Monday, July 19, 2010

Co-Therapy

A second year student (a male) and I have some couples that we see as a team. We call this "co-therapy." Co-therapy is cool for many reasons, but can be problematic when the therapists have very different theoretical approaches. Like say one therapist is a "solution-focused" therapist, while the other is an "emotionally-focused" therapist.

Guess which one of us is which (if you are feeling unsure, remember, my co-therapist is of the male gender).

Though we have a great deal of respect for each other and each other's styles, sometimes (like a few hours ago when we stepped out in the middle of a session) we have conversations like this:
Co: "Emily, you really make people aware of their emotional vulnerabilities."
Me: "Thank you."
Co: "No, I mean, really fast, really early in the process."
Me: "Thank you so much."
Co: "Emily, this is not a compliment."
Me: "Oh, I think it is. You know, I'm sensing some anxiety from you right now, are you feeling hurt?"
Co: "No, I'm not feeling hurt, I'm feeling pissed off."
Me: "You know, anger is a secondary emotion, it is always covering up something... like hurt."
Co: "Shut up."
Me: "Just let it all out, don't be afraid."

2 comments:

  1. There you go! I'm bringing you in as a guest writer on my blog.

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  2. I laughed outloud! I so appreciate this :P

    ReplyDelete