00:00I'm Michael Goulding and I'm a retired psychotherapist and I also do some training
00:06work for the Complex Trauma Institute, mostly training psychotherapists about the fear system.
00:13Fear in the Therapy Room, it grew out of a series of papers I wrote for the Complex Trauma Institute
00:20and workshops I've been running since 2019 about the fear system and the way it affects therapists.
00:31I think therapists think a lot about the fear system as far as their clients are concerned
00:36and what sort of a state that the clients might be in, but actually clients and therapists respond
00:42to each other in the room. I've put it in the book, it's like two stringed instruments resonating.
00:50So if a client is in a, I call it fear arousal, most people would know as a sort of
00:58fight-flight
00:58type of state, it actually affects the therapist too. So it kicks off the therapist's fear system.
01:04And sometimes therapists think they shouldn't be feeling like that, you know, that they're not
01:10good enough therapists. And what I'm saying is, it's completely normal. In ordinary life,
01:16we are kicking off other people's fear responses, or we're helping to regulate other people's responses
01:22all the time. So it's about just how that interweaves with therapy and how to understand
01:28it. So people aren't afraid of their own fear responses. We all absolutely need our fear system.
01:33None of us would be alive without a fear system. But when it activates too often or for too long,
01:41we get to a place where we get stuck. So that the biological mechanism to switch it off, stop working.
01:48So I call that being stuck in fear mode. And that condition of being stuck in fear mode is what
01:55underlies just about all the things that people come to therapy for. Lots of things have got worse,
02:01and people think there is more mental health as if the individuals have a mental health problem.
02:06And actually, it's, it's, it's our disordered society that needs fixing, that is making people,
02:13making people feel bad. So one of the really important things I think about therapy is not to
02:19pathologize the person that comes to see, you know, oh, you are ill, there's something ill with you.
02:24But to actually see the context that they're in, sometimes it's about, you need to get out of that
02:29workplace. You know, that's doing you no good. It's doing no one any good. Find, find a workplace
02:34that actually keeps you healthy. It's almost like a subject that grabbed me, and I haven't been able
02:41to let it go yet. So the book in a way is like me dumping what's been on my mind
02:48over 30 years.
02:49If someone is looking for a therapist, they have to, they have to find someone that suits and not
02:54everyone will suit, even though it could be a great therapist who would help other people,
02:58it might not help you.
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