Talking Therapy Episode 2: How Doing Therapy Helps Therapists Become Better People

Hosts:

Producer:

Alan Kian, MA, York University
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Marvin Goldfried is a distinguished professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, where he helped to develop the graduate program in clinical psychology—he is the cofounder of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. Allen Frances is a professor of psychiatry and chair emeritus at Duke, and was chair of the DSM-IV task force.

Marvin describes the evolution of his psychotherapy orientation as psychodynamic, behavioral, CBT, and eventually integrative. He practices, teaches, and supervises what works clinically using direct and indirect evidence base.

Allen describes his approach to psychotherapy as “whatever works” or “no one size fits all”. He was trained and taught at the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center, but remains equally interested in brief, supportive, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, and family therapies.

Please enjoy this week’s episode!

[jennifervarelamswlcsws]

Freedom: "I don't have to worry about advancing my career." YES

[elenadianascherb]

Very nice to hear this conversation, very reassuring of our role as therapists. Individualism is overestimated

[ingelathune-boyle]

I'm enjoying these conversations.

[newirishvibe]

Thank you so much for these talks. I am 6 months into practicum for my studies in MFT. You bring up a topic that I haven’t fully came to a conclusion on, unconditional positive regard vs conditional. You summed it up nicely for me in that we give unconditional positive regard for the person and not the harmful behavior. Am I right in thinking that harmful behavior can only be defined by the goal of the client and if their behavior is bringing them closer to that goal or farther away? Thanks

[sarahhajarbalqis]

"Doing therapy is a wonderful way to be in therapy without being in therapy."

Yes.

[jeffreyvonglahn]

How therapy is generally understood by society is far, far more helpful for male therapists to relate to another person than the stereotype for males in our society says they shouldn't. The basic expectations of therapy give male therapists permission to be, basically, more human. When anyone thinks of going against a stereotype their immediate feeling/fear is that society is watching - and waiting! Rogers (1951) proposed his three core conditions as attitudes - not as techniques - that "initiate" a natural process, which he called the actualizing tendency. I HATE the word technique. When you spontaneously interact with a loved one, do you rely on a technique? (For their sake, I hope not.) Explaining a technique to someone is an artificial way of relating to that person because you as a real person is not in the equation. Therapy is stuck in a rut because it doesn't understand its "core" (Goldfried). How can therapy find its core, or its subject matter (spoiler alert - it's the client's experiencing), and be far more effective? See my piece in the Sept. 2021 SEPI Newsletter.
You two are doing great!!! Keep it up!