“Getting YOU in Your Work”
Over the past year and a half, my journey with Relational Psychodynamic Therapy (RPT) has revolved around the empowering concept of “getting YOU in your work.”
But what does this mean?
In many training modalities, we are often taught that what we feel and subjectively experience as we sit with our clients is our own “stuff” getting in the way of us accurately attuning to and understanding our clients. In response, we often disown what we truly feel with our clients and are left attempting to portray a “therapeutic” stance that at times feels utterly disconnected from what is actually going on inside of us as we relate.
Relational Psychodynamic Therapy has invited me to take a different stance. Namely, one that invites the wholeness of my experience as I sit with my clients and then invites me to ask the question, “In light of that, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING between my clients and me?” Let me tell you, I am finding so much vitality spending less time trying to be a certain way with my clients and spending more time:
- Being more and more open to what comes up in me as we relate.
- Asking, “What the hell is happening” in regards to how their story and my story are colliding as we interact.
- And then play with how I could possibly bring this experience to them directly and then process whatever emerges after I bring my experience to them.
Vitality Comes From Leaning In, Not Out
What if the response to the exhaustion, boredom, rage, impotence, and stagnation we feel in this sacred work is not primarily a process of adding more boundaries, self-care, etc. (although it can be in some ways)? What if the call is actually to LEAN IN, to show up, to be more awake to ourselves in our work and to our life, and how that process is what enlivens the work?
I’m convinced that a huge part of my burnout was caused by a lot of training (both clinically and in life) that got me out of my body, my gut, and my intuitions, and trained me to primarily “think” my clients rather than “feel” them, and bring my felt sense to them to play with together. To be clear, “thinking”, understanding, and analyzing are extremely important. But I have appreciated the call back to what the feeling is that inspired the thinking as it tends to get me more “in” to what is happening in the relationship and thus to what truly is alive in the here and now.
When we take time to find those spaces, to tell the truth about how we feel with our clients through RTP, and then explore and even acknowledge these interactions, we create a ripple effect of vitality that can transform not only our practice but the lives of those we work with. The Relational Psychodynamic Therapy approach doesn’t just refresh the therapeutic process; it revitalizes us as therapists, allows us to inspire our clients, and extends that positive energy into the broader community.
We Need Other Hearts and Minds to Find Our Own
To be a therapist is to know the loneliness of our work.
It is subjective, highly abstract, and can often lead us profoundly isolated in carrying the wounds, traumas, and complex stories of the people we work with.
A core idea within Relational Psychodynamic Therapy is the necessity of having other hearts and minds to help us find our own. This is why the RPT program is designed to be delivered through consultation groups in which actual cases are brought, felt by the group, and then worked together. These groups are called MAMAL groups- which stands for Muse, Affect, Metabolization, Articulation, and Learning.
I will break down each of the elements of MAMAL groups further in future posts but I will say that being a part of my own MAMAL group has been enlivening and healing. It is designed so that each member imagines what it would feel like to work with your own client (muse and affect), and these insights are then brought together and begun to be “thought” of how the feelings that have emerged relate to the client’s story and what is happening between therapist and client (metabolization). A role play then occurs where one group member “articulates” a felt affect and its possible connection to the client’s story to another group member who embodies the client and responds. This process of interaction in the role play then invites further affect, metabolization, and articulations.
It’s hard to describe the relief of not being the only one to feel my clients.
Watching other members resonate with what I feel, but also add to the feelings that I had hunches about but hadn’t put into words really brings a deep appreciation for the individuality and experience of every MAMAL group member. This then highlights the point that paying attention to what I feel with my clients is helpful and can be deeply enriched when I can bring those experiences to a group to have them expand the experience even further.
Summary
- Relational Psychodynamic Therapy (RPT) is about “Finding ways in” to what is happening in the self of the therapist and how that connects to what is happening in the client’s story and in the therapeutic relationship.
- Not being “in” your work is utterly exhausting and many therapists have been trained in their modalities and life to not value their own subjective experience.
- We need other hearts and minds to find our own. MAMAL consultation groups are a way for clinicians to both expand their own hearts and minds and of their peers,