Silence Of The Psychoanalyst. The Truth And Lies Of Neutrality

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

Those who know what it is - the silence of the therapist in the office - surely have ideas why this is so.

Here is a likely list of reasons:

- this is the method, it just so happened and there is nothing to be done;

- this is in order to give the patient the opportunity to project their latent conflicts onto the therapist and express their feelings (anger, uncertainty, resentment and despair);

- this is because the therapist should not injure, distract, preach or entertain the one who came for help;

- this is because the therapist's words take the patient away from his condition;

- the therapist has no right to get involved in the patient's enactments - he must observe, understand and voice them to the patient.

Often the idea is in the air that the psychoanalyst's silence is good, therapeutic, correct, justified. And responding and reacting is not useful and reflects the therapist's unresolved problems.

In my opinion, here the moral and ethical side of the matter is mixed with the technical and even with questions of the therapist's identity.

And when it gets mixed up like that, we (therapists, I mean) maybe forget our advantage. Namely, no matter what happens, we can (and should) scroll through our memory and analyze the situation in order to understand what, how and why was played out in the office. This is the advantage of the therapist and his almost main tool. Letting something happen in order to understand how it happened. In order for the therapist to take advantage of this advantage, what the patient brings in must take place in his office. But is it always only the patient who is the "doer" of what is happening? Doesn't the therapist also engage in “doing” (acting out) when he sits motionless, is silent, keeps calm and self-confidence?

The therapist invites his patient to relax and forget about internal censorship during the session. The therapist invites to abandon the reference points to authorities and opinions alien to the patient. And it is absurd if the therapist himself takes an artificial posture, which he considers to be a therapeutic position, imposed by authorities and his inner censorship.

It is the abstractions from known ideas that give us the opportunity to see phenomena, to understand their origin and role in mental life. And this, in fact, is analysis. Distractions from knowledge are not forgetting about rules at all.

This is easy to imagine using the example of driving a car. Every good driver has a different driving style. However, he does not necessarily violate traffic rules. Maybe it violates - but this is no longer a style, but a violation. What constitutes a unique way for this person? - this can be understood by the one who is driving himself, and not standing on the sidewalk; who knows the rules and observes, being a participant.

To understand the patient - the therapist must remember the rules and be in exactly the same conditions as his patient. Participate in what is happening in order to understand what is happening.

The phenomena of mental life can manifest themselves both in silence and in the self-presentation of the therapist. Not only mythical neutrality, but also any “doing” of the therapist can become a screen for projections. Change of position, sigh, rubbing eyes, writing in a notebook, getting up to close the window, changing hairstyles, looking tired, a new suit, a cup of tea on the table, and so on and so forth. The therapist's neutrality and non-intervention is a myth that cannot be realized. But he should be in the head of the therapist, but he is not alone.

To this day, I often experience tension in front of the gaze, reaction, and even the benevolence of my therapist (I, as a therapist, do not stop my analysis). My advantage over the therapist is that as a patient I can tell him anything, and he can also, but I am sure that he will not, although sometimes I miss this and I can say about it. In general, I can say anything to him.

The most benevolent expression on the therapist's face cannot dispel and remove my feelings and my discomfort if they are immortalized within me. This is what helps me understand myself. And my therapist actively participates in this - precisely because he is benevolent, interested, alive and natural for me. At the same time, he is aware of what he is doing.

The experience “anything can happen here and we will understand it, and we will not pretend that there was nothing or blame childhood or the patient for it” - this is the most valuable thing in psychoanalysis.

Of course, the therapist has limitations and they are very strict. When I started my practice 7 years ago, the first thing I did was learn to follow the setting, but not in order to prevent violations, but in order to use the setting in therapy. Sometimes "soft walls" can be very beneficial - then the conflicts of a rigidly brought up personality are able to manifest themselves. There are walls, but they are soft - a person of rigid frames and restrictions will be indignant at this, while he will not even feel the strict rules. And sometimes hard and even unforgiving walls are needed.

The therapist's setting exists for safety and understanding, not stupidly for limitation. Residential yard fencing - serves safety and reality, and not just incomprehensible prohibitions.

The same requirements can be set for the therapist's self-disclosure. Self-presentation is not “doing how I feel”, but the meaningfulness of both actions and passivity. Meaningfulness imposes much more responsibility than prescribed silence or non-reflective “do as I feel”.

If I, as a therapist, keep quiet, it’s not because it’s right and better (I’m so sure). I am silent, because I know that my patient now needs the instrument "silence" for such and such reasons that I can explain to myself and to the patient, if I am sure that he will ask me and will ask exactly this.

It is important not only to answer the question, but also to understand why it is asked.

It is important not just to be silent, but to understand what is happening in silence.

If a patient told me why he is interested in knowing his "diagnosis" or why he asks me how I feel, then it is probably worth answering his question too. Although this is not always the case.

You can also answer first, observe what will happen and then discuss what happened.

If the therapist answers the patient's question without realizing the role of this question and not intending to understand it in the future - most likely, this is an attempt by the therapist to protect himself from the patient. Although this is not always the case.

If the therapist is silent in response to the patient's question and does not invite to dialogue (invites to a monologue), this may be his protection from the patient. But it can also be a therapeutic intervention when what happens next is important. Will the therapist help his patient understand what happened between them? - if yes, this is therapy.

If the therapist says something condemning to the patient's question (“you do not open up enough,” “you are non-reflective, you are not analysable, dependent, dependent, anxious, compulsive, traumatized, etc., etc. - that is, he offends the patient instead of helping) - it is an attack by the therapist on someone who is now weaker and dependent on him.

Reaction and silence can have very complex reasons. Literally, everything from the list at once:

• I want to see how my patient will use my answer;
• I see that silence is unbearable and for the time being we should only talk about it, not practice;
• There is evidence that my "response" is the patient's way of keeping in touch with me. And we still need to work on so that the patient begins to realize that this is really his connection with me. Maybe he doesn't need it for a long time and the connection can be direct, and not through questions; or while the patient cannot live without it;
• There are facts that "responding" is a break in communication, and then, experiencing a break, you can name it and do something with it;
• There are facts that my silence is a disconnection;
• There are facts that both in silence and in dialogue we (the client-therapist) test our connection, experiment with it;
• The patient invites the therapist to understand the emotional reason for the silence or questions. He does not need interrogation, “What do you think, why are you silent or why did you ask?” struggle with internal punitive impulses, etc. and so on);
• There is such pain and anxiety that you just need to get a clear answer, calm at least a little bit of suffering and not analyze anything. There is such pain that you just need to be silent or just talk about something understandable. We'll figure it out later, when the crisis passes. But we will definitely figure it out.

I am also against dividing people into patients and therapists. That therapists are a kind of league of "healthy". And only patients are addicted, needy and suffering. Any therapist simply has to sit in the patient's chair. The therapist must remember how the presence of a mysterious and incomprehensible subject feels like a therapist.

The therapist wants from the patient a sincere and free self-presentation, the removal of internal censorship on self-expression in words. How about that? Is the therapist himself able to associate freely in the presence of his analyst?

Patients have the right to admit that it is not easy for them in the office of their psychologist. The patient needs experience and proof that he is accepted by this particular person in not very pleasant colors and circumstances. That they are not trying to accept him (this is a profession for such), but it is subjectively accepted. That the patient is understood not because the therapist is so developed and intelligent, but because he is also a human being. That the therapist asks not routine memorized questions, but the patient is really interesting to him. That they answer a question with a question, not because it is necessary, but in this way they help to understand oneself. That they will not do anything for you, but they will not leave you to flounder in your difficulties.

Modern psychoanalysis is the art of deep and healing relationships.

These relationships can turn unsuccessful, bad, and traumatic. Actually repeating the hard times. But, what can always (and should) be in these relations no matter what is a chance to understand what happened between us and how to fix it.