“I see the client as a child stuck in the past”

Richard Erskine conducted the workshop for the first time in Russia, but his books and method of integrative psychotherapy are well known to Russian psychologists. The approach is based on a simple idea: each of us needs relationships from childhood. But sometime a failure in contact with a significant other violated the integrity of the “I”. It can be restored with the help of contact between the therapist and the client.

Psychologies: You were a child psychologist who practiced client-centered therapy, gestalt therapy, psychoanalysis, transactional analysis. We created our own integrative approach. Tell me, which door should the client look through to get healed?

Richard Erskine: No need to pay attention to what school it is, what rules. You need to go to a meeting with a therapist and see a personality in him, understand what qualities he has: how consistent, respectful, stable, empathic he is, whether he can be relied upon, whether he is able to admit his therapeutic mistakes and change.

If he meets these criteria, then it does not matter whether he is a psychoanalyst, a Gestalt therapist or a shaman. It is not the school that heals, it is the qualities of the person and the therapeutic relationship that heal.

In my – integrative – approach, I always look at the age of the client who is stuck somewhere in the past at one of the stages of development. When he was hurt or rejected and abandoned.

This method is based on relationships. Therefore, we are constantly working on the quality of contact between the therapist and the client.

What do they come to you with most often?

My colleagues and I did a study 20 years ago at the Institute of Integrative Therapy in New York and concluded that, in fact, everything goes back to eight basic needs in a relationship and, accordingly, to their dissatisfaction.

I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like I’m recognized. I am not accepted for who I am. I cannot rely on you and draw strength and wisdom from you. You don’t start contact with me, you don’t come to me. You don’t let me protest and influence you. If I express my affection and love, then you are simply not there, you are absent. And finally, you are not with me, you do not accompany me, you are on a different wavelength, you are not attuned to me.

This happens when a mother sits down to play with a child, but at that moment she is not with him – she is on the phone, in her thoughts, on TV. In addition to parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, school friends have a very strong influence on us.

Is there an age when this influence weakens? Or are we “on a short leash” all our lives?

The aging process of my mother had a very strong influence on me, how she coped with it, how she managed her health, how she maintained her strength of mind, how she went to people. She lived to 87 years and 2 days. And 28 people came to her last birthday party, and the oldest of the guests was 60 years old, and the others were even less – 40 and 30 each.

This is the perfect model for aging: hanging out with young friends to keep you enthusiastic. And in fact, I look there, into the future, as a new adventure.

I think we need parents throughout our lives. But when we go to the kindergarten, we are interested in other children in the kindergarten. And we need other adults. A good teacher can fix a lot of things that have been damaged at home. Or a good home can undo the damage that the educator does.

Those children who are in pain both at home and when communicating with the teacher are in trouble. Then they turn to, for example, an uncle or grandmother, it is very important to have such a different adult.

And of course, the influence of adolescence cannot be underestimated. At this age, for example, for a girl, the cruel language of her peers is more terrible than a boy’s fist. Bruises heal faster than the pain of saying “you’re ugly.” What about first love? Is it a happy story or was it a shame?

All these levels of development and age are important. Eric Erickson wrote that the child and society go through the “ladder” of 8 stages of development. If termites have eaten a step, then we will inevitably “stumble” on it. The crises of my clients cause them to return to childhood.

It seems that everyone around us – and ourselves – is so traumatized that skillful therapy will bring tears to everyone.

Yes, there are many injured people. That is why the alcohol business is the most profitable in the whole world. This is the most common way people try to “treat” an injury. The second way is disputes and contradictions with those people who are closer to us than others.

The third is withdrawal: into ourselves, into the computer, the TV, where we hide. Often they try to drown out mental trauma with tranquilizers and painkillers. In America, it’s a national epidemic. Yes, they relieve pain, but they also change the personality. And they are addictive.

How can we protect our children from this?

If the children are 17-18, do not try to tell them what to do – they will try to go against the grain. Give them freedom. But if you try to sharply stretch the umbilical cord or even cut it off, they will react very negatively. Probably the best advice is to patiently stay available. Be with them and for them when they get into a crisis. And when there is no crisis, just be with them, listen to them.

This approach works not only with 18-year-olds, but also with eight-year-olds. Nothing is more important for a small child than the time to go to bed. What do parents and child do together for half an hour when he goes to bed? You can read bedtime stories, but you can also do nothing, just be with him. Ask your son or daughter quietly: how was your day? What was the best thing? What bad happened? How did the teacher treat you? How were those guys who didn’t talk to you before? What are you looking forward to tomorrow? What are you worried about?

In half an hour, of course, you won’t have time to ask everything. But make it a rule to ask one or two questions every evening. This is a very intimate time. If I, as a parent, could do something anew, I would make this time even more eventful than before. I worked late and my youngest daughter couldn’t sleep until I got home. She really needed me to sit next to her, hug her, talk to her.

In Russia, there are many adults who were “not hugged” in childhood. How important is tactile contact to a child?

Very important! One of the worst crazes of the 50s and 60s among psychologists and pediatricians was the theory of Dr. Benjamin Spock, known to you, which did a lot of trouble with several generations.

Her followers argued that it was necessary to put the child to bed, turn off the light, close the door and, no matter how much he cried, at least until morning, do not enter. I know that Russians have read his books. Of course, you take a lot from America. But do not use our bad practices and methods!

How do customers from the post-Soviet space differ from American and European ones?

They hide vulnerability and put on a mask of “everything is in order” – as if they still do not know who to trust, who will betray them tomorrow, at what moment they will be sent to Siberia. This is well described in Russian novels, especially in Solzhenitsyn.

In Russia there is a separate direction “Orthodox psychotherapy”. How does religion affect therapy?

Initially, religion is the very first psychotherapy. Before becoming a dogma, it was aimed at providing psychological assistance. Take, for example, the same 10 commandments – they are just about how to cope with difficulties, how to build relationships with yourself, with the world, with other people: do not lie, do not steal, do not have affairs with other people’s wives.

There is a confession in your Orthodox Church. If it becomes formal, rigid, rigid, then it loses its healing power. Good psychotherapy is somewhat like a confession: many clients confess to me what they have done to other people. But something else is also true: when psychotherapy, like religion, becomes a dogma, a set of rules and tools, it immediately loses receptivity to the true meaning of its faith.

Let me now “confess” to you: I very often pray right during therapy sessions, when I don’t know where to go, what to do. I ask you to show me the way and quite often I am surprised by the result.