Wk7 Assignment 1 6650 Paper

VICTOR YALOM: Hello, I’m Victor Yalom. I’m pleased to be here today with Dr. Irvin Yalom. He’s made outstanding contributions to the field of group and existential psychotherapy. He’s also written many books, both fiction and nonfiction, all revolving around psychotherapy themes. He’s also my father. Good to be here. IRVIN YALOM: Good to be here for me, too. VICTOR YALOM: In a few minutes, we’re about to see two demonstration groups that were filmed at the American Group Psychotherapy Association annual conference here in San Francisco. Prior to the groups, in your opening remarks, you set the stage for them, so we don’t need to do that here, but suffice it to say that the groups are inspired by your novel, The Schopenhauer Cure, which is really set in group therapy. And the groups are led by Molyn Leszcz, who is your co-author of the fifth edition of your text, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. Now, that’s a big book, over 600 pages, so we can’t do justice to it here. But I think it would be helpful if you could summarize the core principles of your model of group psychotherapy. IRVIN YALOM: Basically, I want to make the point–and I do in there–that we’re really talking about group therapies. There are a tremendous number of different types of group therapies–more, it seems, every year–and we do talk about that in the text. But, this type of group that we’re going to be looking at today, I feel, is the central model of group therapy. And we can change it in many different ways to fit different clinical situations, different clinical populations, but primarily, it’s an interpersonal group. This is a group where we’re making the assumption–and it’s an assumption I believe very much–that people come to see us, for the most part, because they can’t establish and maintain nurturing, ongoing interpersonal relationships. VICTOR YALOM: Right. And when you say people come to see “us,” you’re meaning any therapist; not a group therapist, an individual therapist. IRVIN YALOM: Exactly. Any therapist. VICTOR YALOM: Even if they’re depressed or anxious, it often revolves around interpersonal themes, breakups– IRVIN YALOM: Exactly. Interpersonal isolation causes depression, and then depression makes that even worse. In the group, we focus very much on trying to change people’s interpersonal relationships. We try to do this quite directly by focusing on the relationships between people in the group. So this means–and this is what you’re going to see in these next two meetings–this means the group is focused very much on relationships between one another. VICTOR YALOM: This is what you call the here-and-now. IRVIN YALOM: Exactly, the here-and-now. These two groups stay very much in the here-and-now. You won’t hear people talking about the past very much, although sometimes that’s important for some period of time. But you don’t hear people talking about their outside lives. The great majority of the talk in these groups is on the relationships between the people. VICTOR YALOM: Now, of course, when you do this, or you explain it to people in preparation for a group, that seems somewhat counterintuitive to people, because they say, “Well, I’m not here to work on my relationships with people in the group. I’m here to make these changes in my life.” IRVIN YALOM: Right. Some of them won’t even know what you’re talking about. “I’ve got a problem with my boss. What’s talking about my relations with these people I’ll never see again?” But we have to disabuse them of that, and educate them about that. We do that throughout the group, but especially in the early preparatory meetings. We tell them, in effect, that the group is a kind of social microcosm. And by that, we mean that the group is a micro-representative of all kinds of outside issues that you’re going to encounter. With that patient you just mentioned, if you’re having trouble with the boss, great chances are you’re going to have some issues going on with someone in the group who you feel is very aggressive or authoritarian. VICTOR YALOM: Or if you’re a people-pleaser, and you take care of other people but never get your own needs met, that’s going to get reenacted in the relationships in the group. IRVIN YALOM: Absolutely. And the job of the therapist is to begin to call attention to that. “You know, I have a feeling you’re doing here what you’re doing out there.” Or if a person is self-effacing or if a person is grandiose or if a person is monopolistic or has no empathy for others, all these traits will unfold in a group that’s not relatively structured, and will go on for long periods of time. VICTOR YALOM: Providing that the therapist does his or her job, which is to focus the group on the relationships in the group. IRVIN YALOM: Right. And that’s the therapist’s main job in this group: to keep the group focused on the here-and-now. VICTOR YALOM: And that’s a hard skill to learn. IRVIN YALOM: It is. It is a complex group, and it takes a lot of learning. And it’s far more difficult to learn than you have a manual that tells you what to do [at that meeting] and certain kinds of homework. You really have to deal with any kind of issues that are presented by the group. VICTOR YALOM: All right. So, now, as we watch the first group, what should the viewer be looking for to get the most out of it? IRVIN YALOM: Well, look, for one thing, what the leader does. But, you know, these patients have already been trained. They’ve been in the group for quite a while, some of them for quite some time. So look what’s happening. See if the group stays in the here-and-now. Take a look at what happens with disclosure, when people disclose themselves. See how the therapist keeps the themes going in the group. See how much the therapist discloses about himself. Then there’s an unusual situation in this group. Take a look at what the presence of death–in that the leader himself has a fatal disease–what that is beginning to do to people. VICTOR YALOM: Okay, so let’s watch the group, and then you and I will reconvene afterwards. IRVIN YALOM: Glad to. I’m really looking forward to this afternoon. And I don’t know how many times I’ve said that to audiences without really meaning it. This time, I really mean it. I am very excited about this. How rare is it? In fact, it may be unique. This is the first time in history anything like this has been done, where a novelist gets to see his characters come alive; not coming alive in a screenplay or movie, which is more or less following the script of the book, but the characters that are created in my novel are just cut loose, like Pinocchio. And they may follow some things in the book, but the instructions are just to take off. No one will lead them. I told them all, “Don’t worry. Wherever you go or whatever track you do, Molyn will bring you back, as a good group therapist will.” So, they’re not going to follow the script of the book, with this one exception. The first meeting is going to start at a certain time in the book, and I need to give you some backstory. Wk7 Assignment 1 6650 Paper

IRVIN YALOM: This is the same group about four meetings later. JULIUS: Good to see everybody. TONY: Good to be back. BONNIE: Good to see you. STUART: You look well, Julius. BONNIE: You do. JULIUS: Yeah? Well, I’m feeling not too badly. Have you been–it’s interesting, Stuart, that you commented about that. I appreciate that. STUART: I think that we all think about you quite a bit. And your situation. JULIUS: How do you feel about that? STUART: A little nervous. It’s difficult. And I believe we said several weeks ago that we were going to try to talk about that a little bit more directly. And I don’t know that we have. PAM: I think I have seen a lot of different words around Julius’ illness, situation. Everybody seems to–how do you feel about that, Julius? JULIUS: I’m not sure about your question, Pam. What are you asking me? PAM: Julius has cancer and that is devastating. And somehow we tend to use different words. You just used “situation.” I have heard other people say “illness.” I want to check in with people. TONY: I’m fine with whatever we say as long as it’s not confusing. JULIUS: You have been feeling confused? TONY: Just sometimes I don’t understand what everybody is talking about. I don’t know how to put it. Always on the spot. I don’t want to talk about it right now. JULIUS: You say you don’t want to talk about “it” right now. What’s the “it?” TONY: Sometimes, especially recently with Philip, he uses a lot of terminology that is difficult for me to understand. It’s just hard to put my head around things sometimes. I just feel dumb sometimes. But you guys know that. REBECCA: No. PAM: Tony, sometimes you say the most straight from the hip, pivotal thing to people. TONY: That’s good to know. REBECCA: And I think it is hard for all of us to wrap our minds around somebody who has cancer. TONY: Yeah, I think I was just saying that whatever the word is, like melanoma, malignant, things like that were just kind of always–it took me awhile to kind of get my head around it. JULIUS: Well it has taken me a bit of time to get around it, too. TONY: I bet. JULIUS: And I–I’m glad in some ways, Stuart, that you led the meeting off with asking me about that because, as we have been talking this last while, for you to go to feelings is not an easy thing. What is it like for you to tell me that you are concerned about me? STUART: Well, I am. I’m definitely concerned. I know we all are. And this group is certainly a place where we can come to talk to one another and I worry about that being upset. And I also know that you are responsible for bringing us here together. So I have a lot of gratitude. JULIUS: Concern. Gratitude. Feels good for me to hear. Obviously I want to know that what I do is of value. TONY: Helps me out a lot. Well, you know, all of you help me out a lot. But like I said a few sessions ago, just, I don’t know, without this group I wouldn’t have a touchstone to be able to kind of vent or have just a place to kind of depressurize, you know? This is good. It’s simple. JULIUS: Simple? TONY: It is just easy here. Not easy. What the fuck am I trying to say? I feel like I get to come here and work on just letting out things that are pent up or hearing other people let it out. And for me that is like, I don’t know, it adds something because it’s like I am learning from all of you how to do that better. Sometimes I feel pent up. JULIUS: How has Tony been doing? STUART: Well, if you remember early on in our time together, Tony seemed to be getting in fights a lot. That hasn’t happened for awhile, so that’s good. REBECCA: We have also been confronting people about their own shit, which has been really good. Like Philip a couple of weeks ago who wasn’t, who isn’t responding a lot directly, and you confronted him on that, and I think that was really important. TONY: Speaking of which, she just said he didn’t and then he isn’t. How does that make you feel, Philip? PHILIP: I am wondering if you are accurately interpreting my actions. I don’t pretend to behave in a manner that is normal for everyone else. This is part of what makes me an individual and unique human being. It is part of what makes me myself. So please, I would suggest you to listen to my words and this should accurately reflect my position in the group and my place and the contributions that I am making. That I don’t engage your eyes is not that my eyes aren’t engaged, they are just engaged inwardly. TONY: Inwardly. Because I just ask because she is saying that you aren’t being engaging, and sometimes you aren’t. I mean you shoot your philosophy to us often enough and it’s helpful. But you just seem really cold sometimes, you know? And I think that affects all of us here. PHILIP: You find that coldness discomfiting? TONY: I–yeah. REBECCA: I’m personally, to be candid, wondering how in the hell you picked up girls in bars. Right? I’m not trying to take a jab. I’m just–who are you, compared to–? PHILIP: Well, first of all I am not that same gentleman. The person that I became thanks to the great works of the philosophers that are my guide, was the one who I was allowed to develop this disattachment which I am finding that you are misunderstanding. It is a way–Throwing your feelings out upon the ground for all to judge and look at is only one way. I have a different way of being in the world. And I feel it is, I think strongly, it has been of great benefit to myself. TONY: How does that look? PHILIP: How does what look? TONY: The way you are being of great benefit to yourself? It just sounds like–I don’t know, I almost feel a little bit judged at the way that we come to this group and we do express ourselves and you saying that there are other ways. Of course you have a different way. STUART: But it does seem that Philip has offered many contributions that have been helpful to some of us. Whether you feel warmly about him as a person or not, whether I do, seems off the point a little bit. TONY: Fair enough. PAM: Yeah, but putting in philosophical interjections about things is not risk-taking at all for this person. This person has spent his entire life detaching from the world and, and has stated here–and this is what I don’t understand, Julius–has stated here that his whole point of life is to not make contact with people. And yet he is in this group. I don’t understand that, and I continue not to understand it. I think it’s fine to have philosophical statements, improve us and give us thoughts about how we might change, but what is that really doing? PHILIP: What you criticize is exactly what I have to offer the world. If I may connect the dots for you. I am here as a student. What I am here a student of is to do Julius’s job as a therapist, as a counselor, to advise others. My method does not happen to be of the same ilk. It is not the same method. That is how I am unique. That is what I have to offer the world–an objective, philosophical approach. It is not different and differences often are threatening to people and I understand that and I am prepared for the consequences. But I stand by my differences because I stand by this point of view as being the right one for me and for many others, as others in the group, Pam, have said it has helped them. JULIUS: How are people feeling? BONNIE: I have a question to ask Philip, and I am curious about that your eyes are turned inward. And I wonder how you feel about what you see inside of you, because as we all felt you were such a help to us and then with the revelation of how you treated Pam, I wonder what you feel about yourself? Would you look yourself in the eyes? TONY: Any guilt? PHILIP: Many years ago I tore myself from the attachments of public opinion. BONNIE: What about your own opinion of yourself? PHILIP: My own opinion is based upon my intellectual analyses, my personal faculties, and I would not be here–If I believed I was behaving erroneously I would behave differently. So obviously I feel that this is a very helpful way for me to behave and I have the belief that I have something to offer to others. JULIUS: Philip, I think you may be missing something here. People are not asking you–I think Bonnie is asking a question about how you make sense of your behavior toward Pam 15 years ago. Am I right, Bonnie? Is that what you were asking about? PHILIP: It’s no secret. I have addressed that I was a sexual addict 15 years ago. It is not something that I am proud of. Indeed, as you have noticed, I have worked very hard to develop how I am today, which is in a direct response to that addiction. And I am a little bit confused in some ways with the vehemence of Pam’s reaction, since she went quite willingly into a social interaction with myself in which we interacted and went our separate ways. PAM: We interacted and went our separate ways? PHILIP: We did. Am I in error? PAM: He just called the fact that he fucked me and devirginized me a “social interaction.” I mean how cold is that? PHILIP: Do you prefer the term “fuck” to “interaction”? Are yours more–how is “fuck” better than “interaction?” PAM: You are talking about manipulating a girl of 18 who was not only just vulnerable to men but vulnerable to her teacher. PHILIP: Behavior which I have since fixed. PAM: And you manipulated that status and you took me and you had sex with me. And you not only had sex with me– PHILIP: You had sex with me, too. PAM: But you dropped me. REBECCA: I’m feeling very uncomfortable. Wk7 Assignment 1 6650 Paper