I have been obsessively watching the Olympic Games in Milan/Cortina. The ability of professional athletes who have trained throughout their lives to make unbelievably difficult physical feats appear effortless is thrilling. When medal winners are asked by reporters, “How did you perform so well under the pressure of the Olympics?” the athletes say, “We just go out there and enjoy ourselves.” In brain language, they let their right brains be in the forefront, while their left-brain training is in the background.
In Neurodynamic Couples Therapy, the therapist’s right brain needs to be actively engaged, with our left-brain knowledge of psychological theories and formulations supporting but not controlling our experience of being with a couple. We all spend many years in training learning complex and eloquently described diagnoses and methods. It’s very hard to give them up in exchange for respecting the right-brain-to-right-brain communication that is the heart and soul of human relationships. The word that is currently in vogue to describe this right-brain experience is “flow.” It is the opposite of left-brain constriction that can block genuine whole-body understanding.
A therapist who is allowing their left brain to be in charge is thinking too much. Silently wondering, “What should I say next? How can I stop these people’s pain? How can I get them to change their behavior?” interrupts the experience of being with two other human beings in a process of mutual knowing. If the therapist’s internal experience of the session is too involved in worrying about performing as a good therapist, they miss important internal signals that are coming from the clients’ right brains. Sometimes these signals can only be received through the therapist’s feelings, impressions, and bodily reactions, in other words, their right brain.
Right brain signals can generate curiosity within the therapist that then directs exploration. Statements like “I just felt a chill when you described the way your father reacted to your birthday. Do you have any idea what that’s about?” invite all three people in the room to translate their right-brain experience into the left-brain words that generate a whole-brain understanding of historical losses, wounds and traumas. The left-brain part of understanding is verbal and cognitive; the right-brain part is empathy. Both are necessary for integrating personal and interpersonal pain into a growth-oriented relationship.
Focusing on the right-brain experience of treating couples is what makes it enjoyable. Many of the students of Neurodynamic Couples Therapy are now saying that they never knew treating couples could be so enjoyable — enjoyable! not scary, drudgery, a source of self-doubt, a downhill slide into feelings of failure. Actually enjoyable!
Accomplishing this state requires preventing the left brain from getting triggered into thinking too much. Maintaining the right-brain enjoyment is enhanced by focusing on only two techniques: 1) following threads of dialogue to use the clients’ words for further exploration; and 2) listening carefully for the appearance of the precise words from both partners’ stories that ignite feelings within the therapist.
Next post: Following threads