The Clinical Hour Seems To Be Getting Shorter

That was the joke I made today at my own therapist's office when I arrived with only ten minutes left in our session. There is a mild snowstorm where I live that seems to have incapacitated most of the transit. Nevertheless, I arrived with homemade cookies to share. I have always wanted to be able to sit down with my therapist and just "chat" with him about whatnot. Of course, it didn't happen, but he seemed to apprecite the cookies.



Cramming your last therapy session before the two week holiday break into ten minutes is a trifle disappointing, so say the least. Perhaps a new theoretical school will emerge? "Speed Ego," "Rapid Transference," and "Quickbitch Session" are all terms that come to mind.



I've been told by many practising therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists/analysists that they learned more from their own therapy than they did from their university education or from any professional school they attended. Hmm... being at the beginning of my graduate career and on strike at that, I can only guess if this will hold true for me as well. I suspect that it will. It is the same kind of long-term, experiential learning that one gets in an acrobatics class. Learning by emotional doing. We can talk about a cartwheel all day, but you can't actually DO one until, well, you DO one.

I guess it is the very basics of genuinely needing to have an idea of what this process is like for the client/patient. The whole process is about coming to an empathic understanding of what their experience is like for them. How can you do that without having an idea of what it is like to be in therapy for yourself? It truly amazing me when I meet people in this field who think that therapy is "not for them." What does that say to the client?

Okay, no more coherent thought today. Back to blurk.