The talker

I feel ashamed and grubby, loose, incompetent and cheap. Not at a dangerous level, but there are session hours that massively drain me of the ego of psychotherapeutic accomplishment. These are the hours of clients who only want to talk, who do not want to “work” on anything. Or rather, who think that talking events and surface feelings is working-on. In past blog posts, I’ve written about “pathetic”* clients and others “who can’t be helped.”** These talky types are different from those. They don’t bring the feeling of hopeful effort dashed to failure. They bring the soul-searching challenge of “why am I allowing these sessions?”

Are all therapists good rationalizers? I am. I can say: “They are clearly getting something out of it.” Or, “Therapeutic help exists on a wide spectrum. I am the enhanced friend, the magical negro.”*** Or, “Apparently I’m a good conversationalist.” Or, “This is a characterologically precarious client. She seems fine now – gabby, euthymic, complacent, preoccupied only with I-hate-to-say-it trivial circumstances – but she needs this invisible lifeline . . . or else. . . .”

Or, “I can’t tell him or her this is over. That might be devastating.” And the irony protrudes: Clients who do feel-through and change, who do have that epiphany, who are worn down to finally be receptive to a deep insight connection and say “I feel like I could throw up,” know when to graduate from therapy. Talkers never know when to graduate. There is no end.

Maybe here’s the answer:

“Prospective clients: Picture changing yourself on the inside. You don’t just have a new idea or dry rationality or forced thoughts. I’m sorry, that doesn’t work, despite all the cognitive therapists of the world. Something happens in these hours – something you won’t know ’til it happens, and you become different. You feel different, the world looks different. You make discoveries where you didn’t know there was anything to discover. You may no longer smile as a trait. You may become more grim, not light. Your family feels very different to you. If all this is too scary, then I’ll direct you to a friend, or to a long-lost relative.”

“Old talkers: I’m really not helping you. Because even when you have, in me, a good listener, if you’re not questioning yourself, if you’re not allowing my heavy-gravity suggestions, ideas and questions to strike you in the chest or gut or limbic system, then you are not getting anywhere. And getting nowhere with time continuing to pass is likely to make it worse. That’s a bad, desperate feeling that would be recapitulating – but in a nicer and more deceptive way – your childhood where nothing happened for you when it needed to. But this time, you would be the one ignoring you, not seeing yourself. Do I want to perpetuate that? No. So let’s change things. Or you move on.”

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* https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2015/04/pathetic.html.

** https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2020/04/self-destruct-1-clients-who-cant-be.html.

*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro.