interpretations
As a student I didn't detect my supervisor's interpretations of my conversation and body language getting anywhere I found their interpretations mostly either wrong or incomprehensible (denial). I often found clients humoring me (collusion) or hunting around for ways that the interpretations might be wrong (resistance). Some clients obediently took up the offer to explore my insights. Others took the perhaps healthier approach of retaining their defenses and postponed accessing the repressed ideas and feelings I had spotted by arguing with me. Often they seemed politely baffled.
Interpretations seemed to leave confusion in their wake. Not that I have anything against confusion in principle. Disorganised agencies and workers and chaotic moments in therapy often allow clients more room to move and produce better results than when they are tidy and well regulated. Anyway in the end I didn't gain the confidence to make interpretations.
Around this time research was showing that insight into psychological processes can bind anxiety but does not necessarily bring change. Intellect alone does not get there. More of the mind has to shift and the body, feelings and emotions as well.
The idea of the Compulsive Interpretation was also doing the rounds at the time. Recognizable by the urgency of feelings and clarity of thought that arise as insight displaces listening. My client says something or I recall something that triggers a flash of insight into them or their situation that will bring understanding. The desire to share it becomes overwhelming. They will understand the insight, be transformed immediately and then become awe-struck and a bit later grateful.
I began to wonder if interpretations might be for my benefit rather than my client's. Was this a liturgical device to keep my frame of reference alive in my client? Perhaps interpretations are a way of resisting something that a client is working around to saying or discovering. Perhaps the interpretation is my business not theirs. Perhaps this belongs in the exploration of the counter-transference rather than in the therapeutic conversation.
Interpretations started to seem like compulsive intellectual therapist-centered activities.
When I read Rogers “Client Centered Therapy” I wondered if they were needed at all. Does a client hear, understand or remember interpretations? Perhaps skipping them would be quicker and more effective.
In Person Centered Therapy clients make the interpretations rather than the therapist.
leading
The way a therapist reflects ideas back can voice something that a client has not quite found words for that is hovering just below conscious awareness. The tone of voice, timing or wording of a reflection can arouse thoughts that have not come together before.
Clients' interpretations are influenced by a therapist's manner and responses. A therapist can't be completely neutral. Just being who they are is leading.
collusion
Therapy can mask uncomfortable feelings by affirming defenses and skirting around core problems. . A way of hiding from oneself. Collusive therapeutic relationships tend to be profitable rather than productive.
A person centered approach helps avoid this comfortable impass by concentrating on experiencing thoughts and feelings rather than helping rationalise them.
copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 11/06/11
