Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
"Therapy Speak" in Everyday Life: Pros and Cons
205 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Grant and Fara talk about Therapy Speak outside of the clinical setting and explore the potential benefits. Join in to hear more about the interactional setting of the therapy session and what might be lost in translating this therapy speak to everyday life.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, I'm Dr. Farah White. And I'm Dr. Grant Brenner. 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.
Understanding Doorknob Comments
00:00:23
Speaker
Doorknob comments happen not only during therapy but also in everyday life. 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.
Therapy Language in Everyday Life
00:00:50
Speaker
Today, Grant and I will be talking about the rise or return of therapy speak among the public. People who aren't trained as clinicians are increasingly using therapy language and concepts in everyday life. What does it mean and why is it happening? We hope you enjoy the conversation. Thank you, Farrah. Maybe you could start by telling me what's been on your mind recently since we last recorded.
00:01:13
Speaker
Well, there have been a couple of articles I think really well written and thought provoking and maybe it's because of that or because of what keeps coming up on social media that I thought we should talk about what it means when people use these terms and this lingo in their everyday life.
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts right off the top of my head. Sure. You were saying, well, therapists use therapy speak in session. And of course, I can't disagree. At the same time, I know a lot of therapists who believe that not using therapy speak is actually better therapy. If you don't use technical language, if you don't give people concepts, if you don't use kind of out of the box ideas, there are many therapists who shy away from therapy speak.
00:02:06
Speaker
That's one thought I had. That's a good point. But then how else would you describe, let's say, feeling contained or feeling held, right?
Structured vs. Freeform Psychotherapy
00:02:17
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think people would just use their own metaphors and language, they might say.
00:02:21
Speaker
just how they feel, right? Like, you know, I felt like I was, you know, jumping out of my skin or I don't, I just don't feel comfortable around, you know, Jimbo, or they might use a metaphor. A lot of people do bring up metaphors spontaneously to describe their own experience. And actually, who is it? There's a book about metaphors in psycho, mainly psychodynamic therapy by George Lakoff and forgetting the name of his co-author.
00:02:50
Speaker
But that's a critical difference. It's probably worth noting the difference between on one end of the spectrum structured psychotherapies, where a lot of language and concepts are provided for therapists and patients, and on the other end of the spectrum psychoanalytic therapies, which are essentially freeform with just a couple of guiding principles.
00:03:14
Speaker
though a lot of concepts from psychoanalysis have gotten integrated into therapy speak, in principle, psychoanalytic therapy doesn't need any technical language. Yeah, I guess you're right about that. I think when we talk about sort of analytic theory, what we're really talking about is one initial school of thought that started with Freud and then expanded to a lot of different
00:03:42
Speaker
I guess you wouldn't really call them thought leaders. What would you call them? Like analytic minds who wrote about their thesis. Yeah, theorists wrote about their cases, had these massive conferences and supervisions. And I think, you know, there is still a pretty robust analytic community and people are writing
00:04:07
Speaker
every day and putting out papers to try to describe the things that they feel, right? So that when you talk about having a metaphor, well, there's a language for that and then your therapist or your analyst can help contextualize it.
00:04:24
Speaker
Agree, though I think it's very unusual for a psychoanalytic author to advise therapists to use technical language with patients. They develop language and metaphors and theories to describe what's happening clinically, but I think still the psychoanalytic model or ideal is really to turn that off when you're with patients.
00:04:51
Speaker
You mentioned the idea of the container and the contained, which is a concept, I think, from Wilford Beyond, who was a psychoanalyst in the...
00:04:59
Speaker
In the last century, he was actually a tank commander in World War I, a psychiatrist in World War II, where he essentially, I think, invented group psychotherapy. Then he became the second in command to Melanie Klein, who was the leader of the British Object Relations School. He talked about the idea of the container and the contained and a lot of other concepts to hold very disturbing
Freudian Concepts in Modern Therapy
00:05:27
Speaker
concepts together and make sense of them, you know, learning to think was one of his main ideas. But I don't think any of those analysts intended people to use that language with patience, though sometimes it's helpful. Yeah, I think the relationship between analyst and analysis and right when all of this was first coming out, I think was very different from how it is now. And I don't know if I
00:05:57
Speaker
agree with you there because I think we'd be kind of like gatekeeping these terms. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm not making, I'm not asserting something. I'm not sure what you don't agree with just for clarity. Well, I'm saying, I'm saying I don't, maybe it's not that I don't agree with you. I don't agree with this idea that patients shouldn't hear certain things. I think it is very case dependent, treatment dependent,
00:06:26
Speaker
But people, I feel like for the most part, if people are in the right emotional place, they can make use of these terms and feel like, oh, this has been studied and this is actually a relief to hear that someone's thought about this and written about this and that you've learned about it.
00:06:47
Speaker
Well, listen, we could sort of debate the pros and cons of integrating therapy, speak into therapy. The pros are what you described. The cons might be that the other person doesn't have the opportunity to fully symbolize their own experience in their own words, and it might in some ways interfere with
00:07:04
Speaker
self-discovery or creation of a narrative. Just to reference, I don't have a strong position on it. I'm just, for listeners, edification. Freud's basic idea, as I'm sure you're aware of psychoanalysis, it was based on what he called the fundamental rule.
00:07:23
Speaker
And it's really the simplest idea of therapy ever, simplest algorithm. Patient, you know, analysis and person in analysis says whatever comes to mind without editing themselves or they may try to make note if they're editing themselves, that's called free association.
00:07:41
Speaker
and hard to do. It's considered an accomplishment if you can get there. A little bit like meditating. It's never quite perfect. And then the analyst for their part listens with evenly suspended attention, not judging or categorizing the data. And that simple process of speaking freely and listening without
00:08:07
Speaker
selection is the core of Freudian analysis. And it's free from any therapy speak. Though Freud talked about things like transference and understanding the patients, what they bring to the therapy that you then analyze within the therapy or making interpretations to understand.
Power Dynamics through Technical Language
00:08:25
Speaker
But I don't believe that, I don't know how Freud practiced. Maybe he told patients, hey, this is transference. This is what we're going to work on.
00:08:33
Speaker
Well, maybe he may or may not have used the word transference, counter transference. I know I use it from time to time, but I also think there are certain concepts that are derived from that initial Freudian model. And one of them is that the therapist has to kind of be
00:08:54
Speaker
this blank slate, right, so that the patient and now is and can project whatever thoughts fantasies fears onto their analyst. And so sometimes when people are not quite sure of the relationship, they'll, they'll say, Oh, is it okay if I ask where you're going, or if you have kids, or, you know, so in that sense, I feel like
00:09:18
Speaker
elements of Freudian theory still permeate treatment today? Well, for sure. Yeah. And abstinence and neutrality were the English translations. Yeah. And one of the arguments against people not having access to the therapy speak
00:09:40
Speaker
is that it's related to power dynamics. People who have technical skills keep it sequestered, keep it away from people. And if you let the language out, you're losing some of your expertise or sharing expertise with other people.
00:09:56
Speaker
And I think that's a major argument in favor of people using different types of technical language in day-to-day life, whether it's therapy speak or plumbing speak for that matter. If you know what your plumber is doing and you have a sense of why they're there, then maybe you can be a better customer. Or an even bigger pain point is like air conditioners. People, especially when the weather gets hot,
00:10:24
Speaker
the AC people come and they tell you what's wrong with your AC and they have a, you know, often a sizable estimate.
Media Influence on Therapy Language
00:10:31
Speaker
And you may not even know what they're talking about, let alone whether it is valid, right? Right. And how cool is it that now instead of putting our blind faith
00:10:44
Speaker
into someone who's supposed to help us, we can check out our YouTube video of like top five things that could be wrong with your air conditioner and the same way that we can watch a TikTok video, I guess,
00:10:59
Speaker
The problem is that. TikTok video on what? Um, uh, attachment theory or love language or boundaries or whatever it might be that people feel they're struggling with. I think dating a narcissist. Yeah. That's a big one. Um, a lot of the dating stuff. And I think it helps people to understand and make sense of certain things. But I also wonder about misinterpretation. So maybe we can go through some of these.
00:11:29
Speaker
Sure. Misinterpretation or maybe misapplication, you know, however you want to think about it. And listen, you know, I do this podcast, obviously, and I co-written a couple of books that use a lot of therapy speak if anyone reads.
00:11:45
Speaker
that or not as much on my blog, I think, but especially sort of self-help books teach people therapy speak. And there is, I want to say, some research that shows that what they call bibliotherapy is effective. Like medications, you know, have an effect size and therapy has an effect size. Bibliotherapy, you know, can be effective. And I do want to mention that air conditioners are more complicated than the human mind.
00:12:13
Speaker
But with that, maybe, yeah, let's work through some of the common terms, and I'd love to hear what you think.
Winnicott's Parenting Philosophy
00:12:20
Speaker
Okay, so we already sort of talked about sort of the feeling of containment and what that means, and you gave a little bit about BEYOND. I think that's- Holding, you mentioned also. And yes, holding. Do you want to talk about, because that was something that was mentioned in the article.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, I associate that with Donald Winnicott, who was a pediatrician and a psychoanalyst, but spent a lot of time on the mother-infant relationship, and I think holding is both literal and metaphorical. It's different from Freud. Freud talked more in terms of parts, like the baby.
00:13:03
Speaker
would look to the mother for food through the part of the body that produces milk, the breast. Winnicott was talking about the mother and the child together. I think he was quoted saying something like, there is no baby without a mother.
00:13:18
Speaker
to talk about how they're sort of intertwined. So he talked about the holding environment. Interesting, Winnicott was actually like a radio doctor. He was interviewed or maybe TV for BBC. I think radio, I think he did like series on mothering, if I remember correctly.
00:13:34
Speaker
So yeah, he had like the holding environment. He talked a lot about the importance of play as well. Right. And in terms of the mother, he also sort of invented the concept of this good enough mother, which I really wish would make a comeback because most people haven't heard of this, but I'm going to introduce it into the lingo because I see a lot of people, you know, in a reproductive sense. So people who are thinking about becoming mothers or they're pregnant
00:14:03
Speaker
or trying to become pregnant or they're postpartum or have kids. And so this was this concept that we don't have to be perfect as mothers, which is really in contrast, like psychiatry has been pretty tough.
00:14:20
Speaker
on mothers. There was previously this idea that a lot of serious mental illness came from the mother. The refrigerator mother. Yeah, I mean. Quote unquote. Right, but Winnicott. It's a patriarchal, patriarchal feel though. More and more women are in psychiatry. Right, right. But Winnicott basically said that it doesn't have to be perfect. And in fact,
00:14:46
Speaker
My personal feeling is we don't want to be too perfect, what we want to do, because no kid then can ever live up to that, right? If we're the perfect parent, we're sort of setting a model that our kids can never surpass. And I think that's not so great to do, but it's really about being good enough, adapting to what our kids need. And that might allow people to enjoy
00:15:16
Speaker
motherhood and let's extend it to parenthood a little bit more and delight in their infants and toddlers, which is an important part of that relationship.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, you know, the term good enough in common parlance is kind of a negative thing, right? That's good enough. It means you're kind of stopping before it's done, but you know, it's like B minus is good enough. But when it comes to attachment, I always remember like the 70% is like,
00:15:48
Speaker
for the average kid who's not inherently very, very anxious or insecure, parents need to get it right about 70% of the time. And I think you're making a good point, which is
00:15:59
Speaker
getting it wrong too often isn't great. But being too good is also problematic for a variety of reasons. Like you said, in terms of modeling, what's internalized, the risk of becoming highly self-critical. But anyway, I feel like you're making an important point. You'd like the concept of good enough mother, good enough father maybe, good enough parent to come into therapy, speak
Therapy Language in Relationships
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, so that's my vote. Maybe someone will make a TikTok video. What we hear more often, I'd say, though there is a lot of stuff on parenting, is people talking about trauma, feeling triggered, people being toxic, though I don't think that's so much from therapy, but it's used as therapy speak. There's a lot of stuff on dating and attachment, often used in a
00:16:58
Speaker
a kind of simple way, maybe misleading. There's the Five Love Languages, which is the title of a famous book. People use that. People talk a lot about keeping boundaries. I know I do. I use that concept because everyone kind of gets it. But what else comes to mind?
00:17:17
Speaker
I think a lot of the personality stuff, so the narcissism, borderline, and then some things get misconstrued a little bit. People will feel like if they are very labile, which means their moods sort of fluctuate a lot, they will say, well, am I bipolar? Or I'm feeling so bipolar, which is different and distinct from what we treat, which is... Right.
00:17:46
Speaker
Well, that's different. That's like if someone says, oh, you know, I'm so OCD. Yeah. They're using a pathological term to describe usually, you know, some normal personality trait. And certainly in maladaptive or dysfunctional relationships, there's a lot of use of personality terms like narcissism or, you know, abuse or dark triad, Machiavellianism, narcissism and sociopathy, psychopathy rather. Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
And then there's the kind of self-diagnosis things that you alluded to. ADHD, autistic spectrum often comes out around the concept of neurodivergence.
00:18:26
Speaker
There was a recent article in the Washington Post about therapists putting clinical material in their TikTok videos if they're influencers. There's a whole other question about the ethics of that, but what it brought up for me is that there is a lot of mental health information on TikTok.
00:18:45
Speaker
A lot of it is not accurate, so there was a study recently where they looked at the representation of ADHD on TikTok and they found that only 21% of the videos had accurate information. The remainder were either inaccurate information or very subjective accounts. And then I think there are these related terms that
00:19:08
Speaker
that come up oftentimes in relationship language like ghosting, bright-siding, which is a form of ghosting, like toxic positivity, breadcrumbing, which is kind of leading someone on. We used to just say leading someone on, but I guess breadcrumbing saves characters on short-form social media.
00:19:29
Speaker
And then hardballing, which is like really saying upfront what you're looking for, which to me doesn't seem so much like therapy speak, unless it's from a very confrontational kind of therapy. Maybe, maybe. But there are confrontational kinds of therapy, yeah.
00:19:42
Speaker
Really? Like what kinds? Well, certain types of brief therapies. Okay. Right. They will talk very directly about what the issues are. And some therapists were known for being very direct and confrontational. Some of the reality oriented therapists or I want to say maybe Fritz Pearls, but I'm not sure if I've seen some videos of him. I think he founded Gestalt therapy.
00:20:03
Speaker
A lot of these therapy models are essentially personality driven and the originator of that model codified their personality into a model.
00:20:17
Speaker
I do think that's a very slippery slope because that also sounds to me like a little culty, right? Well, there's a risk there and yeah, that's a whole other conversation about the nature of influence. One thing about slippery slopes is they almost always go downhill. What does that even mean? It brings to mind in terms of therapy speak,
00:20:45
Speaker
What it makes me think about is like who chooses which therapy terms, right? So if you're someone who's using therapy speak, it might be helpful to reflect and say kind of why am I picking that and not that.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think probably in dating and one of the articles I feel like maybe it was the Times article brought this up. It can symbolize something about not only status, though I do think it can signal that, that someone's had the time and the money to sort of get professional help and know what they're bringing to the table.
00:21:21
Speaker
overheard at a cafe. My therapist said that I... Yeah, yeah. And it lets someone else know that we are curious about who we are and trying to be better and doing the work, right? That's different from status though. It's not unrelated, but so what it reminds me of is what I read is that on dating sites, I think particularly if men say they're in therapy, that is an attractive trait.
00:21:51
Speaker
Right. Because there are certain ideas about men and how men deal with emotions. And so therapy is I think implicitly and often explicitly meant to
00:22:03
Speaker
kind of remedy some of those problems in heteronormative relationships and maybe in other relationships as well. I'm thinking of heterosexual dating apps, but I would imagine it comes up in every type of relationship that people want to have better emotional connection and mutual understanding.
Cultural Impact on Therapy Speak
00:22:23
Speaker
And I guess the implication is that
00:22:25
Speaker
We haven't been very good at it. And so we need help. And so therapy speak should help. Right. So if a couple is having a conflict, right. How do you navigate that? Right. Right. And a lot of the this lingo just being in our everyday vernacular to me is like, OK, this is accessible. Right. So, yes, maybe some people are going to have read John Gottman's books, but other people might just see, oh, you know, he's the
00:22:55
Speaker
sort of relationship guru with a capital G. Yeah. I mean, Gottman has a capital G. Right. But he's done all of this research about relationships and happiness and relationships.
00:23:11
Speaker
The four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. Right. But now he has like this institute, which offers probably like, I'm sure there are a lot of free resources, I don't know, but online courses and whatever else. So I feel like that's great that we can all benefit. Same with people like Esther Perel sort of, you know, putting out a TED talk.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, we could drop a million names. It's important for people to understand that some of these terms, yeah, they're driven by the best intentions of a lot of these people, myself included, but also there's marketing and the more effective marketing is probably the better those therapy speak terms get into the common parlance. True, but I'm thinking that it's not a bad thing and it may even be a good thing.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not invested in deciding whether it's good or bad. That would be an example of splitting, which is another therapy speak term we didn't write down, but people who are splitting and projection, right? Like black and white thinking, we call it black and white thinking or either or thinking in CBT in psychoanalysis, it's called splitting or idealization and devaluation that goes along with
00:24:26
Speaker
not borderline personality disorder so much as the borderline personality organization, which is a psychoanalytic concept, but still the idea, and it kind of goes back to beyond among other people is in that state of mind, like things are very oversimplified and things are either all good or all bad. Um, you know, one other, one additional, did you want to say something about that? Well, I was just going to say that this whole idea of like, well, two things can be true at the same time. Um,
00:24:56
Speaker
I think Americans, I read somewhere that Americans do have a tougher time with that because there's less acceptance in general around certain facts of life.
00:25:10
Speaker
Well, this is where, you know, sometimes the language is helpful for understanding what we're talking about. One of the terms that comes to mind is mentalization, which is related to what's also called theory of mind or reflective function. And that relates to the capacity to hold multiple points of view at once, your own and others. And, you know, rather than getting into conflict or defensive operations when, quote unquote, you know, two different things are true.
00:25:41
Speaker
And the cognitive science term for that is cognitive dissonance. The psychoanalytic term for that is kind of conflict, unconscious conflict. But by creating more like space, right, that's therapy speak, making room, let's make some space, then presumably we end up understanding our own minds better and get along with other people as well.
00:26:02
Speaker
I have a specific question for you because I'm also thinking that therapy speak can be used, you know, for defensive purposes, right? So if a couple is having an argument or friends or business colleagues are having an argument and one of them feels intruded upon and says, listen, you know, I wish you would stop doing that. It makes me uncomfortable, you know, and then the other person, you know, maybe doesn't stop, right?
00:26:30
Speaker
And then eventually one of them may say, listen, you know, like boundaries, right? Boundaries. Watch your boundaries. At what point does the use of therapy speak just get pulled into the usual conflict and stop serving a function to, you know, create that space for communication?
00:26:49
Speaker
Well, let's take the example you gave. You know, I think that's a good one. If someone is not respecting your boundaries, I think naming that is important. But it's sort of like we shouldn't have to name it to say, well, something doesn't feel right about this.
00:27:11
Speaker
That's an example of where you don't necessarily need to use therapy speak and using a label may create more of a rupture as you might just say, I'd like it if you would stop doing that particular behavior.
00:27:26
Speaker
But then what if they don't do it and then, you know, so sometimes I think people start using therapy speak, you know, when their back is up against a wall, which is very different from using it in day to day conversation when tensions, you know, aren't high. And that's where I most often sort of overhear it walking down the street is one of my favorite things when I'm walking around the city. And I hear some people chatting.
00:27:49
Speaker
And it does sound like, you know, it sounds like they've read up or they've been in therapy. And I hear this a lot with, you know, especially with teenagers. Teenagers are just like, I guess it depends on the teenager, but they're often like super up on it and they look it up online. And also it's worth saying that a lot of the most popular shows are either directly about therapy or feature therapists, you know, very prominently.
00:28:14
Speaker
And I'd say, you know, this has happened before. You know, I grew up in the 70s and like the Bob Newhart show, the Newhart show was one of the most popular shows and it was about a really like nice seeming humanistic therapist. There's a famous scene where a woman comes in and she's obsessing and he goes, stop.
00:28:34
Speaker
She's like, but what? Just stop. Stop. It's like become a meme. And, you know, there's a therapist on Cheers, you know, Dr. Fraser Crane and his Lilith, right? The other psychiatrists, they had a funny kind of love relationship. And, you know, Sydney Friedman in the TV show MASH in the 70s. And I remember people would talk about therapy then. It was all kind of American Freudian therapy, kind of Woody Allen, you know,
00:29:02
Speaker
Menchi, Nebashi, neurotic type of therapy speak. And people would talk about their therapists in that kind of way as status symbol. And then later on when psychiatric medications became more effective and more widely used, people would do the same thing. They would talk about the meds they're taking as kind of a badge of honor. And it waxes and wanes, I think, with culture, as culture becomes more open like it was in the 60s. And in a way, we're in kind of a new psychedelic age. It's more open.
00:29:30
Speaker
There's a lot more desire to use that kind of language regardless of where it comes from. And as mental health stigma declines as well, I think that's another factor that's making therapy speak more prominent. And I think the pandemic created a need for it, not to mention war and other stuff, climate change. So there's more of a pressing need for us to have a way to talk about these things.
Accessibility and Equity in Therapy
00:29:53
Speaker
And therapy does offer a lot of useful perspectives and ways of speaking.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah. So do you think that you need to have been in therapy? Personally. In order to be able to, personally, professionally, in order to be able to use these terms appropriately? Or do you think it's, you know, do you think therapy, actually being in therapy is something that everyone should try? Or do you think that this is enough to get people open to it, right? Those are a lot of closed ended questions, as we call them.
00:30:25
Speaker
I think we're in the middle of an emerging trend. So one of my associations to what you said is actually in school, a lot of kids get more training, depends on the school, but particularly progressive schools in emotional intelligence and empathy and compassion and health class increasingly includes mental health.
00:30:44
Speaker
and as well as things like consent in relationships. And this is taught to kids from a young age. I think Yale among other places has like a program for emotional intelligence. Some schools adopt these programs. I think it's needed. I think our society needs a way to get along better. It seems kind of obvious, but
00:31:05
Speaker
So I think getting it from therapy is part of it, but I think also there's, you know, this increasing trend is that this information is just available and you don't have to be in therapy. I think you're implicitly asking a good question though about like what might the difference be between adopting therapy speak from books, social media, podcast, blogs, etc., friends, TV shows, health class.
00:31:28
Speaker
and actually having an experience of being in therapy with someone who's doing kind of real therapy and not kind of like a workshop like cookie cutter program. Nothing against programmatic work that can be very helpful. But when I say real therapy, I mean when there's a dialogue that is uniquely personal.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, because I think that that's really the only way. I think it's something that I wish, an experience I wish everyone would have at least for a small part of their lives because the things that we can pick up from a relationship with a really good therapist, what gets reflected back at us, that level of safety and security and being seen, if it's a positive thing, which many times it is, not always,
00:32:16
Speaker
I think allows people to make use of all the books and podcasts and courses that are out there in a very different way. Yeah, it makes sense in a lived, felt, experiential kind of way. So when you asked me all those sort of questions about do I think that everyone should have therapy, it sounds to me like you kind of think everyone should, with maybe a couple of exceptions.
00:32:43
Speaker
forever and ever, but just for a few months here or there. What do you think makes it unique and different from picking stuff up from friends, talking with friends, et cetera? I know this is my sense is that this is, I shouldn't say I know, but my strong sense is that this is a really important idea for you, that there's something about that one-on-one private confidential
00:33:12
Speaker
very kind of freeing experience of... Can you say more about what you think is unique? I think the relationship is what is most important and that's something that is lost. When we read a book, an article, listen to a podcast, we feel connected and identify with a lot of the concepts.
00:33:40
Speaker
But I think the sort of human behind them, that really is a projection, right? We don't know, and analysts who have written these amazing papers have turned out to many of them be total maniacs. So. You're using the term maniac in a colloquial sense. Or maybe not such nice people. Yeah. And I think it's ultimately, if we can find that
00:34:09
Speaker
person who cares, who wants the best for us, who has no ideas of their own other than that we should be happy, live a fulfilling and well-balanced life. I think that's a gift that everyone should have. Right, which is problematic in so many levels because of the economics of it. In fact, people who have access to that kind of therapy is a very, very, very small percent of the population.
00:34:35
Speaker
That's another conversation about the role of equity and inequity in conventional therapy, which is generally harder to access, though I do see growing diversification and work on bringing therapy to more and more people, which also changes the therapy language that's used for sure.
Final Thoughts and Future of Therapy
00:34:58
Speaker
appropriately different cultural groups have different ways of speaking and different ways of relating. I've seen this play out on Twitter quite a bit with like BIPOC therapists who relate differently and getting into like conflict around race and thought or tone policing. So the discussion of therapy languages is really interesting from a cultural point of view as well.
00:35:23
Speaker
Anything you want to say in conclusion? I know you had some concluding statements, but anything spontaneous come to mind? Not really. I'm just glad that this is part of the conversation. Yeah. One thing we didn't mention is the role of AI and kind of AI therapy or therapy, which is delivered as an algorithm, which I think is
00:35:45
Speaker
which is quite valid. I mean, you know, if you get cognitive behavioral therapy from a smart app, it's cognitive behavioral therapy, but it's not going to have that human element, which the relationship is, in research also, the relationship is very important. People do have relationship with technology though, and maybe it's a different kind of relationship. I think so. My thoughts are kind of like, well, use therapy, speak wisely.
00:36:16
Speaker
and thoughtfully and reflectively.
00:36:19
Speaker
And I guess my, I agree with all of that and I feel like there are some really great reliable resources and maybe social media is not one of them unless let's say we're looking at the qualifications of whoever's putting it out there. So I would urge people to just be mindful of that. Use social media wisely, thoughtfully and reflectively. Yeah, exactly.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's important to know what kind of information you're getting and where it's coming from for sure. So do your homework. People don't, we're not as prone to do our homework or if you don't, you can just ask, you know, chat GPT for reliable information. So we hope you enjoyed. Feel free to reach out. Find us on
00:37:10
Speaker
Social media, we're not on TikTok, but I think we have an Instagram and we have a webpage, www.doorknobcomments.com. And of course, please, when you listen to the podcast, leave a rating, preferably a positive one, and we look forward to talking with you again.
00:37:32
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the doorknob comments podcast. We appreciate your time and hope you've gained something from joining us today. Please let us know what you think. You can email us at hello at doorknobcomments.com. Find us on Instagram at doorknobcomments on iTunes and on our website doorknobcomments.com.
00:37:50
Speaker
Let us know if there are any particular topics you'd like us to address. We'd love to hear from you. Remember, the Doorknob Comments podcast is not medical advice. If you may be in need of professional assistance, please seek consultation without delay.