WHERE ARE YOU?
Patient comes into my office and asks, How do I get past this? What he’s saying is, I don’t care for where I am right now, and I’d like to be elsewhere. I think, to get from point A to point B, it is necessary first to locate point A. So we start by exploring closely the life this patient is living now.
All roads lead to Rome
Where shall we look first? Here’s a neat feature of being an organism: there’s a natural tendency to self-organize. Every life organizes around experience. So we can start anywhere. Wherever we start, the patient’s particular organization will reveal itself in the conversation and lead us to the heart of the matter.
Why does this keep happening to me?
Most people simply live their lives. Therapy introduces the sometimes uncomfortable question, How do I live my life? Consider what happens when a troublesome symptom persists or a relational problem repeats. The first thing we notice is how annoying it is, then, How do I get rid of this? But that question doesn’t take us very far. On the other hand, a different question, asked with genuine curiosity, can open a useful door. What exactly am I doing here? What is going on inside me? Am I participating in what keeps happening here? If you don’t understand what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, then how will you ever do otherwise? A lot can be learned when you start asking the right questions.