Have you ever considered therapy but felt unsure where to begin? This episode is designed to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to make an informed decision. Today, Eddie Reece and Bill Courtright explore the world of therapy. They answer common questions like “What is therapy?” and “Why might someone consider it?” Eddie also shares valuable insights on finding a qualified therapist. So, let’s get
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Therapy 101: What It Is & Why It Matters
This is our episode, a conversation about therapy for everyday life. This episode is going to dive and delve quite deeply into a singular question that I was curious to find answers to. That is what, why, where, and how is therapy. Eddie has a perspective on things that I know you’re going to find interesting and empowering. I think at the end of this episode, if you’ve ever even considered delving into this conversation of therapy with a worthwhile therapist close to home, this is going to be what you need to move forward.
Introduction to Therapy
I am thoroughly excited about this conversation. This is something that you and I have touched on off-camera, in phone conversations, private conversations. We’ve touched on a little bit of our show, and as we record this, we’re now approaching our thirteenth episode. Exciting times. The question that I’m anxiously awaiting your response to is what is therapy?
It’s a question I read a lot from a prospective client. They usually don’t say, “What’s therapy?” They say, “How does this work?” I’m not going to give our readers out there the answer because I’m going to give them the full details here. To thoroughly answer the question, I’m going to start with why is there therapy and why my profession even exists. What good are we? The reason that I think therapy exists is because of our culture and upbringing, which comes out of our culture, any avenue that is out there to teach you something, self-help books, things like that, motivational speakers pick a category. That’s how we learn how we’re supposed to live our lives. The first problem is that’s the first problem because what that tells us is that we’re supposed to follow some path that is made up for us.
The reason therapy exists is because our culture teaches us to follow a prescribed path, but we’re supposed to explore who we are and then do our best to become that.
The premise, in my opinion, is wrong. We’re not supposed to follow a path as much as we’re supposed to explore who we are and then do our best to become that. Meaning, be who you are, which we hear a lot, which is not a great idea because if you’re a jerk, that’s probably not a good philosophy to follow. Be who you are is, “Let me explore who and what I am, and then make conscious decisions about who and what I want to be,” as far as I can get outside of a prescriptive method. There are several ways to say that, live more organically. Live from the inside out and not the outside in. I saw a movie about the James Webb Telescope. One of the 100s of previews, 27 minutes of previews, 30 minutes of movie, and a little bit of hair. I was pulling out.
There’s a new Inside Out movie coming, and if you haven’t seen the first one, go see it. It’s a Pixar movie. It’s lovely. They’ve got a sequel coming out. I’m looking forward to that. Anyway, I digress. I think you need to learn to live organically from the inside out, plus the vast majority of what we’re taught from all of those sources is simply wrong. The culture, self-help, philosophy, and religion, anybody that’s using any of those things to show you the path is primarily geared to make money. I’m not excluding myself from being a money-making venture, but that’s not the primary goal of what I do.
A lot of the folks who are out there showing you the path say the same thing I said. The reason that I say it’s primarily there to make money is because they’re going to teach you something that is easy. There’s a jar back here on my bookcase that has been here since day one of my being a therapist. There are no easy answers. You can pick between tricky or impossible. Going through therapy is tricky. What you’re doing and trying to do is impossible. It’s not going to work because it’s simply wrong. You were taught that. In a nutshell, therapy is a reteaching and relearning. I’ve come to describe it as a retraining. I don’t talk about us learning things. I talk about us being trained because I’m all about, “We’re a nervous system. We’re an electrical appliance.”
Therapy is a reteaching, a relearning. I’ve come to describe it as a retraining.
Misconceptions About Happiness
The reason I’m doing what I’m doing right now, the reason you’re doing what you’re doing is because there are neural firings that cause us to do it and do it in the way that we do it. Those neural firings get there by being trained. The things that people are saying, “Here are your ten steps to happiness.” First of all, happiness is a ridiculously, horribly wrong goal. The more happy you want to be, the more miserable you’re going to become. The ten easy steps are a lie. Clients go, “I want to be happy.” I say, “If you want to be happy, you’ve got to learn to be sad, miserable, downhearted. You’ve got to learn all the things that you don’t want to be. The reason you’re not happy is because you won’t allow yourself to organically be those things.”
A client says, “I want to be happy.” I go, “I can do that for you. I got a magic wand in the drawer here. I can wave it. You’ll be happy. There’s an extra charge for that. Let’s talk about what your life’s going to be once you walk out of here. I wave my magic wand. Sure enough, you are happy. Get in your car, start a driveway, and get a phone call. Someone very near and dear to you was tragically killed. You show up at the funeral home, ‘Everybody, how’s it going? It’s a gorgeous day out there today. Joe, you look awesome. Is that what you want? Quit asking to be happy. Be what you are.”
I also call it naming what’s in the room. If I don’t feel so hot, that’s who I am. If I want to change that, I have to go through the process of exploring that, be that, and then what a lot of easy ways people talk about, then accepting myself as I am. That means just, “It’s okay. I feel down, and that’s okay.” No, it’s not okay. I don’t want to feel down. The way I can come out of it is to feel it, experience it, be with it, be kind to it, and listen to it, which is a big part of what therapy is to help answer the question. Therapy’s listening with curiosity, kindness, and compassion to that part. I want to fully hear from this part of me that goes, “I’ll feel a little damn.” I want to hear from that part. I want to know everything about it. If I do that, I’ll eventually stair-step my way down to where that’s coming from, right then and there.
Therapy is listening, really listening, with curiosity, kindness, and compassion.
If I follow that stair step back up, going from here to feeling down will make all the sense in the world, given everything they said. It could be delusional, “I feel down because the aliens are poking at my brain.” It might even be delusional, but it will make logical sense. My job is to be kind and compassionate. My job would not be easy. The aliens are poking at my brain. My job is not to go, “What is wrong with you?” That’s not going to help. My job is to go, “What are you feeling? That kindness, curiosity.” Tell me more about this alien then, because if I do that, then they’re going to catch on that I care.
There’s that saying of, “Nobody cares about how much you know until they know how much you care.” Real therapy, good therapy, and you’ll read me throughout these episodes, comes from really good therapists. Really good therapists come from therapists who have sat on a therapist’s couch and gone through this process I described of somebody listening with kindness, curiosity, and compassion. What that does internally is, let’s say I’m the person with the aliens messing with my brain. I sit with this person for a while, I go, “They’re interested in me. Everybody else has blown me off. Told me I was crazy. Get over it. Nobody poking in my brain. This guy is interested in all this i.e., he’s interested in me. He seems to care about the struggle that I’m going through, having aliens poking at me.”
Role Of The Therapist
When you talked about caring a moment ago, and the fact that few care until they know that you care, you got a little emotional as a therapist. You talked about being on the couch, which you’ve clearly helped countless individuals over the course of your career. Having that level of care and compassion, and getting genuinely interested in the lives of others, made you emotional.
Sure, because it’s happened to me countless times. Countless people have cared about me in that therapeutic environment, which then modeled for me that what I needed was to care about myself and be kind, compassionate, and curious about this. If I do that, then when I’m going to live organically, authentically, that this is me, “I feel a little down.” If we haven’t already done an episode on what I call the kindness dialogue, where I go, “I feel a little down.” I don’t just stay with that line of thinking. If I had the thought, “I feel a little down,” I’m going to, after all the training I’ve gone through and a lot of it practicing over and over. I’m going to immediately hear another voice, “So, you’re feeling a little down, huh?”
He’s going to reflect that back to me. He’s going to be curious. He’s going to be kind about that, and they’re going to have a conversation. The conversation will wind up. I’ve done this billions of times. A lot of it is shorthand now, but the conversations in the beginning were that stair-step down to, “I get it. That makes sense to me.” Now it’s like, “I feel a little down. Is it this? I wonder what we can do. What do you need? How can I help?”
It sounds like I heard you say when you first acknowledge it, you accept it then there seems to be, after the awareness, an almost an interest, compassion, and kindness again. I think it’s in that moment of acceptance or after acknowledgment where there’s an interest. From a business perspective, this is similar to how we understand and show empathy towards the buyer’s journey. That no, like trust, try, by, repeat, refer, I mean, this is real life, real business. and therapy. Am I off base? There’s a relationship, dance, and courtship almost going on there because ultimately, in order for your client to feel safe enough to get vulnerable, they have to trust.
I’m going, “Yeah.” It is not quite, because of the word trust, I bristle at. I deal with that a lot especially couples, “How can I trust?” I go, “You can’t.” The mistake that led you here was trust. They’ll do it. They’re like, “What do you mean? Relationships are built on trust. No, they’re not. Let’s take a look at how could you trust again?” What you’re saying is, “How can I be assured that won’t ever happen? Can you answer that for me?”
I’ve got an answer for you. You would need video surveillance 24/7 so that you could see it wasn’t happening. You would need to watch that video every moment of it so you could see that it’s not happening. That would be the rest of your life until one of you died. Once one of you died and it never happened, then you could trust them. Maybe. Who knows what’s going to happen right after you die? Forget about it because the other thing you’re doing is you’re saying, “I’m an atrocious person.” I go, “For what?”
They’re a typical couple and they intertwine children, mortgages, money, and stuff. You are saying, “I don’t know that I can trust this person.” You can’t trust them to go to work, “They’ll go to work.” You can’t trust them to be a good parent, “They’re a terrific parent.” You can’t trust them to pay the bills, “I know they pay the bills.” You can’t trust them to go by the grocery store and pick something up if you ask them. I could sit here and name off about 8,000 things that transpire in your lives and ask you, “Can you trust?”
In the context of creating a relationship with a good therapist, am I incorrect in presuming that there needs to be at least an environment for me to feel safe or vulnerable enough for progress to happen?
For me to challenge you like that, which means I have to have listened well enough to where you go, this guy cares. If that conversation I described happened right off the bat, they’re not coming back. Why wouldn’t they?
Maybe dance is too coarse a word, but it almost feels like you have a real clear understanding of what needs to happen in order for progress, healing, or breakthrough, whatever cliche or whatever you want to label it. You’re cleverly likely, certainly, experientially getting them to a place where that progress happens. Because of the fact that you’ve done this as many times as you’ve done it, and you’re my words, excellent with people and understanding. You’ve got those kind eyes. You know how to ask the questions. You ask regardless of how invasive they could be if reading it feels differently when you inquire. I guess that’s what you call challenging.
Challenging is simply getting them to question the belief system that they have that causes the behavior that they have because, in my opinion, that belief system, which is their training, all relationships are built on trust. It’s wrong. The problem isn’t trust because if you want to define the problem as trust, you’ve also defined the solution, which is, “I got to learn to trust,” which is impossible. How does that make any sense?
Let’s swap out trust, but if the goal is perceived safety. If I want my wife to feel a certain way, I’m resisting the urge to use the word trust. What I want her to feel is comfortable and safe enough to discuss or go anywhere, or at least liberate whatever it is that’s causing the issue.
Here’s a little therapy for you. Problem 1) You want your wife to feel something. You controlling, manipulative man. This is our training. That’s wrong that you’re here to get them to do, feel, and be something. You go, “I want to be in a relationship with you so I can turn you into something worthwhile.”
I don’t think I said that.
You did. “I want her to feel safe. “If we support that, why do you want her to feel safe?
I think one of my core responsibilities is to create an environment for my wife and kids to be safe.
You’re not in charge of her feeling safe. That’s her job. Now you’re being codependent, “I have to do this for her because she is so pathetic. She can’t do it on her own.” That’s what you’re saying. You’re also saying, “I want to do this for her,” or some version of “She won’t ever be mad at me.” You’re selfish and manipulative.
You’re not wrong. I don’t want her mad at me.
I like your question because it helps to take us back to answering our question of what therapy is. It is this continual examination of who the client is, which means, “Let’s examine the training you got. If we could somehow get some high-tech scanner and scan your nervous system, it would tell us every piece of information you were trained to believe and act upon.”
Therapy is a continual examination of who the client is.
I’ll save you the scanner. I was trained to believe that my primary purpose as a man was to be a protector and provider.
Client’s Role In Therapy
It saved me a lot of time as a therapist if I could scan you and go, “Here are the things we’ve got to retrain.” You would automatically trust me for some reason and go along with, “Let’s change this because that’s not going to work. That’s what therapy is. I go in as a client. I sit on the couch, and I’m not there to present my problem of being an anxious person. What I want is for you to do something so that I won’t be anxious. That’s why I think I’m going in.
What I will soon discover is that’s not why I’m there. I’m there to realize that my anxiety is something that I don’t listen to. I’m not curious about it. I’m not kind toward them. I’m vicious and mean toward it. I want it to not exist. Imagine saying that to another human being, which I’m doing. I’m saying it to myself. The therapist’s job is to help the client basically go, “That’s not your problem because your solution’s impossible. If I removed all your anxiety, then you would be an absolute thrill seeker. Extreme in everything because you’d have no fear whatsoever of anything.”
What do you of course say then to some of us who started this conversation with you making a reference to self-help, motivational speakers, personal development, and it resonated with me. I sat up a little bit because I read a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I attend conferences. I think I live life with the intention of improvement or betterment. When we talk, I feel like sometimes the realization needs to be discovered that there’s no control. There’s no planned or successful outcome. It’s truly a ride. It’s truly a journey. What do you say to someone who’s feeling this level of confusion?
I say, “Good.” I had my first client this morning. He goes, “I’m confused.” I go, “Great. That’s my job. I’ve got to get you confused because you came in here thinking you knew exactly what you wanted and what you needed to get out of this. If I go along with that, I can’t help you because what you want isn’t going to happen. I’ve got to help you learn to be kind, curious, thoughtful, loving, caring, and turn that inward so you can learn to be with all that, enter into that dialogue with it, and consciously make decisions.” I would say, “Don’t try to get better. I want to be a better golfer. Meaning I would like for the ball to go where I would like for it to go, which means I want to be controlling, manipulative, and overpowering.”
The therapist’s job is to help the client realize that their solution is impossible and that they need to be kind, curious, thoughtful, loving, and caring toward themselves.
You make that sound so bad. Do you know how difficult it is for me, someone who is constantly striving to be the best version of myself? I always feel a little uncomfortable because, truth be told, I don’t know if I’m putting the energy in a worthwhile place.
Of course not, because most of the time you’re not. I don’t even know where your energy goes because it seems like a worthy goal, betterment. The way we’re trained to do that is to break everything down into good, bad, right, and wrong. We live in this system of binary all-or-nothing choices.
We can agree garbage in, garbage out.
That needs to be completely blown up. That, “I want to be better in anything, it doesn’t matter.” Forget about being better. If you want to get better, this is a way that you can do it, but you won’t consider it better.
I got to challenge you there. I know you are a voracious reader. I know that you listen to quality material. I know you’re a fan of great music. I know you believe there are thought leaders and influencers out there that are worth listening to or being around. I believe in my heart that you appreciate some level of intellectual advancement, however you get it. Clearly, there’s value in quality input.
At this moment, I am the best version of me I can be. That doesn’t mean crap because what am I going to do with that? What’s anybody going to do with, “I’m better now?”
Constant Change And Self-Comparison
The reality is like the Chattahoochee River. You’re never standing in the same river twice. You’re never going to be exactly the human being that you are right this moment.
You’re never standing in the same river twice. You’re never going to be the same human being that you are right this moment.
What people are going to do with it is declare that the truth and the only truth, and then they’re going to turn and look at other people and go, “They’re not there. They’re not where I am.”
It’s me. That’s a different conversation because now we’re doing what-aboutisms and comparisons.
It is the water we swim in. We swim in a narcissistic culture that compares everything all the time. One of the most common issues my clients face no matter what they’ve come in here for is they compare themselves to everything else, which is vicious. You’re being vicious to yourself by comparing yourself to anything at all because there is no other view. The movie I saw was about James Webb, one of the scientists who was making this point.
We swim in a narcissistic culture that compares everything all the time. One of the most common issues my clients face is they compare themselves to everything else, which is vicious.
I thought you only watch cartoons.
Not anymore. I said Pixar movies.
You started with Inside Out. I’m like, “Here we go.” My bad. That was awesome.
We are literally made of stardust. I’ve said this for a long time because I figured that out.
Your favorite Sinatra album.
That’s Willie Nelson. There you go. Startup. Where was that going?
We were talking about input and thought leaders, and you had been exposed to someone who talked about stardust.
The culture we live in, in this narcissistic culture, encourages comparing, which is vicious. That’s not where I was. You compare yourself. You’re being vicious to yourself. You’re not being the least bit kind, compassionate, or curious. Whether you go, “I have or am more than that or less than that,” either way, it does the same thing. That’s why being positive makes me want to scream. If I’m feeling a little down, somebody tells me to be positive. They’re being vicious to me. They’re being cruel. They’re controlling and manipulative. They have a vision of me that they want me to be. They don’t want me to be what I am. They’re not at least a bit kind, curious, or compassionate about it.
Emotional And Personal Growth
When you go, “I want to be better,” who are you saying that to? One of the things I try to drill into my clients is, “You want every thought to be half of a conversation. That’s part of what therapy’s about.” I teach people to make every thought to be half of a conversation. If I go, “I’m better,” who am I saying that to? I’m saying that to some part of me. Get that other party involved in the conversation. What I hear you saying is, “You’re better compared to how I was a couple of months ago.” No doubt, good for you. Make sure that it’s not going to a place of, “I’m better now, and this is as common as dirt. I will always be this good. If I’m not at least this good, then I freaking suck, all or nothing.”
It’s like the weather in Atlanta.
“Better golf means scoring better. It felt easier for me.” That’s what you’re saying, and I want to explore that. If I explore it, I’m going to find that I feel bad about that or I don’t want to play at the level I’m at. Am I beating myself up somehow? I’ve got to find that out. If I am, beating myself up means beating up a part of myself because the person who does the beating is not beating themselves. You don’t beat yourself up. You beat up some other part of you, which is yourself, which you are beating yourself up. I got to find that part and apologize.
That part’s got to join the conversation, “That was mean, whatever it was, it hurt. I heard it was mean and it hurt. I don’t want you to talk to me like that. I fall off into this awful place because I need you.” “You fall off this awful place because you need me. I feel like if you’re being mean to me, I can’t be connected to you. I want to run away. That makes all the sense in the world, that you would feel like you can’t connect and you need me. I hear why that hurt you. I’m sorry. I cannot promise you I won’t do it again.”
That’s the first mistake a lot of people make. Don’t lie, “I promise you I won’t do that again. I promise you, though, I will do my best to be more aware of it.” That’s what we’re after here in therapy. That’s what therapy is. I’ll be more aware of it and catch myself as soon as I can. I’ll apologize. If I don’t, please keep speaking up to me, and I’ll ask you to be as patient as you can.” You want me to speak up and let you know if you miss it. You want me to be patient. That makes sense because you’re not going to be fixed and change overnight and never say anything bad.
I can shorthand it. You are worried about being a sucky person and nobody’s ever going to want you, love you, or care about you, and your clients will quit coming to see you. Your wife will leave you. Your friends won’t want to have anything to do with you. You can’t even make a new friend or get a new job. They’re going to go, “We’ve already heard about you. You are the lead story on the news. You suck. I don’t want anything to do with you. You’re going to become a homeless person. You’re going to struggle on the streets as you can’t handle being a homeless person. You know, you’re a privileged White dude. You’re going to get out there, and eventually, you know you’re going to die. You suck so bad that the other homeless people will step over your dead lifeless body. They don’t even care. That’s what you worry about?”
“I’m back there again. I’ll be right there with you when it happens,” then we laughed about it because we’ve done this so often that we know the other side cares. When meanness happens, because it will, mistakes will happen. I get to a place where that other part knows, “I don’t want to be that way, and that I want to get better and I’m going to get better by being aware, acknowledging it, being who I am. That was me.” You can call that being better than I do that.
That was some golden nuggets right there. That was some good value.
This is a key. I’m not better because I set a goal of being better. That’s where you get off track. You set the goal. This is an ancient philosophy. I didn’t make this up. In the end, only kindness matters. People go, “I’m supposed to be kind all the time.” I go, “Yeah, tell me a moment where you should be kind.” “Somebody comes up and they’re going to stab me to death. I shouldn’t. I should be kind.” “Kind to yourself, which means protect yourself. That’s kindness. Kindness toward the other person. If you were some Buddhist or monk that completely experienced nirvana or whatever, you could feel kindness toward this person whose life is such that this is where they wound up. You could do that in a nanosecond. Instead of your first instinct must be, ‘I have to kill them,’ it is like, ‘How can I disarm them? How can I get out of the way?’”
In the end, only kindness matters.
I had a martial arts instructor tell me that one of the first things you learn in martial arts is if somebody comes at you to attack, you have to step out of the way. If you can get out of your way, their momentum probably can’t follow you. Get out of the way. If you have to engage, what martial arts teaches is to help them to the ground, not beat them up and destroy them. That’s not what it’s about. Kindness.
Not controlling. You’re allowing.
This memory popped into my mind. The movie Saving Private Ryan and the emotion attached to that movie is huge. I am fascinated by World War II. I got to stand on the beach of Normandy with a group of about six tourists. We were all by ourselves. It was awesome. There’s a particular scene in that movie where one of the Americans gets separated from his group, and he winds up in this abandoned building. Unbeknownst to him, there’s a German soldier in that building who apparently experienced the same thing.
My recollection of the scene is when they see each other, it sure looks to me like they both are going, “No,” because neither of them wants to get killed or be killed. All of their training says other-kill. There’s this beautiful pause before the struggle starts, and the struggle goes on for a while. In my recollection, it sure looks like they choreographed it in a way where they were showing that neither one wanted this to end in death, but what are you going to do? Eventually, the German soldier gets the advantage, and he’s on top of the American, and he’s got a knife in his hand.
Life’s Biggest Lessons
He doesn’t just whale off on the guy. He holds him down, and he’s holding the knife. Again, there’s this pause. He places the knife on his chest right over his heart. He does it very slowly because, in my mind, you can feel him wrestling with his own humanity. He doesn’t want to do this, then eventually he pushes the knife into it as it pains him to know when to do it he sits there with the American while he dies. That’s kindness. He killed the guy. How do you go? He’s kind to him. It’s kindness. We are not going to overcome our training. One of the huge lessons of therapy is to learn to live in a way that you can be there and not try to run away from anything. The toughest one is when you feel hopeless, helpless, and powerless.
One of the most valuable lessons any person can learn is to sit with hopelessness, helplessness, powerlessness, to be with it, and to know that that is the situation. If you are good at that, then you’ve learned one of life’s biggest lessons, and a lot of philosophy will tell you this is the ultimate learning to learn to deal with your own death because you’re hopeless, helpless, and powerless about that. It is going to happen, which is why most of us don’t deal with it directly, “I know I’m going to die. See how I push it away?
That soldier, both of them were hopeless, helpless, and empowered. We’re not going to overcome our training. This is the only way this is going to end. I don’t want it to, you don’t want it to, but we can’t communicate that to each other. I don’t know that if we could, we would even agree. This is where it winds you. If I am the one who gets the advantage, I’m going to carry out the inevitable as kindly as I can. It was not a brutal snap.
No, it’s paradoxical in a way that was beautifully illustrated. I too love that film. I too love history. We could definitely talk about that again. That was an amazing interpretation and analogy to our conversation that once again, has me somewhat in awe of you. You are bringing a level of kindness, empathy, compassion, and curiosity to therapy for everyday life I know this one, and I know all of our listeners and viewers, if you’re not moved a little bit by what you experienced on this episode, then maybe it’s not the therapy you need, but some cardiac surgeon, I’m not sure. This has been one of the best hours of my life. This has been another outstanding episode.
We’ll be coming at you again to tie a bow on this conversation, as well as take it one logical step forward. If you have any questions, comments, or something moved in this episode, a story you’d like to share, a question you’d like to pose, or something you’d like us to answer on air, put it in the comments. We definitely will in a future meeting or gathering together. We’re going to talk to you soon.
Thanks for the kind words. Keep those cards and letters coming.
Great job. Bye, everybody.
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