Maybe it’s the confidential nature of a therapy session between a patient and a professional that makes the concept of them so intriguing.
What do they talk about? What questions elicit the most thoughtful answers? How does the therapist begin to draw a patient out of themselves?
It’s with this in mind that psychotherapist Susie Orbach set to work on a Radio 4 series called In Therapy.
Using six relatively unknown actors who were each given a brief back story (there’s a young couple about to become parents for the first time, a high achiever who feels empty, and an older man who misreads Orbach’s professional interest in him), she conducted therapy sessions on air, keeping the experience as close to the real thing as possible, without breaking any confidentiality clauses.
This then, is the transcripts of those radio programmes, with Orbach’s thoughts interspersed in the text.
What’s most interesting is reading the reasons behind Orbach’s approach with her different patients and seeing how she adapts her style to best suit them.
She admits where she wishes she’d rephrased a question or why she has left more silence than you might expect, giving a real insight into the skills and ambidexterity needed to be a therapist.
And like all good books on the human condition, reading the sessions it’s easier to see the commonalities than the differences at the core of each of the problems.