Therapy Natters
Therapy Natters
Time Structuring and Emotional Connections
This week on Therapy Natters, Richard & Fiona delve into the concept of inner child needs, time structuring from Transactional Analysis, and the importance of intimacy and connection in personal development.
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Hello folks and welcome to yet another episode of Therapy Natters, the mental health podcast with Richard and Fiona, that tries to go some way to answer one or two of your lifelong questions, especially if one of them is something along the lines of Why did I do that? Spoiler! The answer is usually, Because your inner child wanted to get its needs met. That's usually the answer to most of those questions. Hello Fiona! How's your inner child?
Fiona:Oh, my inner child is feeling quite bouncy because I'm ready to go on holiday. So, yes, I'm in that bouncy place.
Richard:yes, I suppose that would be getting your inner child's needs met for play.
Fiona:Yes. Yes. And I'm going to be doing a lot of playing with my six month old little Rory, because that's what we're going to be doing. I was thinking this morning, because we're going to France, I was trying to remember some of the old French children's songs that I used to sing to my boys, and I could get quite a long way, but I need to look up the last line of Clair de lune because I can't remember the last line. But, be fun.
Richard:you've always had a good grasp of French.
Fiona:Ah oui! Pas de problem.
Richard:Is that because of you didn't do a degree in it, did you? But there was an A level.
Fiona:no, no. We did five months in France when the boys were one and three. So that was when it sort of got a little bit ingrained. As in just being able to switch, talk to somebody. Because I had to talk to the people in the village and the postman and the, you know, the shops, and nobody spoke English, so, that's where it came from, but I couldn't have a conversation with a normal person about normal, everyday things. It's only the basics.
Richard:But you really honed that. I mean, obviously you had some little bits at school by the
Fiona:Oh, lots of not good, because we started French when I was at junior school, so about the age of 7. No, eight, probably. So I had French lessons right the way from eight to sixteen, but no way could I have had a conversation in the post office then.
Richard:no. So you started learning stuff well into your twenties.
Fiona:Schooling French is just bonkers,
Richard:Yeah, my name is Fiona, I am 12, ou est la gare That's about it.
Fiona:La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin.
Richard:Le singe est dans l'arbre! Whereas, you started learning stuff as an adult, and I want everybody to recognise that we never stop soaking up stuff. If we want to learn something new, whatever it is, whether it's about the world or ourselves, We can
Fiona:You can an old dog tricks. Yeah
Richard:It's a defence mechanism. People say it so that they don't feel stupid. Because they know they've got to put hard work into learning that something. And they don't want to have to put the hard work in, because they want it to be like it was when they were ten, where everything just got soaked up like a sponge.
Fiona:I it's it's harder. I mean, I've seen this with my Ukrainian family. It's in reverse order as to how easy they have found learning English. From the, the youngest, who's clearly the best by a long way, to the oldest, who's clearly the worst by a long way. and it's a clear differentiation between the ages.
Richard:Yeah.. So I am sorry that if you are above the age of 25, probably, some things you want to learn you do have to put more effort in than you'd probably like to.
Fiona:But you can still do it.
Richard:but you can still do it. That's
Fiona:the can still
Richard:thing to recognise.
Fiona:Or you can still do it well enough.
Richard:Yes, well enough. And I know we're going to talk about perfectionism later on in this season, anyway, towards the end of it, because these episodes in season two of Therapy Natters, if you don't already know, because we've talked about it quite a bit, they're mapping each week of our Evolve to Thrive program. These episodes obviously stand alone. These are podcast episodes for everybody to listen to, so hopefully they're entertaining for everybody. But if you are an Evolve to Thrive Member? Subscriber? However you want to think of it. Member? Aren't we calling them members?
Fiona:I'm calling them both interchangeably, yes.
Richard:to they're people,
Fiona:they're our people on our thing. and I don't want to use the word journey because that's so
Richard:It's a little cliché, isn't it?
Fiona:but it sort of is, that's what we, that's what we've designed it as, as a stepped journey. But yes, there isn't a word that I've found that completely works for what these lovely people who have joined us on this pathway.
Richard:But this week we are talking about something I know very little about. So I'm, I'm here to learn today as well, Fiona, because this is part of TA. Or is it? In my head, time structuring, which is what we were going to talk about today, it's part of Transactional Analysis
Fiona:Yes,
Richard:Because you, might hear the words time structuring and think, okay, is that just about how to add things to a calendar?
Fiona:Indeed, and we talked about time management, which people could easily think the time structuring is the same as time management, but this is a particular theory, and you're right, it's from TA, Transactional Analysis, we've got quite a few bits from that within the Evolve to Thrive program. it was a 1960s set of theories,
Richard:Yeah. Eric Berne.
Fiona:Eric Berne, very American. Full of jargon, so there's a point where you sort of have to put that jargon to one side and say okay, it's full of jargon. Some of it, the words just don't really seem to fit for me anyway. But the title, Transactional Analysis, you have to sort of really get into what that means because it's about Analysing the transactions, which are communications between one person and another.
Richard:And yourself.
Fiona:Well, you can have internal transactions, so from self self, but it's those little bite sized communications that you analyze. But that's really only a part of the TA theory. Probably sort of sits on that, but it's part of it.
Richard:As a, what do I think of myself? I'm an integrative therapist, so I tend to use lots of different concepts, lots of different theories, but underneath it all, I think of myself as a relational therapist, an attachment based therapist. Because what I've found over, throughout my career is that's the cause of a lot of people's problems That they didn't have good attachments. That they don't have good foundations when it comes to how they relate to other people. And if those problems happen when we're young, it can also become how we relate to ourselves. And that's why I quite like the bits of TA that I do know about. Because of the PAC model. The Parent Adult Child. That you've got these three people inside of you. And you can talk to those parts of you, like you're inner child that wants to play and go on holiday and play silly games and quote Monty Python and Bottom. which is very much me.
Fiona:Yes, TA, one of the things within it is the theory of time structuring, which is to analyse how people spend their time. There are six categories, one of which we're not going into in Evolve to Thrive because it's just a bit too complex,
Richard:Oh games
Fiona:yeah, at this stage.
Richard:Games people play.
Fiona:if you want to look at it, in fact the funny thing is that the first book, The main book that Eric Berne wrote about TA was called Games People Play, which is about one element of time structuring, which is one element of TA. But anyway, and we're not going to do games, but we'll do the other five types of how to spend time. It's on a continuum, so it starts with the first one, which is withdrawal, which is fairly self explanatory. but it's about being alone. Whether that's physically or emotionally, so you can be alone even if you're with other people, I don't know if other people recognise this, but that sort of feeling when you're at a party and you're just not connecting with anybody, you're withdrawing there. If you're with the family, you just take a bit of space, go off and have a, you know, sit down in another room. My father in law used to spend an awful lot of time at Christmas doing the washing up because he needed to take space out from the busyness of the family. So withdrawal is perfectly legit to have times of withdrawal. It's emotionally sound, but sometimes it can, of course, be too much. And we talked about, I can't remember when we talked about it, but we have talked about introversion and extroversion. Where you fit on that continuum will depend on what's right for you in terms of withdrawal, as well.
Richard:But it's important to recognise and yeah, and we've spoke about it before, so please go and revisit those episodes. It's hard to, Tell the difference between introversion and social anxiety, because it feels the same. Oh, people tire me out. Okay, people tire you out. Is it tiring you out because you're burning so much adrenaline? Or is it tiring you out just because it's a tiring thing to do?
Fiona:Okay, can I just say, you just said it does feel the same. It can feel the same. yeah, Because I'd class myself as introvert, but I don't feel social anxiety. I mean, occasionally, little bits. If I'm going into something new, I'll get a little bit anxious. But, not to any great degree and to a degree that just informs me, so, it's not a problem because it doesn't cause a problem.
Richard:Yes, but if people are withdrawing and the thing they're withdrawing from is something that they would normally enjoy, then that's when it becomes a problem. Because you're withdrawing from something that would actually feed you, that would give that inner child in you, the satisfaction, would get those needs met. And if you're withdrawing from that, then, you know it's worth looking at what's going on.
Fiona:Yeah. the next level is ritual. A lot of life contains elements of ritual. I mean, an obvious one is religion. If you go to a service in whatever form of religion that you happen to follow, if any. There will be ritualistic elements to that. And some people find that very comforting, other people not so much. But there are rituals in most things in life. Most businesses will have rituals that they observe. Groups of friends will have rituals. Families will have rituals. As I just said, I'm just off on holiday with my family. It won't be long till somebody says, time for a quiz. That's one is Well, it's, it's, it does move over into other forms of time structuring. But we have these sorts of rituals. People will have rituals of the time that they eat meals, what they do at meal times, how they do it, in terms of what courses they have or who sits where. Other things like playing golf. There's lots of rituals around that. In fact All sports have rituals within them. Even being a sports fan there are rituals within that. So that's a quite nice secure place that most people will have elements of ritual in their life that is a good thing. It can of course be overdone. The next one is pastimes. This is sort of semi formal, so it's less formal than a ritual, but semi formal. So, If you're a young parent and you meet the families of other toddlers in the park, for example, or, if you've got a works do, there's all sorts of pastimes that people can do which is semi structured. And within those, there tends to be an understanding of how deep you can go.
Richard:Yes.
Fiona:for example, if you're talking to other parents of young children, you're likely to, well, in fact, almost everything you do in the UK, you start off by talking about the weather.
Richard:The weather. Yeah.
Fiona:So this is, the start of your pastime is setting the ground to then go a little bit deeper. So, you can talk about how your children are doing, You can talk about, what's happening in the world, the latest things on TV, films you've seen, where you're going on holiday, those sorts of things, that's the pastime sort of level. And I don't know about you, Richard, but I think that lately, politics has become something that has moved up to be something we can talk about, probably over the last ten years or so.
Richard:You go back a generation and it wouldn't be a conversation in the,
Fiona:Well, in the pub, yeah, because it was too dangerous, really, it was too deep to reveal your political leanings, although it was probably more obvious from the outside than it is now, but now, you know, if you're in that context, in the pub, great example, talking to other kids parents, quite likely to talk about the latest thing that Donald Trump has said, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or comments about UK, government and what's going on here. Because it's moved up, but there's still the things you don't talk about. You don't talk about deep personal issues. You don't talk about family issues. You don't talk about, religion. Take your pub scenario. You're sitting at the pub with three of your mates having your pints. You wouldn't say, I was, I've been wondering about converting to Judaism lately, what do you think of that?
Richard:Most people would not have, they wouldn't save it for that sort of conversation. They would save it for some very close and intimate friends. For sure.
Fiona:You wouldn't be giving opinions on things of that sort of depth in the pastime level. So the next level, after that one, is activity. So this is where we spend time with others for a specific purpose. So that could be a business meeting, playing golf, doing a quiz, any work activities that involve others includes looking after children, includes going shopping, any activity, whether it's fun or not. But it can be a way of avoiding deep connection. So if a family, or a couple, are doing too much activity, then that can be a distraction from what comes last in this sequence, which is intimacy. So intimacy is the deepest level of connection between people. That does include sexual intimacy, although sexual intimacy does not have to be this sort of intimate. You can sexual intimacy that's not a deep level of connection between people.
Richard:It's an emotional intimacy. And that can come with a romantic partner, or it can come with your best friend, it is how you connect. We are social animals. From birth, we look to those caregivers around us for validation that we exist and that we are safe. Now it's hardwired into us to transfer all of that, in the family system, into the world system. And how we feel when we're that little is the template for how we feel about the rest of the world. So, It kept us safe a million, two million, ten million, however many years ago. It's kept us really safe to make sure that we're in a social situation and that the people around us have got our back. And here we are with frontal lobes and all the different parts of humans nowadays. And we still have that biology. We still have that need for connection. Whether you believe it or not in you, and you might override it with defence mechanisms and some personality traits and neurodiversity even, but still hardwired into everybody's biology, is that need for safety and belonging. And we just get that belonging in different places depending on who we are.
Fiona:Indeed, so you said that intimacy can be a romantic partner or your best friend, but it can be an awful lot more than that. So, it starts, ideally, with parents. Sorry I keep talking about Rory today, but, the other day I saw him snuggling up with his mum, and I just, nature is so amazing to make babies so cute So adorable, the little toes, the little chubby cheeks, the soft hair, the nice smell, everything. They, nature has made them so that
Richard:We
Fiona:parents look after them, nurture them because they're the cutest things ever. Then I thought, well, I'm sure we would even if he wasn't cute, but it's an added bonus. So you've got that level of intimacy which is incredibly intense. Between a parent and a child. And then, the child learns to develop a deep level of connection with other people as they go, other family members. friends, then moves on to romantic partners. But you can have deep levels of connection in therapy. I mean, say that as if you're going to be surprised.
Richard:Yeah,
Fiona:I don't think that's a surprise to you.
Richard:And it shouldn't be a surprise to our listeners either if they've been listening to us long enough.
Fiona:Different types of therapy have different ways of doing this, in terms of creating that deep level. And it reminds me of, We had a question recently, didn't we, about, which I think we discussed, about, falling in love with your therapist. Oh Yes yeah. and that's where it becomes quite difficult to differentiate sometimes from the client's perspective. Hopefully not from the therapist's perspective. If it does from the therapist's perspective, they need supervision.
Richard:Oh goodness, yes. But of course, as an adult, we've got different meanings for our feelings. When we're young and we are feeling safe with somebody, listened to, then there's a pleasantness, there's a loveliness to it, but it's not the adult love. But of course the wires get crossed in therapy sometimes with a client and the feelings that they've got, well I feel so safe with this person, I feel like I can't live without them. And that equals love, which might equal romantic love, which might equal sexual attraction. And I've heard of many, many case studies, many examples where straight people would have a romantic sexual attraction to their same sex therapist and they're like, What's going on with me? Has therapy turned me gay? No. No, you, your, your brain is just doing what brains do. And knowing that and knowing that that's fine and that's safe, and it makes absolute sense. And it'd be weird if that didn't happen sometimes is really important to know. That's how complicated we are.
Fiona:Oh, yeah, and I was just thinking of a case I heard about recently where, It was a teacher who'd had a sexual relationship with a 13 year old, and part of the excuse was the 13 year old had stated that they were in love with the teacher. Well, it's the same sort of thing, as you're saying that, that 13 year old is not developed enough to understand that that pull of intimacy, because they are being listened to, and appreciated and, and valued, etc, etc, they can't differentiate, which is fine. I mean, I know I had ridiculous crushes on, adults when I was a teenager, but that's normal. What's important is the then question is who's the adult here? So in the therapeutic relationship, it's who's the professional here? And it's not up to the client to determine what's right or wrong. It's for the therapist to recognise what's right and wrong, and for them to be able to help the client to understand what's going on for them. They're the professional. They're the adult in the room. Yeah.
Richard:Yeah. Therapists are usually trained to understand all of this. I say usually. But it's worth asking the question.
Fiona:You know how, most therapists have an intake form that they get their, their clients to fill in with some of their past history and the current medication and, you know, all those sorts of things that they ask maybe clients ought to have a form that they ask their therapists,
Richard:so handy.
Fiona:maybe should write one
Richard:Another project? Something else to do? Like we're not busy uh
Fiona:yeah. Okay. I don't
Richard:Stop getting distracted.
Fiona:Trouble is with things like that is sort of, the question is, have you been trained to understand that if I fall in love with you, it's your fault? The therapist gets that and goes, I don't think I want to work with you.
Richard:Oh, I would.
Fiona:Well, so, so many of them wouldn't. They'd be frightened off by that.
Richard:And I think there is a problem within the public's understanding of what therapy is and what they need. Because there are so many different types of therapy, and that's why this podcast exists, to help people. Because, what sort of therapy is the right one for me? And I think back in season one we talked about that quite a lot. We did Probably our very first one, more than likely, knowing us. Because there are so many different types. And if your issue is about how you relate to other people. And you know that that comes from a childhood trauma of, well, deep in my personality there is this fear of ridicule or judgment or criticism or neglect or whatever. You're going to get a lot more benefit from a therapist who works in a relational way rather than a CBT therapist with worksheets handouts and have you done your homework this week stuff.
Fiona:So in that context, a therapist who works in the intimacy level, not in the activity level, not in the pastime level, certainly not in the ritual level.
Richard:Have you ever seen the TV show Shrinking on Apple TV?
Fiona:No, I haven't.
Richard:It's very well written, and the characters are great, and it's quite fun, but oh my god, the ethical boundaries! It's awful! These people would be struck off in a heartbeat! It's awful! God, awful! Even one of the patients moves in with the therapist, they become friends, they drink, they gamble, they, oh, it's just awful, absolutely awful. But it's a well written, funny show. Well, Harrison Ford plays this wonderful character in it, a lovely therapist. And in one of the episodes, he's doing a lecture, and he's sort of coerced into doing this lecture, and one of the students ask the question, um, Is cognitive behavioural therapy better than the humanistic therapies? Harrison Ford's character turns to one of the other lecturers and says, Do I have to answer all the questions, even the stupid ones? And they said, Yes. And he went, Yes it is. Move on. And I thought, No it isn't. I stiffened
Fiona:dear.
Richard:It isn't better for any, it's context dependent, it's patient dependent, it's person dependent. Yes, humanistic therapies are going to be better for one person, but CBT might be better for somebody else. So, whoever wrote that didn't fully get it, annoyed me.
Fiona:absolutely, that is, that is annoying. But it also, it's not just about the client, it also depends on the therapist. There are some therapists who really would not suit being humanistic because that's not where they are.
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:they could potentially be CBT and vice versa. All of the different ones, you know, I couldn't be an analyst, but We had the lovely Jan on our series. perfect for it yeah, yeah, If I won the lottery I think I'd, I mean I can't, she's my friend, but I'd want to go for some sessions although she'd probably book me in for
Richard:A hundred, yeah. Every other day. Well, if you've got the time and you've got the money, then go for it. If you don't, then maybe Evolve to Thrive is going to be easier for you. Or this podcast series.
Fiona:Well, the idea with Evolve to Thrive is that it can build awareness and it's not designed to replace therapy. In fact, it's it could be, encourage it, it could be going alongside therapy that you might be doing. It could help you to see what you might get from therapy. Maybe help you to not waste your time in therapy and get to, yeah, cut to the chase a bit.
Richard:Yeah, so many times people come to therapy and they go, I'm not happy, I don't know why, I just know that I don't want to be this version of me. Well, until you know what that really means, that could take months of therapy to figure out exactly why you're there.
Fiona:Indeed. One of the things as a supervisor, one of the things I say to my supervisees most often is, what are they asking you for? And the supervisees quite often go, oh, now let me think, what are they asking me for? Because they get caught up in the present moment of what's going on. And sometimes, I mean, it's common, but not, you know, not in everyday occurrence. That they lose sight of the fact that there needs to be a goal. Well, it doesn't have, no, there doesn't need to be. Sometimes support is all that somebody needs from therapy. But then that's the goal, to support. So there's always, there still is always a goal. But doesn't have to be a change goal. It can be a, I need somebody to offload to, I need, need somebody to talk to. That's
Richard:And often people will ask, you know, what's the difference between counselling and psychotherapy? And apart from an extra year of training and about 10 pound an hour, sometimes there isn't a great deal of difference because counsellors will do psychotherapy. Psychotherapist will do counseling. Counseling is more about listening more often. It's very absolute to say that, but I guess that is the difference. Counseling is more about listening and psychotherapy is more about understanding the client, but even then, they're almost the same thing nowadays, aren't they?
Fiona:Well with the SCOPED project, we were looking to see what the differences were, and the main differences that we found for psychotherapy was that it was deeper, working with more complex mental health issues, more foundation on research and understanding of where clients were coming from, so that would be, as you're saying that it's more understanding, so the counselling level is more listening, it would fit. What we expected to find was that there would be some things that counsellors did that psychotherapists didn't do, and we didn't find any. On the working group designing the SCOPED framework, we all had this sort of feeling that surely there's things that counsellors do that psychotherapists don't, and we didn't find anything. and that's because as the years have gone on, the importance of the counselling of the listening, of being there, just being there and listening. It's the foundation of, therapy.
Richard:I don't like the word cure, and we don't use the word cure, but clients, people, the outside world will sometimes look for a cure for their problems. And often that cure, in inverted commas, is creating a good therapeutic relationship. That's it. It's just that. Anything else is helpful and might speed things up, or slow things down, or whatever is appropriate. But the real reason for the healing is because they created a good therapeutic relationship. They felt safe, they felt understood.
Fiona:They felt understood, they felt that they were okay, they weren't being judged, and that it was a real connection with a real other human being. And they've had that there, in therapy. They can have it out there in the world.
Richard:And we've known that since the 70s,
Fiona:60's
Richard:the Norcross 60s?
Fiona:Well I would 60s, because it's Rogers. But Norcross has sort of proven it.
Richard:That was a little bit later, Was that 70s? I
Fiona:Oh, well he's still, I mean, I heard Norcross give a lecture in, in the noughties.
Richard:Okay, well, that was 20 years ago.
Fiona:Yeah. know what's happened to time.
Richard:It just flies by! Speaking of which, is there anything else you wanted to finish off today?
Fiona:we've obviously got this in Evolve to Thrive, so if you, if you do it and you get to month three you will find the document and an exercise on time structuring that you can use to see what you are doing for yourself and see if there's any adjustments that would be beneficial.
Richard:Outstanding stuff. Okie dokie. Well, Fiona, we need to leave these lovely people in peace. You're gonna disappear for a week, but we are getting ahead of ourselves with these episodes anyway, the public won't know any difference, but you're gonna have a week off. Well, I hope you're going to look after yourself, as well others.
Fiona:I'll do my best. I don't know what, what shape I'll be in when you see me next.
Richard:Well, hopefully you won't have fallen down any stairs
Fiona:I'm really going to try to remain in one piece.
Richard:Do or do not. There is no try.
Fiona:I don't agree with that. We can talk about that another time. We probably already have.
Richard:Probably have. Alright, let's finish off. Have a lovely week, everybody. We will speak to you next time. If you need anything, give us a shout. I'm fed up of telling you that our social media contacts and all the ways of getting in touch with us are in the show notes and the episode descriptions. But I just did again anyway, so, you know where we are if you need us. See you soon everybody! bye! now!
