Hear from the client and their therapist in this new show.
KEY POINTS
Therapy saves lives but most people don’t trust the process
Listen to this groundbreaking podcast with the client and their therapist!
The Breaking Through Therapy Charity Podcast is full of self-help tips
Discover therapy strategies and tips that will work for you, while raising money for the NHS
It’s heartbreaking but true that some people would rather die than go to therapy. But therapists save lives – you can make life-changing breakthroughs. You spend less than 1% of your waking hours in therapy: one hour out of 168 in a week. How can this be? Key research has suggested 4 main factors (Brown et al, 2021):
Environmental or external factors – huge life events such war and conflict in the world, or more minor stressors at work
Models and techniques – the use of different strategies and techniques that help to promote positive change in therapy
The therapeutic relationship/alliance – the foundation of trust and the bond between therapist client that creates a working alliance
Hope and expectancy – the client’s self-belief, imagining improved circumstances, having goals, determination and accountability
Interestingly, clients rate techniques more highly than therapists, who tend to think external factors make more of a difference in therapy outcomes.
Studies also show that when personality factors and the focus of therapy match, between client and therapist, outcomes are better for clients (Shir & Tishby, 2023).
Much of this life-changing work can now be done online, with at least the same effectiveness in outcomes with adults and children with mild to moderate difficulties. There are still many instances where face-to-face therapy will be preferable or essential.
About a year ago, when I had the idea for the Breaking Through Therapy podcast, I saw that therapists were appearing on podcasts speaking about their work with clients; clients – even celebrities – were on the podcasts speaking about their therapy journeys... but rarely, if ever, were they interviewed together.
How would anyone new to therapy understand the therapeutic relationship, without themselves seeing this unfold, and bearing witness to it, between the client and therapist?
Also, with artificial intelligence taking over many of our jobs, people have been turning to generative AI co-therapists through apps like Chat GPT and chat-bots who claim to “know everything”.
Our children and our children’s children could grow up in worlds where human relationships feel like too much hard work. We need to show them the importance of having a bond and healthy relationships with others, and that our brains are hardwired for connection, and are even re-wired over the process of effective talking therapy.
The closest audio-visual medium I’ve seen to unpack this client-therapist relationship is Esther Perel’s groundbreaking podcast 'Where Should We Begin?'
Also, the film 'Stutz', starring Jonah Hill with his therapist psychiatrist Dr Phil Stutz, is a phenomenal documentary highlighting the transformative power of the therapeutic relationship. It also unveils the layers and depths of vulnerability and pain within us, and how meaningful connections that resonate with us can help to heal us.
Esther Perel and Jonah Hill do an amazing job of illuminating the client-therapist-couple relationship, but are both part of that dynamic. This is fascinating, but they are not objective to the client, therapist or couple.
What we’re doing on this podcast is creating a unique format where the client brings their therapist on the show, and where they are both interviewed by an objective host: me, Dr Esther Cole. We raise money for the UK National Health Service (NHS) Charities Together and the format is loosely based on three prompts:
1) how they found each other
2) the client-therapist relationship
3) three breakthroughs in therapy
The client will remain anonymous. Their name, identity, names of people or places associated with them will not be shared.
The cover image for this podcast involves a person with their instructor skydiving out of an aeroplane with a parachute. That’s what going to therapy can feel like. And much of the time we don’t want to unearth memories, feelings, events and traumas that we’ve buried, because we don’t think we can do anything about them: that time has passed.
One way of coping with overwhelming or momentous tasks is to break things down, step by step. This is how I got here after one year; I think that breaking things down, as a roadmap to success, is so important.
One of the gems of this podcast is that you will gain a lot of self-help tips. The process of therapy will be explained and demystified for you, and potentially provide a roadmap for your own journey, should the stories of my guests resonate with you.
As a clinical psychologist, I am constantly inspired and touched by the lives of people I work with; and they motivate me to create work which has a far and lasting reach. The inspiration for our book on child brain injury was a wonderful 12 year-old boy I met during my training, who survived a cancerous brain tumour and had enormous breakthroughs in therapy for trauma, mobility and toileting issues, severe depression and binge-eating. We both co-wrote a chapter with his Mum 5 years later, in Psychological Therapy for Paediatric Acquired Brain Injury: Innovations for Children, Young People and Families.
Choosing talking therapy is a minefield because of so many factors. Getting the right fit for you and breaking through therapy – it’s hard to get the formula right. We’re here to help you navigate this and share insights on how to do it on this podcast. If therapy’s still not for you, why not take away some self-help tips whist helping to raise money for NHS Charities Together?
References
Browne, J., Cather, C., & Mueser, K. (2021, February 23). Common Factors in Psychotherapy. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved 21 Sep. 2024, from https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001….
Cole. E, (2024). Breaking Through Therapy Podcast. Www.breakingthroughtherapy.com. Lifespan Psychology - The Diverse Practice®.
Cole.,E. (2024). Fundraiser for NHS Charities Together https://www.justgiving.com/page/lifespan-psychology-1710574565371. Lifespan Psychology - The Diverse Practice®.
Jim, J. & Cole, E. (2019). Psychological Therapy for Paediatric Acquired Brain Injury: Innovations for Children, Young People & Families (London, Routledge).
Shir, R., & Tishby, O. (2023). Therapy matchmaking: Patient-therapist match in personality traits and attachment style. Psychotherapy Research, 34(3), 353–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2023.2195054
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