Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Enactments
157 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Grant and Fara talk about something that psychoanalysts call enactment. They talk about the positive and traumatic experiences that shape enactments, and how we can use these moments for learning and therapeutic benefit—not only during therapy but also in everyday life.
We hope you enjoy.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
But i think your point is excellent where you might say let's let's explore sort of what the expectations are for what other people can can offer realistically in life. Hello i'm dr fairway and i'm dr grant brenner.
00:00:16
Speaker
We're psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in New York. We started this podcast in 2019 to draw attention to a phenomenon called the doorknob comment. Doorknob comments are important things we all say from time to time just as we're leaving the office, sometimes literally hand on the doorknob.
00:00:33
Speaker
Doorknob comments happen not only during therapy, but also in everyday life.
Understanding Doorknob Comments
00:00:37
Speaker
The point is that sometimes we aren't sure how to express the deeply meaningful things we're feeling, thinking, and experiencing. Maybe we're afraid to bring certain things out into the open or are on the fence about wanting to discuss them. Sometimes we know we've got something we're unsure about sharing and are keeping it to ourselves. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by what comes out.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hi, welcome to the doorknob comments podcast.
Concept of Enactment in Therapy and Relationships
00:01:03
Speaker
This is Grant and I'm here with my co-host Farah White. Today we're going to be talking about something that psychoanalysts call enactment. And enactment is when two people or more, but usually two people generally in therapy, both bring contributions to the dynamics. And then something happens, something takes place where they repeat something from the past unconsciously. And usually it's a combination of both people's
00:01:28
Speaker
Pasts or histories a lot of times it's used to refer to Traumatic experiences that get played out, but it doesn't have to be it can also be more positive experiences and one of the principles in this kind of psychotherapy is that
00:01:43
Speaker
Number one we often don't know when an enactment is taking place until afterward or in the middle of it and number two if we can reflect together on what happened and what is happening there's a great deal of potential potential for learning and therapeutic benefit.
00:02:01
Speaker
Today we want to talk about it from a psychotherapy point of view but also extend the idea of enactment to other relationships where we make co create or co determine things that are both positive and negative and talk about how we can use things like reflection and mutual curiosity to learn and grow together.
Exploring Enactment Through Role Play
00:02:20
Speaker
I think I'm really excited to talk about this today because I think it is when this happens in therapy, it can be really uncomfortable, but it can also be an opportunity to make change in a big way and it can equal progress and growth. And so I don't know, should we give like an example, maybe like a kind of benign example of an enactment?
00:02:48
Speaker
I was wondering if you had an example. Okay. So maybe I feel like a very easy thing that doesn't touch on too many specific topics would be, and maybe I have a personal connection to this, a therapist who is generally running a couple of minutes late.
00:03:08
Speaker
And the patient, you know, hates that her appointment is supposed to start at two o'clock. Her mom was always late to pick her up. She was the last person in line at school and always just like sitting and hanging out with the teachers. And so by the time the therapist comes out at two or three, how about the therapist side? Can you say why is the therapist running a few minutes late?
00:03:31
Speaker
Okay, and the therapist herself might be overwhelmed by having lots to do. So I guess this might be a mom, right? The therapist might be a mom. There's a lot of stuff going on with with each person, right? But
00:03:50
Speaker
it doesn't really come to a head until one day the therapist comes out and the patient is getting her coat on and she's ready to leave and she's like, screw this. So the patient has been harboring strong feelings of distress and growing resentment, hasn't brought it up, which you don't have to, that's okay. But has,
00:04:14
Speaker
has had it erupt at the end of the session. It's a great example of a doorknob comment also. Yeah. So what does the patient say here? Can you role play a little bit? Okay, I'll see you next week at 2 p.m. sharp, okay?
00:04:31
Speaker
Maybe maybe it looks something like that.
Therapist Reactions and Dynamics
00:04:33
Speaker
I was thinking that when the therapist goes to get the patient at the beginning of the session, the patient is like already on her way out, you know, maybe needs some like coaxing to come back. Are you okay trying to role play it for a sec? Okay. Okay. Oh, hi. I'm sorry. I'm a few minutes late. You can come on in. How are you doing this week?
00:04:54
Speaker
Oh, great. Thanks a lot. You know, um, I rushed to get here only to sit in your waiting room and, um, you know, today you're three minutes late. Last week you were seven minutes late and I'm just curious. Um, I don't know what's going on, but I don't like sitting in the waiting room after, you know, I moved mountains to get here every week. And then what does the therapist say? Cause I didn't hear like, Oh, I'm stopping. We were role playing. I thought we were, I thought you were the therapist.
00:05:22
Speaker
Oh, I thought you could play both sides. Well, that's a lot of work. But the patient in that case didn't say, I'm quitting therapy. Like, I can't take this anymore quite. No, because the patient maybe really is trying to get something that they never got, which is some sort of a conflict, a confrontation. And the therapist maybe is blindsided, but maybe she's like,
00:05:53
Speaker
You know what? You're right. I do run late all the time and I am overwhelmed. And I am here trying to be a mom to my kids and a therapist to my patient. That was an interesting slip, right?
00:06:07
Speaker
And sometimes it's a lot, but you're right. Maybe the therapist feels totally inadequate. Maybe the therapist feels defensive, like I'm just doing my best, I'm trying to help you. So there could be a lot of feelings, right? But I guess the point is that most of these feelings are not related to someone being three minutes or seven minutes
00:06:34
Speaker
or on time to a therapy session. Most of them are really- It's the lightning rod. Right. Something that has happened in the past. So now this is like really, really rich soil to sort of grow this experience out of. And so maybe they go and they sit down for their session and it's like, okay, what's happening here? Yep.
00:07:01
Speaker
So, you know, a few thoughts. So the therapist could respond in a lot of different ways. The therapist could be defensive and be like, well, you know, like, I don't see what the problem is. Like, it's just a few minutes late. You know, like I move mountains to be here too. That would be like, not what you'd want from a therapist. You know, even because that would really shut it down, right? That would really shut down this opportunity.
00:07:27
Speaker
it invalidates the patient's experience, the other person's experience, because things like this again happen in every relationship when there's unresolved stuff, or even when there's sort of resolved stuff, if you're just having a bad day, those patterns, we revert to them and they shape our behavior unconsciously. And a lot of times we are defensive and kind of just put it on the other person. And then you just get into the blame game. What I'm thinking though is one thing, if I put on my supervisor hat,
00:07:56
Speaker
I would want to know whether the therapist is late with this patient more than other patients. If the
Constructive Dialogue in Therapy
00:08:03
Speaker
therapist is late with this person more than other people, then there's some probably counter-transfers. There's something about the patient that the therapist is averse to.
00:08:14
Speaker
avoiding it might be a good thing it doesn't necessarily mean that the therapist doesn't like the patient maybe they like them you know too much or they feel too much empathy and that vulnerabilities is shaping their behavior or it could be that the therapist is kind of late with everyone. And it's come up a lot especially recently cuz things have been harder in her life.
00:08:36
Speaker
And then you might say to the therapist, well, it might be helpful to let patients know ahead of time that without going into too much detail, there's a lot of things happening outside of my professional life. I apologize in advance. It's likely that I may be running late from time to time. Please bring it up with me if that's a concern. That doesn't necessarily
00:08:58
Speaker
fix the underlying dynamics, but it may displace them into a more constructive dialogue, right? Which is what you were saying. Like maybe they sit down together and talk through it. You know, that's a good example. Yeah, but I also think, let's extend it a little bit further and say that if something like this happens in our therapy or in our life,
00:09:26
Speaker
We're in a podcast, right? Right. Uh, I think there's not necessarily like a right way to handle it, but I think being curious and compassionate about like, okay, why is wrong ways to handle it? Like being invalidating.
Managing Expectations and Reflective Dialogue
00:09:46
Speaker
Sure. Sure. That would be a wrong.
00:09:48
Speaker
What's the underlying question though? It's like, do you really care about me? Are you going to be there for me? Do you care about your other patients or your children more than me? Because that leaves me feeling like I'm worthless and I'm tired of feeling that way. And I definitely don't think I should feel that way in therapy. See, I'm so glad that we talked about this and that that came out because I don't know that there would have been any other way to say this.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that goes back to the sort of, well, I don't agree, right? Because why didn't you tell me that you tended to run late? You should have let me know, because I would have liked to have had the choice. I didn't have a choice with my mother. I was stuck with her. She was always late.
00:10:31
Speaker
Maybe you should tell your clients that you're not rigidly adherent to time because my stereotype is that therapists are always on time. Other doctors maybe not. I expect to wait up to nine hours in my pediatricians waiting room. But for therapy, my sense is that therapists are supposed to be on time by and large.
00:10:53
Speaker
That's like part of, I think I read an article about it. It's part of what you call the frame, isn't it? Okay. And maybe it would be helpful for you to know about some of the things going on, you know, personally and professionally that have been increasingly challenging these days.
00:11:11
Speaker
medication shortages or, you know, being a psychiatrist is a little bit different because we do have this. What is this? I'm rubbing my fingers together. It's playing for you. How do you think that could play out outside of therapy? Let's say that that patient, that person has these expectations in the workplace.
00:11:31
Speaker
And people aren't always on time. Sometimes they miss a deadline. Maybe the boss is late for a meeting. The idea of transference is that that would be playing out right in other settings. And we want to talk about enactment and how you can sort of constructively work through it. That kind of requires both people to be on board, right?
00:11:52
Speaker
Right. And I think therapy is maybe the only place where both people can and should be on board to look at what's happening without judgment or criticism and just like, okay, well, what is happening here?
Enactment in Various Relationships
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, if someone is judgmental or critical, are they then bad? Therapy, I agree, that's something to strive for. But a lot of times, that's like a developmental achievement, being able to have a mutual conversation. And right therapy is a place where you can try and mess up and try again.
00:12:29
Speaker
You don't want the therapist to mess up too much, though, right? That's kind of, you know, therapists ought to be good enough at least at managing it. But I agree. It is it is a reasonable expectation that the therapist should be ready to address things that come up and cultivate a mutual inquiry without being too defensive. Right. And ready to look at themselves and to look at what's happening.
00:12:55
Speaker
That's helpful. And again, that's kind of a developmental achievement. So people in therapy, one thing that is an outcome of successful therapy among many is developing the capacity for reflective function or mentalization where you can hold the good and the bad and the gray kind of in yourself and say, yeah, maybe I was contributing to that. I can hold myself accountable, but there's other factors for the patient in this example.
00:13:21
Speaker
we're not gonna blame her for being triggered by maybe a maternal figure being late. But if that patient then destroys the therapy, we also have to ask, what is the therapist's responsibility? But I do wanna try to take it outside of the therapy example, how this idea of reenacting things or enactments, particularly when there's unresolved adversity or trauma,
00:13:45
Speaker
plays out in the workplace for couples and friendships or, you know, during holiday dinners that are, we're all looking forward to now that the season is arriving. Can't wait to get together with the family and regress to being an adolescent. Hear that all the time. It's like, I'm a successful professional, but when I get together with my family over the holidays, I feel like, you know, like I'm a kid again, not in a good way. Okay.
00:14:14
Speaker
Okay, so do you want to move into an example? Maybe, why don't we start with
00:14:22
Speaker
Are we clear on what sort of an enactment is? It's sort of like a dance that people dance together. They each bring their own moves, but they create their own dance. And sometimes that can be a really great thing. Then it's usually not called an enactment because it's working well and there's some consciousness. It's usually called an enactment when something negative gets co-created or repeated. And it's at least significantly partially outside of conscious awareness.
00:14:52
Speaker
OK. And it has to be the two people. It's not like the model of like one person has an issue. The two people are irreducibly both involved. Right. I would say two people are involved any time there's a dyad, right?
00:15:08
Speaker
but I know what you mean. People don't always see it that way though. Like in order to make use of something like an enactment, both people have to be open enough. If you have one person who's kind of like, it's not my fault at all. Like my only fault is being friends with you in the first place. There's a lot to unpack there about choices. But there has to be some openness.
00:15:35
Speaker
correct in the in the first place. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Do you just because I know you've written a lot about this, do you have any examples either from romantic relationships or from family relationships that you would want to bring out? Well, I think about
00:15:53
Speaker
sort of having worked with many people over the years, having talked with friends, having seen it in my family system, many movies and television shows are based on this premise, right? It's a basic narrative premise that two or more people show up with their own baggage, people sometimes say.
00:16:15
Speaker
The way that plays out is what the story is and the way it resolves, you know, it can either resolve well or can resolve dismally.
Impact of Childhood and Family Dynamics
00:16:23
Speaker
You know, the most, I think the most common example in romantic relationships are, are people who get into repetitive, dysfunctional relationships, either where, you know, one person is abusive or there's a kind of both people are not treating the other person well.
00:16:40
Speaker
they're both contributing and sometimes that's like distorted right one person will see the other person as being all bad.
00:16:48
Speaker
You know, I think that's pretty much an intractable situation. There's no room to reflect, sort of identifying one person as a perpetrator. And I think that's really important for social justice and change. At the same time, it just locks down any kind of reflective conversation. So by the time that has happened, probably opportunities have been missed for dialogue earlier on.
00:17:11
Speaker
So I think an example is, let's say, pretty common situation. You know, people get married and they love being together when they were single. And then pretty quickly, and you hear this, I've heard this many, many times, I'm sure you have too, it's like shortly after the kids are born, sometimes almost immediately, it's almost like overnight. And sometimes within a couple of years,
00:17:35
Speaker
the relationship quality just plummets. And something is getting stirred up for both people, usually about their own childhoods.
00:17:43
Speaker
whether they were neglected as a kid or whether they were doted upon. But there's also kind of brain chemistry stuff that happens, like hormonal stuff for men and women and everyone of other genders, you know, once they start taking on caring for a child. So it has this effect of stirring up your own developmental past and
00:18:05
Speaker
There's evolutionary adaptations when you become a caregiver. A lot of times, you know, for example, people become very, very engaged in taking care of the child. The other person may feel left out or envious or even if they join in the caregiving, it's much different to have a triangle than a couple. Right. Is that a good example? Yeah, I think that's a good example. And if we were to take it a step further, maybe you hire someone new in your work group. Right. Yeah, it's similar.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah. Children are basically like new employees. Any new person who comes in and can be perceived as an interloper, but particularly because babies get so much attention. And a lot of times you're right, those physiological changes that can happen if someone in the family has given birth.
00:18:57
Speaker
Babies can't take care of themselves. Babies are good at one thing, right? It's basically getting other people to take care of them. That's like the main arrow in a baby's quiver. Right. But I do think when
00:19:15
Speaker
Yes. So when babies, let's say take up a lot of attention, right? And there is anger about that. That anger isn't going to be directed at the baby, right? That anger is, well, hopefully not.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yes, that would be really, really worrisome if it were. You have to be, you have to be much further out there to direct aggression at a baby when there's envy because people know to kind of mask it even if it's there because it's so antisocial. Yeah. So people might direct it towards their wife or their husband or their mother-in-law or, you know, they might direct it elsewhere and then, or what?
00:19:56
Speaker
or their golf partners might come out in the workplace. Right, right. It may spill over because they get enacted in another setting. Exactly. There are these feelings of abandonment and feelings that someone has been cast aside. But then there's this other thing as the babies grow into childhood, right? Where people may start to
00:20:22
Speaker
be reminded of things from their own childhood that are traumatic and have never been fully processed. Right at each age, right? Right. Like, I know when my kids were around seven to nine, having had plenty of therapy, maybe not enough, but I thought, okay, this is likely to stir things up for me, because that was around the time that my mother's illness really became worse and was the prelude to her
00:20:51
Speaker
dying. And so for me, it was meaningful, you know, because well, for one thing, I wasn't dying, you know, and also because I suppose I would identify with my kids and, you know, have a lot of complex feelings about that.
Triggers and Emotional Reactions
00:21:09
Speaker
Around that age it's a little bit similar you know since grief is an interest of mine not not by choice I suppose the same type of thing happens with anniversary actions if it's around the time of year a lot of people miss it it's a good example of an enactment if you like don't realize
00:21:27
Speaker
I've seen it with 9-11. I've seen it with, you know, death anniversaries. People are grieving and kind of irritable and afraid. And they play it out with other people. And no one knows why that person is acting grumpy. And it's often taken personally. Or you reach a certain age, right? My mother passed away when she was 43. And when I reached the age of 43, it was emotionally significant. And you have a choice to either kind of
00:21:56
Speaker
take things like that into consideration or to kind of brush them under the rug and i'm just trying to bring it back to what drives an enactment more when things aren't held in consciousness. Right and they might not be held in consciousness because they're too difficult we have to sort of.
00:22:16
Speaker
you know, when you talk about baggage, right? We have to have it packed away. We don't have it, you know, the suitcase open on the bed to be consciously aware of that all the time, because then we wouldn't be able to function in our everyday lives.
Framework for Addressing Past Issues
00:22:32
Speaker
So I think that's a good segue as we come to the close of our time today is like, how do people work on that together? Because like you said, you can't have that stuff out all the time. And so it's helpful to have a framework for addressing those issues in a mutual way. Because both people have to be on the same page about like when to address more difficult issues and how. And so,
00:22:58
Speaker
For couples, a lot of times they do that. If the couple is pretty healthy, they'll do that naturally. Otherwise, maybe couples therapy would help or any one of a number of excellent self-help books, including Relationship Sanity, which I co-authored.
00:23:14
Speaker
But you don't want to leave your suitcase open all the time and people go to therapy. And that's the idea is that you can kind of look, quote unquote, look under the hood. We have any number of euphemisms for describing, addressing, not all horrible stuff, sometimes
00:23:30
Speaker
People hide the positive things like their wishes and desires for the future self protectively. So a lot of times, you know, like joy can also get locked away in the suitcase. So I'd love to hear more about how you think about how people and not necessarily within therapy can kind of
00:23:48
Speaker
cultivate that type of mutuality. You know, one thing is, you know, pick your friends well, pick your workplace as well. Yeah, and in the workplace, coaches and consultants can help with that, as can built in processes. But I'd love to hear more of your thoughts. Right.
Culture of Curiosity and Compassion
00:24:02
Speaker
And the other thing I think we can do is day to day, be curious about ourselves, right? If we have
00:24:09
Speaker
either an anxiety reaction or a rage about something that seems out of character for us instead of either leaning into it or pulling away from it, saying, why is this bothering me so much?
00:24:23
Speaker
I think of that as sort of self-compassion, mindful self-compassionate curiosity. I was talking with someone who's done a lot of good in the tech and kind of AI industry, and he was mentioning that their software, and this, I've heard it before, but struck me at that particular moment recently, looks for anomalies.
00:24:43
Speaker
And this is in a healthcare setting, like how do we identify the things that will help people? And so they notice anomalies and then they don't ignore them. They understand the anomaly and then think about ways that you can remedy it. But can you speak to how people do that together? You know, how you make a culture of sort of mutual curiosity, mutual compassion?
00:25:07
Speaker
Well, I think the one thing is, and not to drive this on too much, but if we know someone's baggage and we want to have a relationship, whether it's a marriage or a friendship or a working relationship where people are comfortable being vulnerable, we can never ever take a piece of their baggage and throw it back in their face.
Resolution Over Conflict in Therapy
00:25:31
Speaker
So you're saying that's an individual sort of choice
00:25:34
Speaker
Right, so it's sort of like we have to foster the types of relationships that we want. But an example, to use the therapy example, just for clarity for the listeners, is it okay if I try to connect that for myself? Yes, yes, go ahead. So in that therapy example you gave, if the therapist said, listen, well, you know your mom was always late, so you're sensitive that I'm late, but I'm only a few minutes late, so.
00:26:01
Speaker
You know, like I reject your accusation. OK. That will happen in the workplace. You know, there's kind of a he said, she said people end up litigating things. Right. And litigation is the opposite of mutuality. Exactly. Unless you're litigating mutuality. Instead of saying, hey, listen, we're we're on the same team here. And what we both want is for you to feel better. And this is making you feel so bad.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I'm sorry for my part in it, even though I am doing my best and. Well, my immediate thought is that can also backfire like we're on the same team. No, we're not.
00:26:39
Speaker
Like how dare you say that? Like I'm telling you that I don't feel like we're on the same team and you're like trying to impose your view on me. Let's talk about how we don't feel like we're on the same team. And people can be jockeying for control.
Therapists' Challenges with Enactment
00:26:53
Speaker
A lot of times part of the vulnerability is feeling out of control and the covert, right? The anomaly is like,
00:27:00
Speaker
on the surface, I can make a case that I'm trying to get along, but covertly, I'm trying to be in control and I'm going to end up isolated.
00:27:13
Speaker
And I'm going to be wondering why that always happens. So it's really can be quite difficult to have that type of mutual conversation for the reason you're describing is that it becomes people are very vulnerable and it becomes very exquisitely sensitive topic of conversation. Yeah, you're right. But then I do think we would have to look at, right? So if that person gets into a power struggle,
00:27:43
Speaker
ends up feeling abandoned every time. Let's say the therapist is like, you know what? I guess you're right. I guess I can't meet your needs. I'll give you some referrals. This is going to be our last session. Right. And let's say that happens. And then that person, even though they're oppositional and, you know, looking for conflict, the therapist is oppositional and looking for conflict.
00:28:10
Speaker
No, let's say the patient is, and the patient says, oh, screw you, you're not helpful enough. And the therapist says, oh, well, okay. That person, even if they are left because they tell everyone around them how bad they are and what a bad job they're doing, and they're so critical that no one can take it, right? Right, they end up alone. And by the way, that's an Achilles heel for a lot of therapists is like,
00:28:39
Speaker
you know, we want to help. So being told that we're not able to help can be very confusing and distressing.
00:28:47
Speaker
Right. And sometimes it is helpful just to say, well, I guess you really may need a therapist who has no other patients or you may need a therapist who has no outside home life or something so that that person, you know. That sounds, is there a little bit of sort of humor in there? Right. That's so ridiculous, right? I don't think any human being would expect that.
00:29:15
Speaker
Right? You wouldn't want a therapist to respond with snark. And I know you wouldn't either do that. No, no, no, I'm trying to illustrate a point. I'm trying to illustrate that even the most discriminating person can realize that that expectation is beyond what someone could offer.
00:29:35
Speaker
And how would you explore that? I tend to use humor and I'm aware that sometimes humor doesn't work because the intent can be very vague, especially if the person interprets it as sort of ridiculing them. But I think your point is excellent where you might say, let's explore sort of,
00:29:55
Speaker
what the expectations are for what other people can can offer realistically in life. And that may or may not be a useful way to approach it either because the patient may still feel like they're being blamed.
00:30:09
Speaker
Right, but they also may need if nobody can withstand their rage or nobody is up to stuff. We've seen that, that happens. I have seen that, right. There are people who just are so mistrustful that sadly kind of the best thing they can do is live in relative isolation, basically trusting no one.
00:30:32
Speaker
Right. And that's what I think as a therapist, we want to try to say, well, even though I am late, if it's more than five minutes, I usually communicate it.
Balancing Personal Needs with Mutuality
00:30:43
Speaker
Do you think you can live with this? Or do you think you need some other situation, right? Can we make another arrangement? I've had conversations like that about how I use communication platforms.
00:30:53
Speaker
It works for 95% of people, but there's a few people who have trouble with it. Sometimes they have a cognitive issue or ADHD or sometimes there's something more emotional about authority or something, but I'll try to be flexible. On the other hand, I don't wanna promise something that I can't really do.
00:31:11
Speaker
Right, but I think for people who are either in treatment or they're in a relationship or they're just trying to work with other people, imagining, okay, well, is there a scenario where this person could give me what I want and give me what I need and so that I feel secure? And if the answer to that feels beyond what is realistic for this world,
00:31:37
Speaker
right? That my partner is always going to be there for me at a moment's notice. But guess what? That partner might be a long haul truck driver or a surgeon or, you know, may not, right? So how do we like reconcile those things and look at our own expectations of people? And I think therapy is a good example of that.
00:31:58
Speaker
you're kind of building out that reflective space. And I think that's kind of the short but complicated answer is learning how to slow down and reflect, manage one's own reactions, cultivate curiosity and compassion more than blame, and to be aware of the ways that individually we may be sort of adding fuel to the fire without feeling like we have to,
00:32:22
Speaker
completely set aside our own needs and not have a voice at all.
Future Topics and Listener Engagement
00:32:26
Speaker
And a lot of times the competition is around neglect. Like both people have to have their fair share of a voice. Because any relationship, whether it's therapy or couples or workplace, people generally want to have a say in what happens.
00:32:41
Speaker
Though that's a whole other discussion about how trauma can play out in organizations, which can sometimes result in an authoritarian structure can happen in families too. The bottom line is kind of cultivating sort of even even keeled reflective stance, but not setting aside your own needs too much.
00:33:01
Speaker
Well, I think that's a good place for us to stop for today. And if people are interested, we can do more episodes like this. How trauma plays out in organizations, I think would be a really interesting thing for people to listen in on and also in romantic relationships and families. So I do think we should focus on that a little bit.
00:33:27
Speaker
I think, yeah, I agree. And I think collectively as well, we see this play out on the political arena. I mean, you know, what's happening right now in US Congress is like, you know, see a couples therapist, the Republicans and the Democrats need. Get in there. Get in there, Grant. Offer up your services. No, I don't. I think it would have to be another celestial body. So I think the moon should get trained as a couples therapist.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah. Let's see. Maybe you can supervise it. It sounds like a bit of lunacy. But yes, thanks for listening. And please rate us on your favorite podcast platform. If you like the podcast, give us a high rating. And if you have feedback and you don't want to leave it on the ratings, feel free to email us at hello at doorknobcomments.com. OK, great. Thanks.
00:34:22
Speaker
Remember, the Doorknob Comments podcast is not medical advice. If you may be in need of professional assistance, please seek consultation without delay.