Experiments In Therapy

Self-isolation has changed therapy.  So many things that might once have been unquestioned are now changing.

And this leads us to realize the question-ability of so many other things.

Experiments are on the rise!

What if we….

Tried phone/audio only instead of video?
Tried video instead of phone?
Talked every week instead of every other week?
Talked every other week instead of every week?
Cancelled therapy until in-person is possible again?
Tried meditation for the first 5 minutes of our session?
Divided our session into two quick check-ins?
Did our session outside?  inside?
Asked our partner to go for a walk during our session?
Emailed thoughts ahead of time?
Waited until you the client ended the call?
Sat on the floor?
Changed our location for therapy away from the desk we work at all day?

Trying something different.  

Therapy is an ideal place for this.

It is creative.  Co-created.

Sometimes my idea, sometimes the client’s idea.

We notice how the changes feel and make future decisions accordingly.

How does this feel?  What feels good about this?  What isn’t working?  How is this different?  How do you understand the difference?  I wonder if it is connected to….  Do you feel  _____?

Some ideas are discarded immediately, some continue on for a time, some become part of how we work in an ongoing way.

Each experiment changes the way my client and I interact and we can learn from this.

The changes may seem small but in a relationship based on your whole being each subtle change reverberates and is packed with the potential to illuminate and transform.

I think sometimes we come to therapy as if it is surgery “remove the bad thing and I will be better.”

I see therapeutic change more as a series of stretches to encompass more of who we are and in so doing the “bad thing” dilutes…releases…transforms….

Experiments are one way that we stretch into something new.

Whether it “works” or not is not the point.  The point is you and me stretching, creating, becoming…

Send me your therapy experiments and I will compile them and send them out in the next blog.  We can stimulate each other’s creativity by sharing our own!