Psychology can be a long and winding road. Sometimes I have patients who tell me about how they were treated by some other colleagues. Wrong therapy, the clock on the table telling that they have just so much time to talk. Pills instead of help, a wall between them…

Wrong psychology?

I think it’s wrong if we just listen blindly to all our “gurus” without relying on sound reasoning of our own. Good cognitive psychology is logical. I cannot treat a patient my way if that is not the way my patient needs. I have to “feel” my patient. If I can “sense” my patient, his or her thoughts, feelings and limitations as well as their hidden capacity, then I can give them a good and effective therapy. That’s “psychology!”

Psychology or programming?

In all those years I have been working as a psychologist, I have only relied on “long-term-treatment” when it came to treating  various types of dependencies. Most of my patients would typically need maybe ten to fifteen sessions. As a psychologist, my role is not unlike that of a programmer or a teacher. If my programming is good, my patient will be “on their way”, on their own, with me in the background always ready to support and help, but giving the patient the responsibility to work on themselves. Psychology is about knowing the system we operate on.

Sometimes we have our feet on the table, smoke a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee, sometimes we go to a bar and have our coffee there, Mac Donalds is another of my “clinics” and on nice days we are on the beach talking.

One does not need to conduct therapy in a sterile clinic. All I need is the right form of contact with my patient, the right understanding and respect for each other. And no exaggeration of who I am as a psychoanalyst. I need the patient to see me as a normal guy , a friend, an acquaintance – whatever – enjoying the time talking together. That’s applied psychology.

My latest patient had panic attacks for about thirty years, lately on a daily basis. We talked for an hour and next week she came and reported: No panics this week. Three times she came, the last time on Tuesday. Still no attacks, meaning for the first time in those thirty years she was panic attack free for six weeks… All she does now is listen to her Dreamwalk. No meds.  No side-effects. Unlike psychiatry, psychology is entirely side-effect free!

Psychology of engagement

Good psychotherapy must engage the patient – it’s like teamwork. But psychotherapy can be detrimental when used the wrong way by trying to “indoctrinate” the patient or manipulate him/her in the wrong way. Governments and media know this about psychology – apply it more often that you know!

When you go to a psychoanalyst, you should feel some form of improvement within the first two sessions. At the very least  you must have a sense of strong affinity and mutual understanding. This will breed trust in the knowledge the psycho-analyst will share with you – the knowledge which, for you, can be the difference between finally beating your mental condition or forever succumbing to it. The knowledge of psychology.

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