continuing re hopes and goals for this blog

Edie called yesterday - she trained with me in TA prior to l972 when I was running my Institute in Phiiladlphia and afterwards we became friends over the years - she has had an exciting life, was successful as a filmmaker got involved in manyventures including much volunteer work in prisons. She was quite skeptical about this blog, pressing me to tell her what it's about ;- yes, Edie, this is precisely what I am aiming to do with what will follow -   except that it will also represent  a process as  thoughts and feelings and memories  come up in the course of  my daily life, which also needs to be the central focus. of this blog.

Specifically - many people have urged me to write up my memories - for indeed my life has been quite dramatic in many ways, - there were distinct phases - and my "persona" my sense of self - and the way I reacted to the world.

 And others have urged me to write more about the way I conducted therapy - and, later, many different kinds of workshops, since I finally developed quite a novel and distinctive way of working - often with amazingly good, yet frequently quite unexpected results.  What were some of the seemingly "magic" ingredients? This sounds arrogant and self-serving - it is not intended thus - rather it's that although I have had much solid training and experience and have consistently applied myself to learn theory and to  articulate and refine the  concepts I developed in the course of working all these years, ultimately the best, frequenly surprising results occurred thanks to unexpected insights or decisions my clients came up with in the course of our work. These clearly  occurred as a result of our relationship; apparently  they were  due to unplanned, unexpected,  unconscious connections we established one-to-one as well as to the many interactions and inter-relationships that occurred among the participating members of each workshop.

Recently, in responding to questions aasked by a prospective client for a small  bi-monthly consultation group I am setting up,  I wrote the following,  which i related to what I refer to above:-

"Although I depend on my background knowledge  of Transactional Analysis, Gestalt therapy, and psychonalytic and  developmental theory, and am likely to insert 5-10 minute theoretical tidbits that seem to apply to this or that issue being discussed, unlike "typical" professional consultants  my main focus, in offering consultation, is not on the "case" being discussed  (so I don't expect prepared case presentations or diagnoses) but rather on the feelings, sensations, impressions, of the therapist in relation to certain moments with one or another client.

 

It has been my experience (based on more than 30 years of experience offering workshops and consultations to a wide range of therapists and other "people helpers" as well as  "people managers" (as in businesses or training programs) that successful outcomes depend, to a large extent, on the quality of relationship established between the "helper" and client, preceded by whatever mutually agreed upon  "contract" they establish about what it is exactly that they can jointly expect. to achieve.

 

 In this process the therapist's continuing awareness of his or her countertransference reactions is crucial. Yet unfortunately much of the training of therapists indirectly encourages them to repress or block out  counter-transference reactions by focussing  instead on the client's diagnosis, the details of his/her  problems, and/or the client's  transference reactions.. Often this leads to unconsciuous stress for the therapist - particularly if he/she  is conscientious and eager to do a good job . Therapists in private practice who do not have opportunities to "vent" with colleagues during the coffee break are particularly vulnerable .  Ultimately there is the burn-out so many therapists suffer from, which is then ascribed simply to "difficult" clients or a heavy work-load."

 

There is more I want to say on this subject - another time.  I'm too sleepy now.