Clients need to see that the therapist rejoices in their success. For healthy development, children need parents to rejoice in their achievements. Why, then, are we adults often afraid to show our feelings and deliberately show restraint? The psychotherapist and writer Joseph Bourbo reflects on this.
My client Ari recently got married. Given his family history, and in light of the bleak prognosis given to him by a previous psychotherapist, this is an exceptionally important and exciting event. But in our sessions leading up to the wedding ceremony, Ari seemed completely emotionless, which I told him. Nothing in him betrayed the joy that I thought he should have felt.
I tried to help him feel happy, and in the course of the conversation put forward versions of why this might cause him difficulty. I myself was very touched by his upcoming wedding, although I did not tell him anything about it. Toward the end of our hour-long meeting, Ari said, “You are trying to help me access a sense of joy. But don’t say you’re happy for me.»
Now I don’t remember how we came up with this topic and why my feelings mattered to him, but it made me think. He needed to feel that I was happy for him. This episode haunted me for a while.
In some cases, clients need you to express your feelings and «activate» their joy.
The term «activated» goes back to the theory of affects and to the role played by the mother, who can either weaken or increase the manifestation of various affects (both negative and positive) in the child. In the psychoanalytic paradigm, we talk about the «containment» of emotions, when we help the client to withstand his emotions and understand them. This is a neutral position that does not involve you opening up your feelings and thus «turning up the volume» of the client’s emotions.
I devoted the remaining minutes of that session to trying to convey to Ari what I felt, hoping in this way to help him feel a deeper sense of joy. It’s hard to say how much it worked, given that I came into the game too late. Later, I began to catch myself telling the client something like: “I’m happy for you! I know how difficult it was for you, and how great it is that this and that happened, that you achieved this and that. And sometimes, in a completely unprofessional way, I can exclaim: “Cool!” And this is not a strategy of psychological «intervention» at all — I really feel it. And if I am touched to the depths of my soul, tears well up in my eyes.
Given my psychoanalytic background, this is «unorthodox» to put it mildly and does not at all resemble the so-called «blank screen» that a psychoanalyst should serve for the client’s projections. And in this regard, I thought about how parents express their admiration for certain achievements of their child.
Personally, I can remember applause, laughter and enthusiastic praise when my children began to roll over on their own or took their first steps. Children tend to feel satisfaction and joy when they cope with the next challenge; and it’s good when parents at this moment join the child and can thus «adjust» his emotions and «activate» children’s joy.
I believe—and the latest neuroscience research confirms this—that such displays of joy in the parent-child relationship are essential for healthy brain development in children.
Ari’s mother was (and still is) hyper-anxious, so she could hardly ever express joy at his accomplishments. He and I spent a lot of time talking about how her condition affected his development, how he was «irradiated» and «poisoned» by her anxiety. But we did not discuss with him that she did not know how to be happy for him. And this seems to be a critical moment.
If in childhood we tend to rejoice in our achievements, then, as adults, we emphasize restraint
I have had many clients who grew up with this kind of emotional deficit. And looking at them, I realized that it is very important for the therapist to rejoice in the success of clients and express this joy, which indirectly speaks of our attachment to them. This is the most important factor contributing to emotional growth in psychotherapy.
Our society has problems expressing joy. Instead of activating it, we prefer to mute it. We tell kids things like, «Calm down,» «Okay, okay, that’s enough.» I don’t know why joy scares us so much. But if in childhood we tend to rejoice in our achievements, then as we grow up, we emphasize restraint. A stormy expression of joy over success is sometimes called boasting. And we criticize children for being too expressive.
I recently did an interview on the radio and after that I got calls from friends who were listening to the show. They said it was great that I was on a roll. I myself was pleased, it seemed to me that this was the best interview in my life, but the praise of my friends inspired me even more. I just beamed with happiness. They activated my joy and helped me feel it more deeply. I think we all should remember this and practice this “activation” of joy more often.