Dec 13

Dec 13 Culture Therapy // Expanded Field of Therapy (Part 1)

We are huge advocates for therapy, having both been in and out of this special one-to-one relationship over our adult lives. Finding a good therapist has made the difference for us between floundering in the messiness of it all and feeling some measure of clarity and direction. We have found in therapy a language to articulate ourselves and our experiences, as well as support, care and tools for coping.

There’s still some stigma though around therapy, particularly for people with backgrounds that are anathema to talking anything out and are more about pushing it down or sucking it up.

So hopefully, for this edition of Culture Therapy, we can speak to both the therapy lovers and the therapy curious (maybe even cynics) out there both. We’ve pulled together those resources that we’ve found that help make going to therapy ok. Books, podcasts, and TV programs that make the vastly different approaches between therapists less confusing, and the process less intimating.

Featured

Read | Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

This memoir made waves this year, landing on best-of lists and must-reads. This quote just about sums it up (and there are countless others backing it up): “An addictive book that’s part Oliver Sacks and part Nora Ephron. Prepare to be riveted.” Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb’s memoir puts herself on both sides of the therapy divide; she’s both clinician in her Los Angeles practice and client exploring her own issues with the seasoned Wendell. But as with all things ‘talk-therapy,’ it all interweaves together, the conversations that begin in one therapy office seep into the other. Funny and smart, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone makes the case that no-one gets away with being human, not even the experts who know our hearts and minds as they grasp to understand their own.

“But many people come to therapy seeking closure. Help me not to feel. What they eventually discover is that you can’t mute one emotion without muting the others. You want to mute the pain? You’ll also mute the joy.” — Lori Gottlieb

Read | Everything I Know About Love

This is a book to fall in love to, but not in the conventional rom-com way (though there’s a serious Nora Ephron undertone here), but in the way that you get that your female friends are really what it’s all about. And that you are actually really what it’s all about (also see Rebel Wilson’s film Isn’t It Romantic for a similar epiphany).

We’re putting it here though because there’s a funny and totally relatable chapter about Alderton’s experience with therapy, which pretty closely matched our own (ok, maybe with less insight and articulacy about said insight). Here is a person who is searching and whose realizations are bravely fought for.

Also check out Alderton’s podcast the High-Low with Pandora Sykes which is the wittiest on-topic show around.

“Therapy is a great big archeological dig into your psyche until you hit something. It's a personal weekly episode of Time Team, a joint effort of expert and presenter -- the therapist, Mick Aston, the patient Tony Robinson.” —Dolly Alderton

Watch | Wanderlust (Episode 5)

For this one episode of Wanderlust (which divided viewers when it aired) of a very nearly in real-time therapy session between Joy (Toni Collette) and her therapist Angela (played by Sophie Okonego). Some context, Joy, herself a psychotherapist (whose sessions with clients also feature in the show), is playing with the boundaries of her long marriage to school teacher Alan. Both are experimenting with opening their relationship to other sexual encounters and intimacy outside of traditional expectations.

This episode is enthralling for the delicate dance between the therapist and client. Joy shifts constantly: is open, then hides, comes to understanding, then retreats, voices her frustrations and anger, sits in quiet and her resolve. In response, or maybe by way of lead, Angela pushes where she feels that would be appropriate, pulls back when maybe she’d gone too far. She listens, reflects, summarizes, cares. It feels raw, and natural, in the way we typically flow through a variety of emotions and revelations through any therapy session. It also speaks to the fact that therapy isn’t really supposed to feel comfortable all the time – that the tension points yield learning.

“Angela: Well, I’m thinking about my responsibility towards you.

Thinking about when it feels appropriate to push back on certain things, and when it doesn’t.

How, perhaps, I’m a little afraid to tell you the truth, of really taking you to task on one or two things you said.”

Watch | Afterlife

This is what therapy should not look like. There’s no inspiration here. Just a huge warning to run screaming from the room if this is your experience.

The sessions in this Ricky Gervais headed series Afterlife may be the worst form of therapy we’ve seen in a while. Here Tony (Gervais) seeks out therapy to deal with the loss of his beloved wife, which so far has been a mostly downward spiral towards suicide, drugs, and a brutal honesty with all those around him. But his therapist, brilliantly played by Paul Kaye, doesn’t offer him the solace or the meaning he’s looking for.

Instead he’s deeply narcissistic: he breaches confidentiality, is crazily distracted and disinterested, gives bad advice. At one point, he’s embroiled in a twitter spat during a session. As Tony’s life starts to come back together (not because of the therapist), he realizes that he does not need this person anymore, with a brilliant I’m-done-here speech that goes something like you are not terrible but you are a ‘dick’.

Here’s how to know when therapy is not the back-and-forth conversation towards knowledge but just a really bad, destructive relationship.

Listen | Therapy Lab

This is where we’re getting into the weeds of everything there is to know about therapy. With each podcast episode, founder of Harley Therapy Dr. Sheri Jacobson, talks to her guests about their experiences of therapy. But these are no couch-gazing conversations. They range widely, from mental health advocate Jo Love on her struggles as a new mum, and author and Tv presenter June Sarpong on her work with diversity issues. This podcast shows the breadth of both who seeks out therapy and why they do so.

“I want to explore how people have used therapy (or indeed could use therapy) to overcome some of the obstacles we all face in life. I was humbled to hear such a diverse array of stories spoken about so bravely, openly and honestly. I hope in sharing some of these stories our listeners will be inspired, too.” — Dr Jacobson

Listen | Where Should We Begin?

When we listen to Esther Perel’s podcast Where Should We Begin?, we feel ourselves stretching just a little bit more in our own relationships. In each episode, Perel (of Mating in Captivity fame) hosts a therapy session with a real couple; her wisdom, humor, and care pulling at the strands of their experiences, testing some of their basic assumptions, and future-led choices. It’s a fascinating way into how others experience the things we do — love, sex, trust, family, money, kids — through the framework of their own relationships. What’s that Mumford & Sons line? ‘Where you invest your love, you invest your life’. That’s at the cracking-open heart of Perel’s podcast; the importance of getting relationships not perfect, not blissful, but right for you because it’s going to impact everything else if you don’t. See also Perel’s new podcast, How’s Work?, which does the same thing for those other vital relationships in your life, the professional ones.

“Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?” — Esther Perel

Listen | Motherhood Sessions

When we first became mums, it was one of the most joyful and one of the loneliest times in our lives. And often those baby-raising manual’s didn’t do it; their instructions held no nuance and little compassion. Enter psychiatrist Dr. Alexandra Sack’s Motherhood Sessions, a podcast that explores all the complicated and confusing realities of being a mother. Each episode is in effect a therapy session with mothers; her subject’s unburdening our chance at understanding. In a culture, that often leaves mums alienated or embattled, Motherhood Sessions allows real narratives to unfold, the ones we actually live and not are told to dream about. It’s a much-need space about “Not how to care for a child’ but “how to care for a woman.” If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a mother, there is a solace to be had here.

“Maybe you’ll hear yourself in some of these conversations, and realize that not alone as you may feel in a human struggle you’re going through right now. Maybe you’ll feel inspired to ask someone in your life how they’re really doing.” — Dr Sacks

Listen | Heavyweight

When we discovered Heavyweight, our day stopped. Usually, podcasts are the background soundtrack to our day; but this one, this one demanded all our attention and we just looked out the window and listened. How often do you do that? We became slightly obsessed by it — sitting in our car beyond our commute to finish the final minutes, exercising just a little bit more to know how an episode ends, even slowing down boiling pots, so we had longer to listen even if we got soggy rice. In each episode, host Jonathan Goldstein takes his guest back to a moment that they believe impacted their lives significantly and then works as a kind of ‘emotional advance scout’ or ‘interlocutor’ to work through it. Listen to Elyse where a daughter tries to understand her estrangement from a once loving father to Gregor about the regrets of a middle-aged man and how Moby plays into that, to Buzz in which Goldstein’s own father attempts to reconcile with his brother and the past that he represents. It’s therapy-esque, with Goldstein asking questions to find a way forward, while articulating insights in a profoundly beautiful way: ‘I see the same things you do and it’s not you.’ Now into Season 4, there may be some catching up to do, but if you put your life on hold, for now, you’ve got a chance to get up to date – and maybe figure out some things about your own life as you do so.

“To me, the best stories are the ones that have their funny moments and their dark moments. I’m probably totally mispronouncing this word, but “chiaroscuro”, a painting where the light is so beautiful because of the darkness. In this case it makes the funny parts funnier and the sadder parts even sadder, because you’re toggling between these two extremes. If you get that balance right, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s easy to get wrong and sometimes I do get it wrong, but that’s the challenge of doing this kind of thing.” — Jonathan Goldstein

Listen | Listen | Unf*ck Your Brain

A podcast for women to learn how to coach themselves hosted by Master Certified Confidence Coach Kara Loewentheil, J.D. This one is for feminists — Loewentheil situates her approach within how the patriarchy and society impact women’s experiences — and for those who struggle with anxiety, and issues such as imposter thinking and self-doubt. Each episode feels like a coaching session bringing in cognitive psychology-based techniques, but the style is that of a straight-talking friend and does not hold back on the hard truths – we find ourselves catching our breath sometimes at how accurate Loewentheil is and how she doesn’t hide the work within pretty packages. Favorite episode: Perfectionist Fantasies + Tomorrow Thinking. Also check out The Clutch, an online feminist community for more support and learn “how to be where you are, because that’s the place from which you can change your life.”

“I think the most important self-care activity that exists is managing your mind. Managing your mind is where everything in your life starts; your feelings, your actions, the results you have, it all comes from your thoughts.” — Kara Loewentheil