likely possibility that she will say, Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, that's happened to me. I've had clients say that to me, Can I record the session? I wanna get the most out of this. I go, Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Yeah, she might say No, but then there's, I suppose there's, there's different types of therapists. probably the purest psychoanalysts. I suspect, I don't know this, but I suspect that they would not want this to happen.
Hmm.
And then you could have a discussion with them as to why or why not. You know, what are the pros and cons and reach a conclusion. But also a lot of therapists do record their sessions anyway. Now, just a, a proviso on that.
If anybody, as from the therapists end, if they are recording it, they need to have got your permission in their disclosure statement, contract, whatever they call it, the thing they've got you to sign at the beginning that will have said that sessions may be recorded or will be recorded, but it would be in there. If it's not, then I think that would be breaking the law. It would certainly be highly unethical, but a lot of therapists do do that
They do. Yeah. And I think it's not illegal to record it. It would be illegal to then publish it. if you were to stick it on the internet I think that goes into dodgy legal grounds. But actually just recording it for yourself. No, not in the UK anyway. It's different in the States. It is illegal in the states, I think. Or in
Well, I think, I think we can use ethics anyway. Clients aren't bound by ethics.
Yeah.
Not really. They're bound by law, but they're not bound by ethics. But we are, and I would say that would be highly unethical to record without the client's permission and the, the reasons why therapists record. Well, it comes down to two things really, or maybe three. One if they need it for some sort of assessment. So if they're a student doing a case study, they might have to submit a couple of recordings. which case that would be very clearly explained to the client. So that's, an easy one.
The second one is that sometimes people, therapists, particularly new ones, might want to review what they've done.
Hmm.
you know, sort of check out could they have done things better. But the third one, and this is sad, but it's a protection for the therapist cuz there have been cases where clients have said, Oh, my therapist said this, or worse, my therapist did this.
Hmm.
And when you get into a He said, she said, situation. Having some sort of backup to say, actually, mm, here's the evidence. I didn't do that because otherwise you can't prove it. Can't prove a negative. There have been cases, so that can occur. That can be the reason for doing it.
But then what Mark is asking for is for him to use it, of course, which is a completely different kettle of fish, and my immediate concern there is, I mean, I share what you said, Richard, about the not getting the full thing. Even if you were recording a Zoom call with the video, you're still not getting everything. But my particular concern is that it's taking you backwards.
Mm.
Cause when you go through any hour of your life, you're moving forwards. If you go back to do that hour again, you're going back, in time.
His concern was that he might be going over the same things. Yeah, maybe. And that's because you needed to. Therapy isn't a series of lessons. It's not a course, as such. That you have to take and remember and memorize, parrot fashion, all these ideas and so on. It's not like an exam that you'd have to go back and revise for. It's, it's very different. It's about the relationship that the two of you create, not necessarily just the content. And Yeah, that can't be captured and reproduced.
You can't play that back and try and get that same feeling, but people might want to. Maybe Mark wants to, he wants to recreate and get back that, that nice feeling that he experienced.
But just before you go down that tangent, cuz I think I know which tangent you're going down, but before you do that, I just wanted to say, say about the repetition. Repetition is a good thing. A lot of the time. Not always. Remember back to when we did the cycle of awareness, we said about that end bit where you get stuck. If you get stuck at that end without completing the cycle, then that repetition's not good. But generally, I mean, you're saying about revision for an exam.
Revision is going back
Hm.
Relearning. I was at my bridge class yesterday and we went back over everything we'd done in the first half of the term.
Hm.
You're going back. So repetition in and of itself, not a bad thing. Only when you get stuck in it, Right, end of little bit. You can carry on with your place you're going.
Yeah. Which was that there is a theory that I think it was Donald Winnicott that first proposed the idea of what's called transitional objects. And I've heard therapists talk about this with, this isn't just for children, although Donald Winnicott's ideas originally were about the stages that children go through of to prevent separation anxiety from their parents and attachment figures that have a blanket, or they'd have a cuddly toy.
They'd go for a sleepover, but they'd take their little cuddly toy with them.
Can I just interject and say, just to look at that phrase, transitional object is an object to help with a transition. So the, as you say with Winnicott it was about, Children or babies using objects like blankets and cuddly toys to transition from being part of the primary caregiver to being a separate person. So that's the, that's the, that's the start of developing the sense of self and you develop your sense of self by having your teddy, your blankie, whatever. But yeah, so just put that
Yeah. Yeah. I've known therapists who, when working with adults, if they're going on holiday for a couple of weeks or for longer and say, We're gonna have a, we're gonna have an extended gap in between our sessions, but I want you to have this. And they'll give them something from the office a, a crystal or a stone or something that is in the office that reminds them, or a book or something, and they'll give it to their clients to take away.
In between that long gap in between sessions, and I think that they're using that as a transitional object. Have you ever done that?
No, I have never done that. There's, there's something that worries me about that as to there's an alternative view is that the therapist's trying to keep the person connected.
Yeah.
I hope I haven't upset anybody who's listening, who is a therapist who does that. All I would really say is, is just as long as you are absolutely clear and clear with your clients as to what you're doing and why you're doing it, that's fine. And, and have that conversation. Because, you know, that just reminds me of, the therapist's job is to make themselves as redundant as quickly as possible. It's not our job to hold onto our clients or to create any sort of dependence.
So as a therapist, if you are using a technique like that, be clear with your client as to why you're doing it. And make sure that they don't have any vague feeling of, Ooh. So, but no, I haven't, I haven't done anything like that. I'd, I'd rather my clients go off and spend their time not thinking about me personally.
I think my clients have used my podcast episodes over the years as a type of transitional object. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's definitely worth considering. Probably a good thing. I'm hoping a good thing because it means that after their therapy's ended and they're never gonna see me again. There is still, Yeah. Is that a good thing? I'm still there in their life. Oh, that's ethical, that's curious. I mean, I do tell all my clients I have a podcast.
I tell 'em they don't have to listen. I don't, I don't encourage it.
If we go back to pre online podcasty sort of age then the, the theory would've been at the end of therapy. That's it. No more connection done. You're not part of their lives. But the only way that we can do that, Is to cut ourselves off from the world. So no podcasts, no website, no images online, no Facebook marketing, no Instagram.
No journal publications, no little articles in Woman's Weekly,
So it's, to me, it's asking far too much to make it so that there's not. you could well be right about it being well, I suppose it would vary. Bearing in mind the word is transitional. So if a client was going through a transition, then maybe your podcast might be a transitional object, but otherwise, maybe your a source of comfort in a different way. Maybe you just an anchor to a good feeling
An anchor to a good feeling yes,
Have we done an episode on anchors yet? we keep about it.
That's the second
do need to, don't we? Yes. So thinking about you, hearing your voice. It takes 'em to a, a good, a good place, a good feeling. And I can't see unless, unless it was the only way to get to a good feeling was to listen to Richard, which probably wouldn't be very healthy.
No. I've known many hypnotherapists over the years who will deliberately, specifically set out to record the sessions so that they can then burn it to a CD as it used to be in those days, and the client would take that recording of the session with them to play back as homework. We've moved on a little bit nowadays. We don't need to give people a cd. We've got online MP3s instead. But I've done that with clients.
Yes, I've done that. I was actually talking to a supervisee the other day who is a psychotherapist. But I'm differentiating from hypnotherapy because the client needed to stop smoking, so he had to sort of change his hat a little bit and put his hypnotherapist hat on. I mean, he's a hypno psychotherapist. Making our listeners go What? What the hell's the difference? But anyway.
About 20 pound hour is the difference.
So this chap wanted to do a stop smoking session and he said to me in this supervision session, I thought I'd record the session. I said, Oh, no. He says Why Well, mainly is putting far too much pressure on you because you as the therapist, and this goes a bit to what Mark was saying, not only is it about him being, I think Mark 's phrase was It wouldn't be so good as you would be too conscious of it,
Hmm.
That, that that applies. But also if you're doing a hypnosis recording that thing of going back that I mentioned, if you're wanting to stop smoking in that session that you're sitting there, there will be, will be terminology about you will be non smoker. because you're starting from the position of being a smoker. This doesn't just apply to smoking. It can be apply to all sorts of things.
So it would put an awful lot of pressure on the therapist to get the wording right so that when the client listened to it again in the future, they weren't going back to the state of being a smoker who wanted to stop.
Mm. Oh, we can work around that. I know what I would do. Do you wanna know what I would do?
I would love to know what you would do.
If this is what the client wanted and we set that up, I would say, Okay, when did you have your last cigarette? And they'd say, Well, it's about half an hour before I came in here, or it was at the door. Okay, so that was your last cigarette. That's the moment that you became a non-smoker. not in an hour's time, not at the end of this session. Then. You became a non-smoker then.
When you threw that last dog end away, and from now on, you will remain a non-smoker, and the whole of the hypnosis session will be about them remaining A non-smoker. That'd work.
Yes, it would. And that's what I guess I sort of meant by it put too much pressure on the therapist because they'd have to get the wording all right. All correct for that. Just talk to her about it and see what she thinks. Whether it would influence her is her decision, and then you can, you can discuss that and come to an agreement.
Hmm. Yeah. I could imagine that they'd say when you ask them could I record the session? They would likely, and I dunno, the therapist, obviously. They'd wanna know why. Let's find out what it is about it that you feel that you need, and let's see if we can make sure that you definitely get what you need. Because it might not be recording the session. Might be, but let's make sure and explore that and talk about that.
There's a couple of other things in here. Firstly, I don't really remember exactly what we spoke about, and then the, I do wonder if I often go over the same things. Well, let's start with the second one. I do wonder if I often go over the same things. Well, ask your therapist, Am I going over this too much? She'll tell you. She'll say, Well, actually, you know, you have told me that three times. Hopefully with a nice smile, and then you can, you can look at, well, what is the reason?
And maybe that can be part of the therapy as to, well, what's the need to keep going over this? We're obviously not, not getting to the end. Going back to that cycle of awareness, not getting to the completing the, the gestalt. So ask and the other is, I don't really remember exactly what we spoke about. If you think about any conversation you have, I mean, I've no idea anything about you, Mark, other than what you've just sent.
But most people will have had situations where they're sitting around a dinner table. Whether it's at home or in a restaurant or maybe down the pub or a conversation in lunchtime at work, whatever it is, you'll have had conversations that last about an hour. Do you remember them afterwards? No. You don't? Well, I , I don't. Maybe
like watching. It's like watching a film. You can watch a great two hour film and you'll come out of it and go, What a great story. You'll remember the story, the gist of it, and you'll maybe remember, of course, how it made you feel, but you won't remember all the words that were in the screenplay. You'll just remember the gist of the story. And that's okay. The directors don't mind.
No, and I mean, to me, I, I read novels and I often don't even know if I've read it. I have to have put it on the list because I don't remember anything about it. 10 minutes after I finish reading it doesn't mean I haven't really enjoyed doing it. I mean, obviously some stick in the mind but then if you go back and look again, well usually then I know that I've read it. But I can't, I can't remember it. So a therapy session, Why would that be any different?
You, you're not, you're not going to remember exactly what went on. So I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself to remember when you are really in it, in that moment, as opposed to watching it from a different perspective. You're not gonna remember, and that's ok.
Mm. Definitely worth looking at what you're trying to gain from playing it back. And if what you're trying to gain is more therapy. Then just be patient. You, you'll need more therapy and you'll know when you don't, and it won't be because you played the sessions back enough times now. It will be my self-esteem or whatever it is, that's the issue is high enough now. Our therapy sessions have come to a natural conclusion and I'm feeling in a good place, but I know where they are if I need them.
And it's not necessarily on a hard drive or even a podcast episode. It's in the conversations and the relationship that you have in the moment. Hmm. Well, I totally understand why you'd think I get some benefit from recording this. I get it.
Oh, yes. And, he might get some benefit. We're not saying there's no benefit potentially to be gotten maybe but it's not perhaps likely to be as much as he's thinking it could be.
Yeah.
And almost as though he's thinking there's something wrong with how it's been. There's nothing wrong with how it's been. That's, my take on it.
Yeah, there's, there's fors and againsts, but with many questions that people submit to us. A lot of the times we've said, talk about it with your therapist
Yes yeah. That just reminded me there's another thing here. We talked about hypnosis earlier. It's not sounding as though Mark is seeing a hypnotherapist, but one of the things that we say when doing hypnosis is you'll remember what was said. Again, I qualify that because look on his face again, he's looking puzzled.
I don't say that to people.
Well, there's a perception out there that, that people always
I see that you're gonna have some sort of amnesia,
Yeah. People, that's one of the common, you know, people think that they're going to cluck like chickens. They think that they're outta control. They think that they won't remember anything that they will be out of it. So I say something along the lines of, you will remember what was said, but just in the same way as if you watch an episode of EastEnders, you can't repeat it back.
Perfect.
Same sort of thing, but sometimes people don't remember anything in hypnosis.
Mm.
Not many people, but sometimes people don't. I remember a client who was really quite perturbed about the fact that he could never remember anything. He said he could remember it until he got halfway down the road
Hm.
outside. When he drove off halfway down the road, it all disappeared. And that bothered him because he wanted, to remember, but it didn't matter. That was his unconscious telling him, You don't need to remember it. I've done it. I've worked with it.
Yeah. In the same way that my patrons, Cause I have a Patreon podcast that comes out every Monday, ladies and gentlemen, and everybody in between. Feel free to subscribe to my Patreon content. It's only a fiver or a month and you get loads of stuff and there's a, there's a hypnotherapy track every Monday afternoon. And patrons will say, It doesn't matter if you, if I listen to the same ones because I don't really remember anyway.
And sometimes I'd re-listen to the same one and go, I don't, I don't remember this from the first time. When did he say that last time? Have you changed it? Did you change the file? No. So I didn't change anything. Of course not. No. It's all exactly the same. Well, it seemed different because we didn't remember it the first time because we were relaxed and comfortable. The brain didn't need to stick it into long term memory. There was no need for it.
I listen to sleep hypnosis recordings on YouTube, sometimes, quite often yours, Richard,
Thank
Yep, yep. It's, it's, it's really good. It actually does what it says on the tin
That the bruxism one? The,
The bruxism one. Yeah. If I, if I feel I'm getting this thing going on in my left jaw, I listen to your your thing-am-ijig.
It's available for free folks on YouTube on Brookhouse hypnotherapy Youtube.com/hypnotherapy UK
it sends me off to sleep it's not really grinding, but clenching. I don't do that, that night. But more often there's, one which is technically about pain, but it's just a really good one for drifting off to. The number of times. I mean, I've listened to it loads the number of times I go, I don't remember that phrase and I can't remember what comes next. You know, it's a very odd situation cause I know he hasn't changed it.
Cause it says on the thing when it was, created, so it can't have been changed. You can't change YouTube videos.
no,
So, The memories. A funny old thing. Funny old thing.
And we need to be okay with that. Well, one thing that we do need to be okay with is that today the session has come to a close. For a day, for a session, for a week, For another week. I mean, as I was saying that, I'm like, Oh no, I'm making it sound as if this is, the whole podcast is coming to an end. Not at all, quite the opposite. We've got a thousand things talk about. One of them anchoring. I think we should about that next week. Questions or not.
I mean, I'll mention it to my patrons on Monday that if anybody's got any, Questions about anchoring, let us know. But the only ones that will answer are those that already know about anchoring. But you know, I'll ask. But yeah, we'll talk about that next week. 'Cos that is a really
do that. Absolutely.
In the meantime, everybody have a super week. If you need anything, you know where to find us. And the link to all the different bits and bobs that you need is in the description below in the show notes. If you need us, you know where to find us. Have a super week everybody.
Bye.