Can a Good Psychologist Take Away the Guilt? . . .
The Case of the Guilty Boss . . .
There are a lot of notions out there about what happens in a session with a psychologist. The most common stereotype is that a client sits down with a psychologist, pours out a story, and the clinician asks, “How does that make you feel?”
Now that’s not a bad question. If the person asking “How does that make you feel?” is your spouse, land a big old kiss. He or she is one in a million. But if that person is a psychologist, tread carefully.
If “How does that make you feel?” is the therapist’s whole package, more sessions just might make your life worse. How is that possible?
- Validating your feelings is okay as a starting point, but in the long run, is not as important as skillfully enabling you to see experiences with greater objectivity. It is essential that the therapist listen without judgement but it is not helpful for him/her to tell you that your version of the world is the one and only objective version.
The guilty boss ended up in my office after he’d shared with a friend that he was so plagued with guilt that he wasn’t feeling as positive about himself as he usually did. The friend suggested a psychologist. According the boss man, the troubled emotions he hoped I could make disappear resulted from a habit he’d developed over the previous year. Thursday afternoons were set aside by the university for the boss to prepare for Friday departmental staff meetings. However, instead of using Thursday afternoons working on the agenda, the boss admitted he was meeting up with a mistress.
Okay. You are probably thinking like I was—that the painful guilt the boss wanted to make disappear was generated by his infidelity. Like me, you’d be wrong. What he felt guilty about was that, due to lack of preparation, the staff meetings he led were disorganized and frustrating for him and those he was responsible to lead. His evaluation was due the next month and he was worried that his supervisor had noticed the drop-off in his leadership.
The boss man’s hope was that he could pay my fee and continue his routine minus the annoying guilt. There are individuals who manage to live comfortably and make choices based entirely on their own point of view and self-interest, but these persons, convinced that no one has anything to offer beyond what they already know, do not usually show up for psychologist appointments. The boss did show up.
“Mostly,” the boss said, “it’s the evaluation I’m worried about and the guilt about taking Thursdays off.”
“So . . . you’re hoping a professional, such as myself, will agree that you ought to be able to fall short on your job and still feel as if you are not falling short on your job?”
“I do well at my job most of the time,” he said. “I’m just being too hard on myself.”
“Maybe. Could be your self-evaluations make sense and the plan that a professional such as myself can make the guilt evaporate is the crazy part. I’m just guessing here, but in the occupations I know about– when you don’t do your job, people complain.”
“Oh,” he mumbled, the wheels behind his forehead turning. “I thought a therapist was supposed to make me feel better about myself.”
“There you go,” I said. “If it was my job to make you feel better about yourself by discounting reality, then it makes sense that when I do not do that, I’ll get complaints. Luckily, my job is not to create in you a whoosh of good feelings.”
The boss looked confused. “Therapy isn’t about emotions?”
“Emotions are great, but you don’t want feelings to make important decisions in your life. So, let’s agree that the guilt makes sense. What else have you been thinking about?”
