Questions generated in the therapy process do not need immediate answers. It is even more valuable to give them the necessary time to “bake”. The self-reflective questions belong to you and you are not graded for the correctness of the answer.
I am an imperialist
He pulls up the corners of his mouth and relaxes them in the same second, so I can’t tell if he just smiled or if it’s an aging rictus. He waits for a minimal intervention, but because I don’t offer one, he continues:
I run an empire, you know? An empire. But in my private life I’m a wreck. You’ve seen one of these before, right? What did you do with them? What do you think of me?
I hand him a box of spiced dragees. He retreats completely into his armchair, scowls and from that position shouts:
What are these? What are you giving to me? What do you want to do?
Cinnamon dragées.
What effect do they have? What are they doing?
I leave the box open, tap my feet to the floor and invite him to do the same. He gets off the top of the armchair and puts his feet down. I lead him through a relaxation exercise.
What is the purpose of this?
Detach your shoulders from your ears.
What do you mean by that?
When he lowers his shoulders, he registers the first success in relaxing and working with himself. We breathe in tandem. We regulate the pace of speech. In a low voice I ask him what he would like me to know about him.
I am sure they hate me
I’m not good for anything. I’m a liar, a coward, a prankster. I will also lose my wife and daughter. I can’t keep promises and that’s it. They hate me. I don’t even want to get home. I started sleeping at my office. I don’t matter to them anyway, unless I give them the money they need.
The tirade continues, the subject is one and the same. I ask him to repeat everything he said about himself in relation to his wife and daughter.
Why should I say it one more time? Do you want to register me? You’re recording, right? You’ve got a tape recorder somewhere, I bet.
I don’t have a recorder, I don’t need one. My remark does not reassure him.
You mean you remember everything? Sure, it’s your job. You remember everything, right?
His shoulders go up again towards his earlobe. I make a discreet nod.
What, what do I have on my shoulders? Oh yeah, okay, I’m relaxing.
When I feel like he can follow me again, I resume the requirement. Since he cooperates.
Questioning yourself
I ask him to turn each statement into a question. To wonder at each of his earlier statements, to question and record the emotions he feels along with the response to his thoughts. And because he’s ready to run away again, I promise to help him.
The idea came to me, obviously, while listening to him. More than half of everything he said was offensive-defensive questions. So if this is his comfortable space, let’s go over there, too. I try to reproduce the scheme of self-reflective questions he built:
I’m not good for anything – I’m not good for anything?
Right after this first question he stopped. After seconds of silence, I ask him what can I do to help him to continue.
No, nothing, I was just thinking, let’s go further.
I’m going to lose my wife and my daughter – I’m going to lose my wife and my daughter?
Now the pause is even longer, the quality of his look is completely different.
Let’s not stop, shall we?
Good.
I can’t keep promises – I can’t keep promises? I don’t matter to them….I don’t matter to them?
He suddenly stands up and asks me to end the meeting five minutes earlier. I agree, but I ask him why.
Can I answer by questioning?
Yes.
Aren’t you the one who told me that the tools I build in therapy are good to take into real life and to test their validity? And wasn’t you who told me that the questions we generate in the therapeutical process find their answers in actions we take outside the laboratory? Well, then why are you surprised I want to run into the real life?
