November 14, 2023 • 58 mins
Adolescence can be a turbulent time full of big emotions, struggles with identity, and conflicts around independence. In this episode, licensed therapist Tyson Conner speaks with psychologist Don Schimmel about how psychodynamic psychotherapy can help teenagers navigate this critical developmental stage. They discuss important concepts like viewing symptoms as "coded communications," avoiding power struggles, and relating to teens through playfulness. Schimmel explains how therapy provides adolescents with a much-needed transitional relationship as they separate from dependence on parents. The therapists also talk about when psychodynamic therapy may not be the right approach, how to introduce reluctant teens to the idea of therapy, and what parents should expect from the process. If you have a troubled teen or just want to understand adolescent psychology better, don't miss this insightful chat.
Don Schimmel is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst based in Mountlake Terrace, Washington. He has over 50 years of experience working with adults, children, adolescents, families, and couples. He is a senior faculty member at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, teaching seminars on Self Psychology, Relational theory, Intersubjectivity, Freud, and Object Relations Theory. Don also leads classes on treating children, adolescents, and their parents and provides ongoing individual and group consultation to psychotherapists in the northwest.
For those interested in Don's classes, he regularly offers continuing education courses in child and adolescent psychotherapy and Self Psychology through the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study. If you have questions or would like more information, you can check the Alliance website course offerings or contact him directly at dschimmel@comcast.net
Further Learning:
The Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study
© Relational Psych 2023
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tyson Conner (00:11):
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Conner.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youfind some.
And today, my guest on thepodcast is Don Schimmel. Don
(00:52):
Schimmel is a clinicalpsychologist and psychoanalyst
based in Mountlake Terrace,Washington. He has over 50 years
of experience working withadults, children, adolescents,
families and couples. He's asenior faculty member at the
Seattle Psychoanalytic Societyand Institute teaching seminars
on self psychology, relationaltheory, intersubjectivity, Freud
and object relations theory. Donalso leads classes on treating
(01:15):
children, adolescents and theirparents, and provides ongoing
individual and groupconsultation to psychotherapist
in the northwest. Welcome to thepodcast.
Don Schimmel (01:25):
Thank you, good to be here.
Tyson Conner (01:27):
So today, we're going to be answering the
question, how can adolescentsbenefit from psychodynamic
psychotherapy? So what do youthink?
Don Schimmel (01:38):
I think, well, most adolescents that are
Tyson Conner (01:38):
A couple things that I want to clarify for the
struggling, well, they may notbe consciously aware of it, are
listeners that I think arerelevant from what you've said
usually struggling to separatein some ways from their parents.
If you think about it, kids, forthe first 11-12 years of their
already. Well, also, Listeners,I might get really excited this
(01:58):
lives are still very tied intotheir parents. And there is a
normal, as most people know, anormal period of time when
episode, because I love workingwith adolescents. And actually,
adolescents need to separate.
And there is no way of preparingadolescents for that -- some
adolescents have an easier timeit might be helpful for us to
define what we mean byand some have a more difficult
(02:19):
time. And so one of the waysthey benefit from psychotherapy
is, they have an opportunity toadolescence, especially in the
context of a psychoanalytic--it's a kind of specialized
relationship. It's differenttheory, because psychoanalysis
is a developmental theory. So wethan parents because unlike
parents, who are invested in aparental way and are easily
(02:41):
spooked and scared when they seethink about people in terms of
where they develop over thetheir kids moving away from them
and exploring things thatsometimes are a little, a little
dicey. That therapists, whilecourse of a lifespan, and what
sort of processes and emotionalthey're certainly susceptible to
having those feelings, becauseit's not our own kid, we're
(03:03):
usually able to sort of stepand cognitive things happen at
different stages of a person'sback and listen, in a very
unique way. And so one way ofthinking about the relationship
between an adolescent and alife. That's a big part of how
we think. And so adolescence is,psychodynamic therapy is that
the therapist is to theadolescent, the way that a
(03:23):
blankie is to a toddler, it's aat least to my mind, I'll give
you my definition. And maybe youtransit, we are a kind of
transitional figure or what theycall transitional object. And so
it's different in that sense. Iscan refine it because you've
been doing this longer than me.
that we helped to usher theminto adulthood.
(03:48):
But I think of adolescence, likeyou said, as being largely
Don Schimmel (03:50):
Absolutely. And one of the things you said,
which I completely agree with isthat it's a move away from the
defined by the period ofsomeone's life, where their
parents to the peer group, thepeer group becomes the group who
sense of self and sense ofidentity iss transitioning from
(04:14):
has the most amount ofinfluence, which is why so often
primarily being about theirrelationship to their parents,
parents, understandably, whenthey become alarmed, or
to being instead about a moreindependent kind of sense of
concerned about their teenagekids, at times want to control
(04:36):
self, and largely defined bytheir relationship to peers and
who it is that the adolescent ishanging out with, because the
to other cultural groups, subcultural groups. But it's about
adolescent has so much power andso much influence. Prior to
adolescence, even what we callpre adolescence, which is right
(04:57):
that process of separating fromprimarily being a member of the
around, 10-11-12, for somepeople, the parents influence is
family to primarily being sortof a, an adult who's defined by
still the most potent. And thecloser to around 14-15-16 years
(05:18):
other relationships.
old, the more parents havenothing intelligent to say to
their kids. And so it's trickywhen a teenager comes to see an
(05:38):
adult therapist, often they'llsay to their parents, and
they'll say to the therapist, tome is, why would I want to talk
to you when I can talk to myfriends? And one of the ways if
(06:04):
I can get into this a little bitis one of the ways that I
respond to that is not to getinto a power struggle over
whether that's true or not. Butto find a way of playfully
(06:28):
validating that by sayingsomething like why would you
want to talk to other adults,that doesn't know half as much
as your friends or something?
And that's a way ofcommunicating playfully, that I
(06:52):
take you seriously. And that Irespect the sort of place in
your development without sayingthat. And usually by not getting
into those sort of powerstruggles, what happens is that
(07:17):
kids are able to then over time,sort of, use me as a
transitional figure.
Tyson Conner (07:33):
So let's let's define that a little bit deeper,
that idea -- Listener if youwant to do some Googling, that
idea, I believe comes initiallyfrom Winnicott. Was an object
relations. psychoanalyst. Andhis idea of a transitional
object, let me see. It's been awhile since I thought about
this. So again, refine my roughdescription. The idea of a
(07:57):
transitional object, like thetoddler's blankie is a, an
object. And in this theory, anobject could be a literal,
physical object. And for thisanalogy, it'll be the blanket,
but it can also berelationships, or it can be
ideas, or group memberships. Soany kind of thing that has a
(08:18):
real importance in someone'smind is an object. Again, very
rough definition. But atransitional object is this
thing like the blankie, that issoothing, and comforting, and is
experienced as both an extensionof the self and separate from
(08:40):
the self at the same kind oftime. Your blankie, when you're
four is your blankie. And it's athing that you can carry around
and you can throw in the crib,if you want to, or you're
probably have a toddler, but atthat point, you can throw under
the bed, whatever. But if it'smissing and gone, there can be a
panic too, if you need yourblank. Because it's like it's a
(09:03):
part of you that's missing. Andit sounds like what you're
suggesting is that for anadolescent, they still need
transitional objects as theydevelop their sense of identity.
And they need those to be inrelationships with living
people, not just with objects orvideo games or whatever else.
And that a psychotherapist is ina position to be that
(09:28):
intentionally, someone that theycan talk to, someone they can be
themselves with, who's bothseparate from them and different
from them, but also someone whocan be at that close experience
of self that's so vulnerable,which is really scary,
especially for a lot ofadolescents.
Don Schimmel (09:48):
I'm glad you also -- help me guide me back to the
concept of the panic, because Ihave a, I have something that
sort of helps to validate thevery thing that you're saying.
But what I wanted to add to whatyou're saying was that yes, it
was it's Winnicott who talkedabout the transition object. One
(10:11):
of the things he said about theblankie is that the blankie is
imbued by the infant and childwith with the power of both the
self and other. That it isn'tspecifically a representation of
(10:34):
say, mom. It's a representationof mom with me. It is us, it is
us. And so that is the concept.
And it's the relationship thatit represents. And so what
happens is that they are takingthe relationship with them. And
(10:55):
when they're ready to give upthe blankie. Usually, whether
it's well not usually -- what itsuggests is that they are ready
to move beyond that stage, thatinfant toddler stage, when they
are... when they -- if you thinkabout the infant, the infant
knows no boundary, the infant isa is a -- in the mind of an
(11:18):
infant, the infant and Motherare extensions of each other.
And so there has to be sometransition away from that. And
if it's too abrupt, it can betraumatic and the child develops
what they call an insecureattachment. And so being able to
allow for, for transitionalobjects without questioning is
(11:41):
one of the things that when itgot really stressed is you don't
you don't question thetransition logic. You don't say,
you know that, that, that Mikeyrepresents us? You don't do
that? Something that just simplyhappens.
And, but what I was gonna sayabout the panic was that it's
(12:05):
interesting, because while Idon't work with a lot of little
kids anymore, I'm mostly workingwith the little kids who are now
teenagers. a lot of these peopleI started out with when they
were little, but what what Inoticed was that, that I imbued
(12:28):
the toys with magical powers thesame way that the kids did. And
so I noticed that if I would gointo my toy closet, and I
couldn't find a special toy, Iwould find myself panicking. And
I would stand back and why wouldI panic, these are just toys
well, they're not just toys.
They're imbued with magicalpowers. And so going back to our
(12:50):
lessons is, one of the thingsthat you never do with, with an
adolescent, for developmentalpurposes is that you never draw
attention to the relationshipunless they bring it up. And
this is different than, thanwork with, with, with little
(13:13):
kids and with adults, littlekids declare they love you, and
how important and how they needyou. Now they want to come in
every day. Some parents, someadults, come to consciously
value the relationship they havewith us. Adolescents are -- the
(13:35):
developmental imperative of anadolescent is I don't need
adults. I need my friends. Sothe last thing that the last
thing that I do, most adolescenttherapists hopefully is we don't
draw attention to therelationships. So for example,
if I'm going to take a vacation,and a teenager says to me that's
(14:01):
fine, good, I'm glad you'retaking vacation, I can get some
homework done or something. Idon't, I don't try to process
that with them. Because that'stoo close, I accept the idea
that they don't need to be withme. And I'll give you an example
of that. A great example, I oncesaw a years and years and years
ago, I saw this older adolescentwho came in, in a major, major,
(14:25):
major crisis. And, we talkedabout it a little bit and then
about two weeks later, he saidto me, I'm feeling a lot better
now. I don't think I need tocome in anymore. And I said to
him, you are doing a lot better.
But you know what, why don't wejust keep meeting anyway? And he
(14:47):
says, okay, and then weproceeded to meet for another
probably year or so. If I hadsaid to him, you really do need
me, we've really just scratchedthe surface here. He would have
been If he would have defendedhis position. And it wouldn't
have been something that waspathological it would be
(15:08):
actually a good sign that he isstruggling to separate from
those infantile attachments.
Tyson Conner (15:15):
I feel like that's, that's such a common
thing to see. And to talk toparents about, I'm imagining a
listener of this episode, whomaybe is a parent considering
therapy for their kid. And, ourtopic is psychodynamic therapy
for an adolescent. And so oftenin conversations with parents, I
(15:35):
find myself framing thesymptoms, or the behavior that's
bringing them in therapy in thefirst place, in terms of healthy
development. It feels bad, yes,it's causes trouble at home. And
there's a way to think aboutthis, in terms of healthy
development, that does oftenboil down to just what you're
(15:57):
talking about. The parents mightknow, no this is a boundary we
need to hold or, Yes, this is athing that is important,
actually. But the child'sresponse, the adolescent's
response, can feel so wrong froman adult perspective, that
sometimes they say is my childok? Are they crazy?
Don Schimmel (16:18):
Well, that reminds me of another example that I
think, again, validates I thinkthe very thing you're saying is
that is that some time ago --and this actually, this comes up
multiple, this has come upmultiple time where, where a
parent will say to me, my son ordaughter seems to want to hang
(16:41):
out more with their friends now.
I keep saying, Hey, can we dothis? And can we do that? And I
just feel like I'm a bad parent.
He doesn't love me anymore. Andwhat I said, it's a sign
actually that you're doing agood job. That most of the time
if you've started out life witha child, that's good, they
(17:03):
return to that when they feelseparate, when they feel more
separate. That they need to pushus away in order to be
themselves, which means theydon't want to hang out with us.
Sometimes.
Tyson Conner (17:14):
And there's some, I think the thing, I'm sort of
processing this idea, as I'msaying it, but I think sometimes
parents, parents, in myexperience seem to understand
that sometimes it sucks to growup. Sometimes it sucks for the
kid to grow up a big loss. Andsometimes my job is to tell
parents well, and sometimes itsucks for you when your kid
(17:35):
grows up. Yes, that's that'spart of it, too.
Don Schimmel (17:38):
And this is why it's so important. In our work,
to work with parents, and thisis one of the things that I do
is that when a parent called andit's 99.999% of time when a
parent calls me up, becausethey're concerned about their
teenager and want to knowwhether I can see him or her I
(17:59):
always say that the evaluationstarts with the parents. And I
will say very explicitly, thatit doesn't matter how good of a
relationship that I have withyour son or daughter, that you
and I need to establish a verygood working alliance, because a
(18:20):
lot is going to go on and you'renot going to know how to
understand or interpret it.
You're gonna, for example, yourson or daughter may come home.
And you may say, Well, how'd itgo in therapy? Okay, well, did
you talk about anything? No.
That's why it's important tohave periodic contact with
parents so that they canunderstand the meaning of a
(18:44):
comment like that, which isdifferent than disclosing what,
what it is that the adolescentand I are talking about. So that
they can understand what itmeans for their teenager to be
in therapy. They're not going totalk about it. And they're not
gonna say good thingsnecessarily. You're gonna sort
of devalue it. They're notgonna. They're not gonna
(19:04):
necessarily hate it, but they'renot gonna, they're not gonna
say, Hey, thanks, Mom and Dadfor doing this. It was the best
thing you could ever -- at best,you're gonna get compliance.
Tyson Conner (19:14):
Compliance at best, setting expectations.
Don Schimmel (19:18):
I wouldn't say the 11 year old says to me, isn't it
about time to meet with myparents? That's unusual.
Tyson Conner (19:27):
Somebody had a schedule? So let's, I'm
imagining a listener who has anadolescent, who someone's
recommended therapy, maybe aprimary care physician or a
teacher or someone at school,something like that. And they're
trying to figure out okay, whatkind of therapy should help my
kid and most likely, they'vebeen recommended for cognitive
(19:51):
behavioral therapy orDialectical Behavioral Therapy
around here, maybe EMDR if thekid has a history of trauma but
we each practice psychodynamicor psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
How is that different from thoseother kinds of therapy that a
parent might be trying to figureout and to choose between?
Don Schimmel (20:14):
Well, that's what a lot of parents asked me, even
when the therapy is wellunderway, they will, they will
hear something about, my friendor neighbor told me about
dialectical behavioral therapyor cognitive behavioral therapy.
And now, what I will say is thatit really in some ways is apples
(20:41):
and oranges and what some peoplereally, gravitate to apples and
some people gravitate tooranges. My view on it is that,
as I said earlier, is what apsychodynamic therapist offers
is a specialized relationship,not a set of techniques. And
(21:01):
this is different than not onlyDBT, or dialectical behavior
therapy, cognitive behavioraltherapy, but it's also different
than classical psychoanalysis. Iwas trained in more of the
classical psychoanalytic method,which I abandoned as soon as I
possibly could, because what itdoes is it stresses the
(21:23):
technique, rather than therelationship. And one of the one
of the historical criticisms ofclassical psychoanalysis that is
that people will say, I know itintellectually, but I don't feel
it. In order to feel things youhave to do it in the context of
(21:48):
a relationship. There is thisdistinction in psychoanalytic
theory between a one person atwo person psychology, and then
and then in the beginning withFreud and, and ego psychology,
which is derived from Freud isthat all -- everything was
(22:11):
considered in the client orpatient and it was up to the
analyst to listen and to makeinterpretations and if you got
the correct interpretation, thenthat would lead to cure. And
then if an analyst was trainedcorrectly, that he or she would
arrive, arrive at the sameconclusion or interpretation.
(22:37):
That is the modern view of, ofpsychodynamic therapy, or more
relational psychoanalysis isthat, that oftentimes, there are
multiple interpretations. Andthat, for example, with a dream
is a if somebody tells me adream, I don't know what it
(22:59):
means, but if I listen, and Italk with the client patient,
together we will come up with ashared reality of what it means.
Okay, how all this is differentthan DBT or CBT, is that to the
(23:20):
extent that I understand is ittends to the emphasis tends to
be on what you do when, whenyou're in a stressful period of
time is that you challenge yourthought processes, if CBT. If
it's DBT, the emphasis on okay,what do you do instead of this
(23:43):
other thing that you've beendoing, which is self defeating,
or self destructive? Inrelational psychodynamic
therapy, whether it's with kidsor adolescents or with adults,
the emphasis is really on therelationship. And the belief is
your assumption is, is thatthere are certain needs to be
listened to and validated, thathave never occurred. And that
(24:07):
when that occurs, then theperson lets down their defenses
and begins to expand their sortof self knowledge. So though,
this is a long way of sayingthat some people are more
psychologically curious thanothers, some people, they don't
want to be given a coping skill,they want to understand
(24:31):
themselves, and that person isgoing to benefit more from a
relational psychodynamicapproach. And someone that says
to me, what I'm really lookingfor, as I said, a coping skills.
And then I'll say, maybe, maybe,have you checked out DBT or CBT,
because that's what they do. Sothat's kind of the difference.
Tyson Conner (24:56):
So what I'm hearing you say is that at its
core, a relational psychodynamictherapy, whether it's with an
adult, or an adolescent or childis about having a relationship
that functions in that sort oftransitional object way, where
someone can feel like they havethe experience of someone being
(25:19):
with them, of having some needmet some, some anxiety soothe
some thing about them that isn'tseen by other people being
observed or noticed or engagedwith, some feeling of emotional
contact, something in that longlist.
Don Schimmel (25:39):
And one of the unintended consequences in
explaining it that way is theremay be some of your listeners
who are gonna say, Well, whywould I pay for a relationship?
Well it's a little more complexthan that. The relationship, if
it's a safe relationship, ifit's a relationship that doesn't
repeat a trauma. And traumas areon a continuum, trauma can be
(26:06):
very, very small I've never beenunderstood in my life. I've
always been told what I think orwhat I feel. The idea that they
can be in a relationship withsomebody who actually listens
analytically. And what I mean bythat, that attempts to listen
without pre judgment, or doesn'tmove in real quickly and give
(26:30):
advice. It allows a person then,to drop their defenses because
we all have defenses againstgetting to know ourselves and
our real feelings, especially ifwe've grown up in a situation
where maybe it hasn't felt sosafe to do that.
Tyson Conner (26:51):
So if I'm a parent listening to this, and trying to
decide, okay, what kind oftherapy is best for my kid? I'm
imagining them hearing youdescribe, this could be helpful
for that. And I'm imagining thatperson saying, Oh, no, my kid's
screwed up, because I didn'tmeet their needs. This is my
fault. This is all on me. And wewere talking before about the
(27:14):
importance of having thatrelationship with parents from
the beginning. Can you speak tothat - such a common anxiety for
parents? Can you speak to that?
A little bit?
Don Schimmel (27:23):
Yes, I all of the parents that I work with have
gone there, and I don't know howyou could not. i think all of us
as parents are tempted to blameourselves. And I think that,
that, I mean, for example, Imean, I have a 31 year old. And,
(27:45):
like all 31 year olds hestruggles we all struggle with
31 It's tempting for me to blamemyself, but that's a little
grandiose, because part ofletting go is that it's not your
fault. And it's not that wedon't make mistakes, but there's
(28:07):
a certain point, I think e wherein order to grow up, kids, and
then later adults need to sortof take responsibility for their
choices. And so, the other thingis that I tell parents is that,
infants are not all born equal.
And if you look at, if you lookat babies in the nurseries, some
(28:31):
induce in us certain responsesthat reinforce certain behaviors
and others, you really have towork hard. So a lot, some of it
is just genetics? And there's away in which genetics and the
environment interact, that oftenare missed. And so it's tempting
(28:55):
to blame ourselves.
Tyson Conner (29:00):
I also sometimes hear parents wonder, why do I
need you to do this? Whyshouldn't I provide this thing?
This, whatever it is, you'redoing this, being with
experience, shouldn't I be ableto do that for my kid? And I
find myself saying, well yes,and you do all the time, but
(29:21):
also because you're the parentyou can't They need to not be
with you.
Don Schimmel (29:27):
That's the whole point. Is that is the parent
needs to be able to let go. It'slike like parents tutoring their
kids? I always say the parentsif you can afford to get a
tutor, it's too emotionallycharged. They will often behave
much differently with a tutorthan with the parent.
Tyson Conner (29:51):
And that's just the trying to figure out
calculus, which is no smallmatter. We described what it is
to work psychodynamically withan adolescent, this is what you
can expect a psychodynamictherapist who works with an
adolescent will provide. If I'ma parent listening to this
episode, what kind of symptomsor behaviors or what kind of a
(30:16):
person is psychodynamic therapyhelpful for?
Don Schimmel (30:20):
Yes, good. Yes.
And by the way, there, there isa contrast here where in some
cases, psychodynamic is not thetreatment of choice. Let me
start. Can I start with that?
Tyson Conner (30:32):
Absolutely.
Don Schimmel (30:33):
If somebody, for example, calls me up and says
that I have obsessive compulsivedisorder, and I can't function.
Okay. Unless they say to me,I've tried exposure therapy.
(30:54):
Okay, and it didn't work. AndI've tried this, and I've tried
that. My, what I'm attempted todo in that case, is to say, get
the symptom in control first,and then let's figure out what's
driving it. It's a little bit --it's analogous to medication. If
you're so depressed, that youcan't get out of bed. The first
(31:16):
thing is to get on themedication, so that you can
think about what your problemis, if you can't, if you're so
depressed, that you can't getout of bed in the morning, and
you can't concentrate. You can'tyou can't explore what's going
on inside you. But that said,though, typically the parents
who are calling me, are saying,I've noticed that my, my, my
(31:39):
teenage son or daughter is...
they, they used to be motivated,they used to be happy. They,
they're more aloof, they're nothanging out with their friends.
Some of them will say thatthey've alluded to, oh, I wish I
were dead. That's often a redflag for parents, and will call
me. There are more significantproblems that, that I get calls
(32:04):
about; I discovered my child cutthemselves or it's cutting,
they're using substances,they're skipping school, they're
staying out all night, ifthey're older, they're having
problems with eating, they'reeating, they seem to, they seem
to be getting skinny. They seemto spend a lot of time in the
(32:26):
restroom. And I'm wondering ifthey're vomiting, they're
purging. So there's, all ofthese are reasons -- or, or
just, parent child problems. Thechild that says, you're too
controlling, and let me have myfreedom, that kind of thing.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat those are the kinds of
(32:46):
symptoms -- and what I usuallysay the parents right off the
bat, because oftentimes theyframe this as bad behavior that
needs to stop. I've triedeverything I've punished, I've
taken things away. And usuallywhat I do is I say to them,
think about a symptom, abehavioral symptom, as coded
communication, a distresssignal, and any distress signal,
(33:11):
that it's the body or minds wayof saying Help me. And if we
don't decode that, and I saythis is my job is to help decode
the behavior. And then and ifand if you don't decode it, if
you just simply find clever waysof stopping it, what happens is
(33:31):
that it shows up in some otherarea, invariably.
Tyson Conner (33:41):
I feel like a couple a couple of things that
you just spoke to, I want to Iwant to underscore. The first is
the one you just said that thatidea of the behavior, think of
it as a coded communication.
Think of it as a way of saying,this is a problem, let's address
the problem. I think that that'sanother thing that makes a
psychodynamic therapy differentfrom the others is that when we
(34:02):
practice this way, we kind ofread, I suppose or think about
most things has a potentialcoded communication about what's
happening on a deeper level. Iremember once in a community
mental health clinic where wewere very focused on cognitive
(34:22):
behavioral therapy. Somebody wastalking about a client they
worked with who was dealing withsome psychosis and
hallucinations and somedelusions, and this client would
say things that would be,everyone would be like, Whoa,
they said that crazy. And I wasin the console group. And I
said, Well, maybe they're sayingthis. And someone in the group
(34:44):
said, Oh, it sounds like you'reinterpreting their psychosis as
a coded communication. Or theyused another phrase for it. I
don't remember what covertcommunication is what they said.
And I remember being like, isn'tthat then that what we do?
Don Schimmel (35:03):
And it's exactly what we do.
Tyson Conner (35:04):
And everyone else is like no, no, that's nonsense.
Psychosis is nonsense. And andthat's, that's a difference.
It's just a different way ofthinking.
Don Schimmel (35:13):
Oh, it's like if somebody has exhibited paranoia,
if you listen to the paranoiathere, there's always an element
of truth to it. It may be,distorted. But rather than then
trying to convince the personthat that they're wrong, I think
our our job really is to is, isto try and understand the core
(35:35):
concern. And that's oftentimeswhere the person feels
understood that some of thedistortion goes away, some of
the exaggeration - that peoplesometimes need to exaggerate in
order to be heard.
Tyson Conner (35:52):
Sometimes, I think about how if someone is trying
to describe a really bigfeeling, they'll say, it felt
like I got stabbed in the chest.
And that's a pretty developedthing to be able to say 'it felt
like' is a really complicatedphrase to hold in your mind. And
especially if you're anadolescent, who - I tell
(36:14):
parents, adolescence is such amess, because your entire
nervous system is rewiring endto end. And so many things are
changing so, so quickly. Itdoesn't feel like I'm getting
stabbed in the chest. I'mgetting stabbed in the chest.
And a parent listening to thiswith a specially sensitive kid
(36:35):
might have a familiar experienceof the child saying, Stop
yelling at me. When you're like,I am literally just, I'm
whispering right now. What doyou mean? Because they are
experiencing-
Don Schimmel (36:51):
Experiencing it as yelling, exactly.
Tyson Conner (36:55):
And they're not psychotic. They're just
communicating in adevelopmentally appropriate way.
That to an adult sounds likeexaggeration. The other thing
you mentioned that I wanted tounderscore was this idea of,
this is just a general therapyadvice thing that I that I try
to tell people, If anyone whosays my my theory and my therapy
(37:18):
can treat and cure anybody is, Idon't think practicing in a, in
the best manner.
Don Schimmel (37:27):
Grandiose.
Tyson Conner (37:29):
And I love that you mentioned OCD, specifically,
because kind of famously,listener, Freud wrote a really
famous case study about the RatMan who is someone who we would
diagnosed with OCD today. So asort of analysis of OCD is
pretty deep in our theory, goingback to the founding guy, and
(37:50):
research has shown over and overand over again, that
psychoanalysis, orpsychoanalytic or psychodynamic
therapy, doesn't help reduce thedistressing symptoms of OCD. It
can -- psychoanalysis, orpsychodynamic therapy can be
really helpful for making senseof a life of OCD, in the same
(38:12):
way that a psychodynamic therapycan help people make sense of
all kinds of lives. But if thegoal is to make the distressing
symptoms go away (which I thinkis an important goal) then this
isn't the right treatment,
Don Schimmel (38:25):
And that's different than a person who
exhibits mild OCD, because weall do. And then I think, we
have the luxury of being able toexplore that, but if a person's
symptoms are absolutelypreventing them from
functioning, they need something-- I like to think of it as it's
(38:51):
a little bit if somebody comesin and regardless of the age and
is saying they want help withweight loss, they're still going
to have to go exercise andthey're still going to have to
go perhaps to a dietician tofind out right, but I can help
(39:13):
them understand. What shall Isay, in general, a psychodynamic
psychotherapist can help them tounderstand maybe what is
motivating them, but they stillneed to rely on so called tools
out there. One of the things Iwanted to, to mention also, if I
(39:36):
don't, I don't want to get aheadof you here.
I don't want to have this endwithout talking a little bit
about a common question thatthat parents ask me about what
(39:57):
happens if either parent decide,you would be a good fit for my
son or daughter. But, but but Idon't think my son or daughter
is interested. What I will sayis I will say, to go home, and
the say to your son or daughter,I am not asking you to commit to
(40:21):
this for the rest of your life,I'm asking you to go in and one
or two times and make a make ajudgment about whether you think
it could be useful. If you breakit down that way. That in 99% of
cases, if you don't require thatsort of commitment, adolescents
will do it one time or twotimes. And usually, at the end
(40:46):
of that first session, I'll say,Hey, you want to talk some more
next week? Okay. And they'll doit. The other thing is, is
another question that parentsoften ask me, is, what do you do
if a kid doesn't talk? Because alot of teenagers come in and
they won't talk. I had a kid,for example, that came in and
(41:10):
would fall asleep on me as asign of defiance. And I decided
that, and I often will tell myconsultations this is that you
had to learn to love defiance.
If you don't like defiance, thenyou're going to get into power
struggles. But if you enjoy, ifyou enjoy defiance, which I
happen to do, because part of mestill a teenager. Is that you go
(41:32):
with it. So for example, withone of the kids that I thinking
about he he would come in, andhe would say he would be very
nice, and he would smile and sayhello, and then he falls asleep.
And so what I decided to do israther than panic, because all
his parents are going to justlove these sleeping session, is
(41:55):
i decided i would have I wouldpretend I was him. And I would
have a conversation with me. AndI would say, I would say, I'd
say let's pretend the guy's namewas junior, okay? And I'd say,
I'd say so Junior, how was yourweek? And I pretend to be Junior
(42:16):
and I say, Oh, my, my week wasjust fine. How was yours, Don?
And I would go on like this. Andbefore you know it, the kids
started to giggle and laugh. Andbefore you know it, he woke up
and he engaged. Another kid oncedecided, I don't think I want to
(42:37):
be here, I'm gonna leave and hegoes to he goes to my door. And
I'm sitting here in a little bitof a quandary. Now, what in the
world am I gonna do? It feltlike, I can't stop him from
leaving. And so what I said wasplayfully, I said, Well, you can
leave but before you leave, Ihave to de-electrify the door
(42:58):
here. And he stops and he saysthat door isn't electrified? And
I say oh, no, no, no, no, it is-- now, by the way, this is not
a psychotic kid. So he was ableto join the play. And so we
spent, the first half of thesession playing, and I kept
(43:19):
looking for the button. So Icould turn off the -- another,
I'll give you one more example,another kid I loved came in and
fell asleep on me, refused totalk. And so what I did, I
happen to know her phone number.
And so I texted her, and shewoke up. And then she texts me
(43:42):
back. And then she falls backasleep. And then she texts me
back. And before you know it,and this is the beauty of sort
of allowing defiance and notgetting threatened by before you
know it, she started texting mepictures, very serious pictures
of what it feels to her based onthings she'd found off the
internet. So there are all kindsof ways to deal with, with kids
(44:04):
who were resistant to therapy.
But you kind of have to enjoy
Tyson Conner (44:07):
I feel like a couple. I keep coming up with
it.
two things I want to talk about.
But the there's two conceptsthat feel really important for
work with adolescents based offof what you're describing. And
the first is you came up at thevery beginning. And then again
now, which is the idea of apower struggle, and how power
struggles are to be avoided intherapy. Power struggles are
(44:29):
inevitable in adolescence, theyneed power struggles with
parents, with teachers,sometimes with police, or just
the security at the local QFC orwhatever. But adolescents are
figuring out what it means tohave the power they have and
some of that's social power andsome of that's physical power.
(44:52):
And it's a messy confoundingthing. And what I'm hearing you
say repeatedly is you avoidthose.
Don Schimmel (45:01):
I absolutely avoid it. Because otherwise I'm just
going to do what the parents aredoing and parents, for parents
to have me do with their kidswhat they're doing, they would
have a right to say, what's thedifference? I try to share that
(45:21):
concept with parents where Iwill say to the parents is think
about a power sharingarrangement, I'll say, is that
and you can start that actuallyin toddlerhood? You do that in
some people sa well how in theworld can you share power with a
toddler? Well, the way is donewith a, with a toddler is often,
(45:43):
you give them a choice, you cango to bed in five minutes and go
to bed in 10 minutes, andthey'll choose 10. It's more
sophisticated with teenagers.
And for sure, because they'llsee through it very quickly, and
so the power struggles that comeup is not so much about, what,
what they're going to do or notdo, but who's going to prevail
in the session, we're going totalk or we're gonna not talk,
(46:07):
and, and so, and so one of theways that I give kids power, or
share power with them, is I givethem plenty of freedom to be
with however they want to be,and to accommodate, to their
sort of world view of the adultsare stupid, and that we don't
(46:28):
know anything. And rather thaninsisting that, oh, you should
listen, I've been, I've beenhere, and I know how it works in
life?
Tyson Conner (46:40):
Let me tell you, when you get older.... A thing
to avoid. The other thing thatfeels really important is what I
think playfulness, and and howthat stands in contrast to
playing. Because sometimes youdo play with adolescents.
Sometimes you play with adults.
But there's this, thisplayfulness that's more of a
(47:03):
persistent attitude. That feelsreally important. Which at least
in how I think about it.
Playfulness is a great way ofkind of taking the edge off a
little bit. Because you'redealing oftentimes with
emotional experiences andaffects that are really, really
(47:26):
overwhelming and really, reallypowerful. And playfulness around
them, allows us to speakhonestly about them. And even
get right up next to themwithout being absorbed and
obliterated.
Don Schimmel (47:40):
Exactly. Play. I'm glad you brought that up.
Because because one of thethings that Freud said there's a
difference between thedifference between play and
reality is that play and realityare serious. But, but reality is
(48:01):
real. And in the, in the, in thecontext of playing is is things
are "as if," and so for example,I will often be self effacing
and pretend to be sort ofincompetent. But it's more as if
I'm that way. I'm not really?
Because there is a certaincompetence. The paradox is that
if you, if you're veryconsciously engaged in a certain
(48:23):
amount of self effacing, a mildamount, it's the paradox there
is there is a certain level ofcompetence that you're
exhibiting, but you'repretending to be incompetent.
And it's serious. It's seriousstuff, but it's not real. And
that's what the difference was,according to Freud, between
(48:46):
between playing and non playing,is that it's not about reality,
it's not about seriousness, it'sabout what's real and what's not
real. That's one of the reasonswhy when we watch a movie or
read a book is, is that we'resuspending disbelief. We know
(49:09):
what's real. We know what'sreal. They know, they know
what's real, but we'repretending as if it is. With a
young child. With with a youngchild, it's more imaginative
play. And you incorporateobjects into the into the play.
This doll, this mother doll, andthis father doll. We both know
(49:32):
they're not real, but we pretendas if they were real, and this
is as if they had a voice.
Tyson Conner (49:40):
And as you were describing that I was thinking
about how much of adolescence isabout playing the as if and
playing as if they already arethe thing that they're going to
grow into? I really likespeaking of movies, I really
(50:01):
liked the movie Rebel Without aCause as a brilliant little
encapsulation of adolescence.
And it fits at the time therewas a cultural obsession with
teenager-ness and James Dean isan incredible actor. But this,
the scene that comes to my mindis the scene where these three
sort of disenfranchised kids whoare somewhere between child and
(50:23):
an adult whose parents treatthem in some ways too much like
children and other ways too muchlike adults, go to an abandoned
house, and they play housetogether. Where, the James Dean
pretends to be the father andNatalie Wood pretends to be the
mother. And the other kidpretends to be the child. And
(50:43):
they're all taking on in thisplayful way, these roles that
they're actively trying to growinto at the same time. And I
think, I think there's a lot ofadolescence that's about that.
And sometimes the line betweenam I playing as if, or am I
really being this is deeplyconfusing. And I think that that
(51:06):
stance of playfulness sort ofhelps keep it safe. Keep it safe
enough to explore.
Don Schimmel (51:14):
The same way that when kids play with army trucks
or with dolls, they'resuspending disbelief. It gives
them an eye, it gives them anopportunity to explore
possibilities. And I thinkthat's also applicable to adults
is oftentimes, when an adultcomes in and says, I could never
(51:36):
do such and such I say, well,let's pretend for a moment. What
if you were, well, how would itstart? We don't have to do it or
anything. But let's pretend fora moment that you were going to
say that -- it might besomething as somebody once said
to me, I could never I couldnever get a divorce. She was
miserable in her family. I said,Well, if you weren't gonna get
(51:59):
one, what would be the firststep you would take? So in that
sense, that's playing withpossibilities. It's moving
beyond the concrete. You knowthat you can do it. By the way I
wanted to mention to you --totally out of sequence. But, we
were talking very early in thispodcast about, about adolescence
(52:20):
and separation. And toddlerhood.
That there is a very famousauthor Peter Blas, who actually
designated adolescence as thesecond separation and
individuation stage. The firstbeing toddlerhood.
Tyson Conner (52:48):
For our listeners who might be less less steeped
in the developmental stages ofpsychoanalysis, in the first
separation individuation stageis about is about a child
experiencing themselves as anindividual at all. Before that
you're just your relationships.
And then you start to realize,oh, wait, Mom and Dad aren't in
my head. I have a whole separatebeing. Whoa, and adolescents are
(53:12):
doing that again.
Don Schimmel (53:16):
Yes, you're doing it again. They're refining it.
Margaret Mahler wrote a book inthe 70s called The Psychological
Birth of the Human Infant. Andshe goes through, you may know
about this as a series ofstages, beginning with a
symbiotic or essentially asymbiotic stage. And then the
(53:38):
stages of, of coming into theirown, and being able to what she
called achieve the stage ofobject constancy, which was,
which basically means I cancarry around the relationship in
my head, I don't have to bephysically present.
Tyson Conner (53:58):
Oh, boy. And that ties into a lot of the work that
we do as therapists and a lot ofhow people grow. And I feel like
we could talk about this foranother four hours easily. And I
want to respect your time andour listeners ears. If a
listener has heard this andwould like to find you, either a
(54:22):
parent who's looking for therapyfor a kid or another
professional who's looking forconsultation, or to take a
class, where can you be found?
Don Schimmel (54:31):
I can be found very easily by emailing me.
Should I give an email address?
Tyson Conner (54:39):
And it will also be linked in the show notes. You
can say that as well.
Don Schimmel (54:42):
It's Dschimmel@comcast.net. They're
also welcome to call me at (425)775-2205. Welcome to call me
even if it's just to get areferral. Oftentimes people will
call me, I won't have an openingnecessarily, but I'd be happy
(55:03):
to, to hook them up withsomebody that I trust that's
good. And that's a lot of whatI've been doing lately is just
simply helping people getconnected with people that are
like minded.
Tyson Conner (55:17):
Especially as we're coming out of the pandemic
and sort of moving into whateverstage we're in now, a lot of a
lot of new issues are coming up.
Don Schimmel (55:26):
If they are also interested in taking a course.
I'm, I am going to be in fact,it's listed right now. It just
came out last week. I'm teachinga class through the Northwest
Alliance for psychoanalyticstudy. It's the third or fourth
(55:50):
time that I've taught it. It'scalled -- this isn't specific to
adolescents, but it's calledworking with narcissistically
vulnerable clients through thelens of self psychology. But I'm
also in the spring, I'm slatedto teach a course on how to work
with adolescents. Parents, alsothrough the Alliance also to the
(56:13):
alliance.
Tyson Conner (56:14):
Okay, awesome. And that's, that's where we met -
the class you taught at TheAlliance. And that was in 2020.
So most of our conversation washow do we even do this now that
we can't see each other? Thatwas an interesting time. But
(56:35):
anyway, thank you. Again, thankyou for coming on the show. And
I hope we have you back at somepoints because I feel like we
could go anywhere.
Don Schimmel (56:45):
Anytime. Yes.
Pleasure.
Tyson Conner (56:51):
Special thanks to Don Schimmel for coming on to
this episode of the podcast.
Don's email address is in theshow notes. If you'd like to
take a class from Don, he oftenteaches at the Northwest
Alliance for PsychoanalyticStudy, which is also linked in
the shownotes. The RelationalPsych Podcast is a production of
Relational Psych, a mentalhealth clinic providing depth
(57:13):
oriented psychotherapy andpsychological testing in person
in Seattle and virtuallythroughout Washington state. If
you're interested inpsychotherapy or psychological
testing for yourself or a familymember, links to our contact
information are in the shownotes. If you are a
psychotherapist and would liketo be a guest on the show or a
listener with a suggestion forsomeone you'd like us to
interview. You can contact me atpodcast@relationalpsych.group.
(58:32):
The relational psych podcast ishosted and produced by me. Tyson
Conner. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
you buddy.
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Conner.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youfind some.
And today, my guest on thepodcast is Don Schimmel. Don
(00:52):
Schimmel is a clinicalpsychologist and psychoanalyst
based in Mountlake Terrace,Washington. He has over 50 years
of experience working withadults, children, adolescents,
families and couples. He's asenior faculty member at the
Seattle Psychoanalytic Societyand Institute teaching seminars
on self psychology, relationaltheory, intersubjectivity, Freud
and object relations theory. Donalso leads classes on treating
(01:15):
children, adolescents and theirparents, and provides ongoing
individual and groupconsultation to psychotherapist
in the northwest. Welcome to thepodcast.
Don Schimmel (01:25):
Thank you, good to be here.
Tyson Conner (01:27):
So today, we're going to be answering the
question, how can adolescentsbenefit from psychodynamic
psychotherapy? So what do youthink?
Don Schimmel (01:38):
I think, well, most adolescents that are
Tyson Conner (01:38):
A couple things that I want to clarify for the
struggling, well, they may notbe consciously aware of it, are
listeners that I think arerelevant from what you've said
usually struggling to separatein some ways from their parents.
If you think about it, kids, forthe first 11-12 years of their
already. Well, also, Listeners,I might get really excited this
(01:58):
lives are still very tied intotheir parents. And there is a
normal, as most people know, anormal period of time when
episode, because I love workingwith adolescents. And actually,
adolescents need to separate.
And there is no way of preparingadolescents for that -- some
adolescents have an easier timeit might be helpful for us to
define what we mean byand some have a more difficult
(02:19):
time. And so one of the waysthey benefit from psychotherapy
is, they have an opportunity toadolescence, especially in the
context of a psychoanalytic--it's a kind of specialized
relationship. It's differenttheory, because psychoanalysis
is a developmental theory. So wethan parents because unlike
parents, who are invested in aparental way and are easily
(02:41):
spooked and scared when they seethink about people in terms of
where they develop over thetheir kids moving away from them
and exploring things thatsometimes are a little, a little
dicey. That therapists, whilecourse of a lifespan, and what
sort of processes and emotionalthey're certainly susceptible to
having those feelings, becauseit's not our own kid, we're
(03:03):
usually able to sort of stepand cognitive things happen at
different stages of a person'sback and listen, in a very
unique way. And so one way ofthinking about the relationship
between an adolescent and alife. That's a big part of how
we think. And so adolescence is,psychodynamic therapy is that
the therapist is to theadolescent, the way that a
(03:23):
blankie is to a toddler, it's aat least to my mind, I'll give
you my definition. And maybe youtransit, we are a kind of
transitional figure or what theycall transitional object. And so
it's different in that sense. Iscan refine it because you've
been doing this longer than me.
that we helped to usher theminto adulthood.
(03:48):
But I think of adolescence, likeyou said, as being largely
Don Schimmel (03:50):
Absolutely. And one of the things you said,
which I completely agree with isthat it's a move away from the
defined by the period ofsomeone's life, where their
parents to the peer group, thepeer group becomes the group who
sense of self and sense ofidentity iss transitioning from
(04:14):
has the most amount ofinfluence, which is why so often
primarily being about theirrelationship to their parents,
parents, understandably, whenthey become alarmed, or
to being instead about a moreindependent kind of sense of
concerned about their teenagekids, at times want to control
(04:36):
self, and largely defined bytheir relationship to peers and
who it is that the adolescent ishanging out with, because the
to other cultural groups, subcultural groups. But it's about
adolescent has so much power andso much influence. Prior to
adolescence, even what we callpre adolescence, which is right
(04:57):
that process of separating fromprimarily being a member of the
around, 10-11-12, for somepeople, the parents influence is
family to primarily being sortof a, an adult who's defined by
still the most potent. And thecloser to around 14-15-16 years
(05:18):
other relationships.
old, the more parents havenothing intelligent to say to
their kids. And so it's trickywhen a teenager comes to see an
(05:38):
adult therapist, often they'llsay to their parents, and
they'll say to the therapist, tome is, why would I want to talk
to you when I can talk to myfriends? And one of the ways if
(06:04):
I can get into this a little bitis one of the ways that I
respond to that is not to getinto a power struggle over
whether that's true or not. Butto find a way of playfully
(06:28):
validating that by sayingsomething like why would you
want to talk to other adults,that doesn't know half as much
as your friends or something?
And that's a way ofcommunicating playfully, that I
(06:52):
take you seriously. And that Irespect the sort of place in
your development without sayingthat. And usually by not getting
into those sort of powerstruggles, what happens is that
(07:17):
kids are able to then over time,sort of, use me as a
transitional figure.
Tyson Conner (07:33):
So let's let's define that a little bit deeper,
that idea -- Listener if youwant to do some Googling, that
idea, I believe comes initiallyfrom Winnicott. Was an object
relations. psychoanalyst. Andhis idea of a transitional
object, let me see. It's been awhile since I thought about
this. So again, refine my roughdescription. The idea of a
(07:57):
transitional object, like thetoddler's blankie is a, an
object. And in this theory, anobject could be a literal,
physical object. And for thisanalogy, it'll be the blanket,
but it can also berelationships, or it can be
ideas, or group memberships. Soany kind of thing that has a
(08:18):
real importance in someone'smind is an object. Again, very
rough definition. But atransitional object is this
thing like the blankie, that issoothing, and comforting, and is
experienced as both an extensionof the self and separate from
(08:40):
the self at the same kind oftime. Your blankie, when you're
four is your blankie. And it's athing that you can carry around
and you can throw in the crib,if you want to, or you're
probably have a toddler, but atthat point, you can throw under
the bed, whatever. But if it'smissing and gone, there can be a
panic too, if you need yourblank. Because it's like it's a
(09:03):
part of you that's missing. Andit sounds like what you're
suggesting is that for anadolescent, they still need
transitional objects as theydevelop their sense of identity.
And they need those to be inrelationships with living
people, not just with objects orvideo games or whatever else.
And that a psychotherapist is ina position to be that
(09:28):
intentionally, someone that theycan talk to, someone they can be
themselves with, who's bothseparate from them and different
from them, but also someone whocan be at that close experience
of self that's so vulnerable,which is really scary,
especially for a lot ofadolescents.
Don Schimmel (09:48):
I'm glad you also -- help me guide me back to the
concept of the panic, because Ihave a, I have something that
sort of helps to validate thevery thing that you're saying.
But what I wanted to add to whatyou're saying was that yes, it
was it's Winnicott who talkedabout the transition object. One
(10:11):
of the things he said about theblankie is that the blankie is
imbued by the infant and childwith with the power of both the
self and other. That it isn'tspecifically a representation of
(10:34):
say, mom. It's a representationof mom with me. It is us, it is
us. And so that is the concept.
And it's the relationship thatit represents. And so what
happens is that they are takingthe relationship with them. And
(10:55):
when they're ready to give upthe blankie. Usually, whether
it's well not usually -- what itsuggests is that they are ready
to move beyond that stage, thatinfant toddler stage, when they
are... when they -- if you thinkabout the infant, the infant
knows no boundary, the infant isa is a -- in the mind of an
(11:18):
infant, the infant and Motherare extensions of each other.
And so there has to be sometransition away from that. And
if it's too abrupt, it can betraumatic and the child develops
what they call an insecureattachment. And so being able to
allow for, for transitionalobjects without questioning is
(11:41):
one of the things that when itgot really stressed is you don't
you don't question thetransition logic. You don't say,
you know that, that, that Mikeyrepresents us? You don't do
that? Something that just simplyhappens.
And, but what I was gonna sayabout the panic was that it's
(12:05):
interesting, because while Idon't work with a lot of little
kids anymore, I'm mostly workingwith the little kids who are now
teenagers. a lot of these peopleI started out with when they
were little, but what what Inoticed was that, that I imbued
(12:28):
the toys with magical powers thesame way that the kids did. And
so I noticed that if I would gointo my toy closet, and I
couldn't find a special toy, Iwould find myself panicking. And
I would stand back and why wouldI panic, these are just toys
well, they're not just toys.
They're imbued with magicalpowers. And so going back to our
(12:50):
lessons is, one of the thingsthat you never do with, with an
adolescent, for developmentalpurposes is that you never draw
attention to the relationshipunless they bring it up. And
this is different than, thanwork with, with, with little
(13:13):
kids and with adults, littlekids declare they love you, and
how important and how they needyou. Now they want to come in
every day. Some parents, someadults, come to consciously
value the relationship they havewith us. Adolescents are -- the
(13:35):
developmental imperative of anadolescent is I don't need
adults. I need my friends. Sothe last thing that the last
thing that I do, most adolescenttherapists hopefully is we don't
draw attention to therelationships. So for example,
if I'm going to take a vacation,and a teenager says to me that's
(14:01):
fine, good, I'm glad you'retaking vacation, I can get some
homework done or something. Idon't, I don't try to process
that with them. Because that'stoo close, I accept the idea
that they don't need to be withme. And I'll give you an example
of that. A great example, I oncesaw a years and years and years
ago, I saw this older adolescentwho came in, in a major, major,
(14:25):
major crisis. And, we talkedabout it a little bit and then
about two weeks later, he saidto me, I'm feeling a lot better
now. I don't think I need tocome in anymore. And I said to
him, you are doing a lot better.
But you know what, why don't wejust keep meeting anyway? And he
(14:47):
says, okay, and then weproceeded to meet for another
probably year or so. If I hadsaid to him, you really do need
me, we've really just scratchedthe surface here. He would have
been If he would have defendedhis position. And it wouldn't
have been something that waspathological it would be
(15:08):
actually a good sign that he isstruggling to separate from
those infantile attachments.
Tyson Conner (15:15):
I feel like that's, that's such a common
thing to see. And to talk toparents about, I'm imagining a
listener of this episode, whomaybe is a parent considering
therapy for their kid. And, ourtopic is psychodynamic therapy
for an adolescent. And so oftenin conversations with parents, I
(15:35):
find myself framing thesymptoms, or the behavior that's
bringing them in therapy in thefirst place, in terms of healthy
development. It feels bad, yes,it's causes trouble at home. And
there's a way to think aboutthis, in terms of healthy
development, that does oftenboil down to just what you're
(15:57):
talking about. The parents mightknow, no this is a boundary we
need to hold or, Yes, this is athing that is important,
actually. But the child'sresponse, the adolescent's
response, can feel so wrong froman adult perspective, that
sometimes they say is my childok? Are they crazy?
Don Schimmel (16:18):
Well, that reminds me of another example that I
think, again, validates I thinkthe very thing you're saying is
that is that some time ago --and this actually, this comes up
multiple, this has come upmultiple time where, where a
parent will say to me, my son ordaughter seems to want to hang
(16:41):
out more with their friends now.
I keep saying, Hey, can we dothis? And can we do that? And I
just feel like I'm a bad parent.
He doesn't love me anymore. Andwhat I said, it's a sign
actually that you're doing agood job. That most of the time
if you've started out life witha child, that's good, they
(17:03):
return to that when they feelseparate, when they feel more
separate. That they need to pushus away in order to be
themselves, which means theydon't want to hang out with us.
Sometimes.
Tyson Conner (17:14):
And there's some, I think the thing, I'm sort of
processing this idea, as I'msaying it, but I think sometimes
parents, parents, in myexperience seem to understand
that sometimes it sucks to growup. Sometimes it sucks for the
kid to grow up a big loss. Andsometimes my job is to tell
parents well, and sometimes itsucks for you when your kid
(17:35):
grows up. Yes, that's that'spart of it, too.
Don Schimmel (17:38):
And this is why it's so important. In our work,
to work with parents, and thisis one of the things that I do
is that when a parent called andit's 99.999% of time when a
parent calls me up, becausethey're concerned about their
teenager and want to knowwhether I can see him or her I
(17:59):
always say that the evaluationstarts with the parents. And I
will say very explicitly, thatit doesn't matter how good of a
relationship that I have withyour son or daughter, that you
and I need to establish a verygood working alliance, because a
(18:20):
lot is going to go on and you'renot going to know how to
understand or interpret it.
You're gonna, for example, yourson or daughter may come home.
And you may say, Well, how'd itgo in therapy? Okay, well, did
you talk about anything? No.
That's why it's important tohave periodic contact with
parents so that they canunderstand the meaning of a
(18:44):
comment like that, which isdifferent than disclosing what,
what it is that the adolescentand I are talking about. So that
they can understand what itmeans for their teenager to be
in therapy. They're not going totalk about it. And they're not
gonna say good thingsnecessarily. You're gonna sort
of devalue it. They're notgonna. They're not gonna
(19:04):
necessarily hate it, but they'renot gonna, they're not gonna
say, Hey, thanks, Mom and Dadfor doing this. It was the best
thing you could ever -- at best,you're gonna get compliance.
Tyson Conner (19:14):
Compliance at best, setting expectations.
Don Schimmel (19:18):
I wouldn't say the 11 year old says to me, isn't it
about time to meet with myparents? That's unusual.
Tyson Conner (19:27):
Somebody had a schedule? So let's, I'm
imagining a listener who has anadolescent, who someone's
recommended therapy, maybe aprimary care physician or a
teacher or someone at school,something like that. And they're
trying to figure out okay, whatkind of therapy should help my
kid and most likely, they'vebeen recommended for cognitive
(19:51):
behavioral therapy orDialectical Behavioral Therapy
around here, maybe EMDR if thekid has a history of trauma but
we each practice psychodynamicor psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
How is that different from thoseother kinds of therapy that a
parent might be trying to figureout and to choose between?
Don Schimmel (20:14):
Well, that's what a lot of parents asked me, even
when the therapy is wellunderway, they will, they will
hear something about, my friendor neighbor told me about
dialectical behavioral therapyor cognitive behavioral therapy.
And now, what I will say is thatit really in some ways is apples
(20:41):
and oranges and what some peoplereally, gravitate to apples and
some people gravitate tooranges. My view on it is that,
as I said earlier, is what apsychodynamic therapist offers
is a specialized relationship,not a set of techniques. And
(21:01):
this is different than not onlyDBT, or dialectical behavior
therapy, cognitive behavioraltherapy, but it's also different
than classical psychoanalysis. Iwas trained in more of the
classical psychoanalytic method,which I abandoned as soon as I
possibly could, because what itdoes is it stresses the
(21:23):
technique, rather than therelationship. And one of the one
of the historical criticisms ofclassical psychoanalysis that is
that people will say, I know itintellectually, but I don't feel
it. In order to feel things youhave to do it in the context of
(21:48):
a relationship. There is thisdistinction in psychoanalytic
theory between a one person atwo person psychology, and then
and then in the beginning withFreud and, and ego psychology,
which is derived from Freud isthat all -- everything was
(22:11):
considered in the client orpatient and it was up to the
analyst to listen and to makeinterpretations and if you got
the correct interpretation, thenthat would lead to cure. And
then if an analyst was trainedcorrectly, that he or she would
arrive, arrive at the sameconclusion or interpretation.
(22:37):
That is the modern view of, ofpsychodynamic therapy, or more
relational psychoanalysis isthat, that oftentimes, there are
multiple interpretations. Andthat, for example, with a dream
is a if somebody tells me adream, I don't know what it
(22:59):
means, but if I listen, and Italk with the client patient,
together we will come up with ashared reality of what it means.
Okay, how all this is differentthan DBT or CBT, is that to the
(23:20):
extent that I understand is ittends to the emphasis tends to
be on what you do when, whenyou're in a stressful period of
time is that you challenge yourthought processes, if CBT. If
it's DBT, the emphasis on okay,what do you do instead of this
(23:43):
other thing that you've beendoing, which is self defeating,
or self destructive? Inrelational psychodynamic
therapy, whether it's with kidsor adolescents or with adults,
the emphasis is really on therelationship. And the belief is
your assumption is, is thatthere are certain needs to be
listened to and validated, thathave never occurred. And that
(24:07):
when that occurs, then theperson lets down their defenses
and begins to expand their sortof self knowledge. So though,
this is a long way of sayingthat some people are more
psychologically curious thanothers, some people, they don't
want to be given a coping skill,they want to understand
(24:31):
themselves, and that person isgoing to benefit more from a
relational psychodynamicapproach. And someone that says
to me, what I'm really lookingfor, as I said, a coping skills.
And then I'll say, maybe, maybe,have you checked out DBT or CBT,
because that's what they do. Sothat's kind of the difference.
Tyson Conner (24:56):
So what I'm hearing you say is that at its
core, a relational psychodynamictherapy, whether it's with an
adult, or an adolescent or childis about having a relationship
that functions in that sort oftransitional object way, where
someone can feel like they havethe experience of someone being
(25:19):
with them, of having some needmet some, some anxiety soothe
some thing about them that isn'tseen by other people being
observed or noticed or engagedwith, some feeling of emotional
contact, something in that longlist.
Don Schimmel (25:39):
And one of the unintended consequences in
explaining it that way is theremay be some of your listeners
who are gonna say, Well, whywould I pay for a relationship?
Well it's a little more complexthan that. The relationship, if
it's a safe relationship, ifit's a relationship that doesn't
repeat a trauma. And traumas areon a continuum, trauma can be
(26:06):
very, very small I've never beenunderstood in my life. I've
always been told what I think orwhat I feel. The idea that they
can be in a relationship withsomebody who actually listens
analytically. And what I mean bythat, that attempts to listen
without pre judgment, or doesn'tmove in real quickly and give
(26:30):
advice. It allows a person then,to drop their defenses because
we all have defenses againstgetting to know ourselves and
our real feelings, especially ifwe've grown up in a situation
where maybe it hasn't felt sosafe to do that.
Tyson Conner (26:51):
So if I'm a parent listening to this, and trying to
decide, okay, what kind oftherapy is best for my kid? I'm
imagining them hearing youdescribe, this could be helpful
for that. And I'm imagining thatperson saying, Oh, no, my kid's
screwed up, because I didn'tmeet their needs. This is my
fault. This is all on me. And wewere talking before about the
(27:14):
importance of having thatrelationship with parents from
the beginning. Can you speak tothat - such a common anxiety for
parents? Can you speak to that?
A little bit?
Don Schimmel (27:23):
Yes, I all of the parents that I work with have
gone there, and I don't know howyou could not. i think all of us
as parents are tempted to blameourselves. And I think that,
that, I mean, for example, Imean, I have a 31 year old. And,
(27:45):
like all 31 year olds hestruggles we all struggle with
31 It's tempting for me to blamemyself, but that's a little
grandiose, because part ofletting go is that it's not your
fault. And it's not that wedon't make mistakes, but there's
(28:07):
a certain point, I think e wherein order to grow up, kids, and
then later adults need to sortof take responsibility for their
choices. And so, the other thingis that I tell parents is that,
infants are not all born equal.
And if you look at, if you lookat babies in the nurseries, some
(28:31):
induce in us certain responsesthat reinforce certain behaviors
and others, you really have towork hard. So a lot, some of it
is just genetics? And there's away in which genetics and the
environment interact, that oftenare missed. And so it's tempting
(28:55):
to blame ourselves.
Tyson Conner (29:00):
I also sometimes hear parents wonder, why do I
need you to do this? Whyshouldn't I provide this thing?
This, whatever it is, you'redoing this, being with
experience, shouldn't I be ableto do that for my kid? And I
find myself saying, well yes,and you do all the time, but
(29:21):
also because you're the parentyou can't They need to not be
with you.
Don Schimmel (29:27):
That's the whole point. Is that is the parent
needs to be able to let go. It'slike like parents tutoring their
kids? I always say the parentsif you can afford to get a
tutor, it's too emotionallycharged. They will often behave
much differently with a tutorthan with the parent.
Tyson Conner (29:51):
And that's just the trying to figure out
calculus, which is no smallmatter. We described what it is
to work psychodynamically withan adolescent, this is what you
can expect a psychodynamictherapist who works with an
adolescent will provide. If I'ma parent listening to this
episode, what kind of symptomsor behaviors or what kind of a
(30:16):
person is psychodynamic therapyhelpful for?
Don Schimmel (30:20):
Yes, good. Yes.
And by the way, there, there isa contrast here where in some
cases, psychodynamic is not thetreatment of choice. Let me
start. Can I start with that?
Tyson Conner (30:32):
Absolutely.
Don Schimmel (30:33):
If somebody, for example, calls me up and says
that I have obsessive compulsivedisorder, and I can't function.
Okay. Unless they say to me,I've tried exposure therapy.
(30:54):
Okay, and it didn't work. AndI've tried this, and I've tried
that. My, what I'm attempted todo in that case, is to say, get
the symptom in control first,and then let's figure out what's
driving it. It's a little bit --it's analogous to medication. If
you're so depressed, that youcan't get out of bed. The first
(31:16):
thing is to get on themedication, so that you can
think about what your problemis, if you can't, if you're so
depressed, that you can't getout of bed in the morning, and
you can't concentrate. You can'tyou can't explore what's going
on inside you. But that said,though, typically the parents
who are calling me, are saying,I've noticed that my, my, my
(31:39):
teenage son or daughter is...
they, they used to be motivated,they used to be happy. They,
they're more aloof, they're nothanging out with their friends.
Some of them will say thatthey've alluded to, oh, I wish I
were dead. That's often a redflag for parents, and will call
me. There are more significantproblems that, that I get calls
(32:04):
about; I discovered my child cutthemselves or it's cutting,
they're using substances,they're skipping school, they're
staying out all night, ifthey're older, they're having
problems with eating, they'reeating, they seem to, they seem
to be getting skinny. They seemto spend a lot of time in the
(32:26):
restroom. And I'm wondering ifthey're vomiting, they're
purging. So there's, all ofthese are reasons -- or, or
just, parent child problems. Thechild that says, you're too
controlling, and let me have myfreedom, that kind of thing.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat those are the kinds of
(32:46):
symptoms -- and what I usuallysay the parents right off the
bat, because oftentimes theyframe this as bad behavior that
needs to stop. I've triedeverything I've punished, I've
taken things away. And usuallywhat I do is I say to them,
think about a symptom, abehavioral symptom, as coded
communication, a distresssignal, and any distress signal,
(33:11):
that it's the body or minds wayof saying Help me. And if we
don't decode that, and I saythis is my job is to help decode
the behavior. And then and ifand if you don't decode it, if
you just simply find clever waysof stopping it, what happens is
(33:31):
that it shows up in some otherarea, invariably.
Tyson Conner (33:41):
I feel like a couple a couple of things that
you just spoke to, I want to Iwant to underscore. The first is
the one you just said that thatidea of the behavior, think of
it as a coded communication.
Think of it as a way of saying,this is a problem, let's address
the problem. I think that that'sanother thing that makes a
psychodynamic therapy differentfrom the others is that when we
(34:02):
practice this way, we kind ofread, I suppose or think about
most things has a potentialcoded communication about what's
happening on a deeper level. Iremember once in a community
mental health clinic where wewere very focused on cognitive
(34:22):
behavioral therapy. Somebody wastalking about a client they
worked with who was dealing withsome psychosis and
hallucinations and somedelusions, and this client would
say things that would be,everyone would be like, Whoa,
they said that crazy. And I wasin the console group. And I
said, Well, maybe they're sayingthis. And someone in the group
(34:44):
said, Oh, it sounds like you'reinterpreting their psychosis as
a coded communication. Or theyused another phrase for it. I
don't remember what covertcommunication is what they said.
And I remember being like, isn'tthat then that what we do?
Don Schimmel (35:03):
And it's exactly what we do.
Tyson Conner (35:04):
And everyone else is like no, no, that's nonsense.
Psychosis is nonsense. And andthat's, that's a difference.
It's just a different way ofthinking.
Don Schimmel (35:13):
Oh, it's like if somebody has exhibited paranoia,
if you listen to the paranoiathere, there's always an element
of truth to it. It may be,distorted. But rather than then
trying to convince the personthat that they're wrong, I think
our our job really is to is, isto try and understand the core
(35:35):
concern. And that's oftentimeswhere the person feels
understood that some of thedistortion goes away, some of
the exaggeration - that peoplesometimes need to exaggerate in
order to be heard.
Tyson Conner (35:52):
Sometimes, I think about how if someone is trying
to describe a really bigfeeling, they'll say, it felt
like I got stabbed in the chest.
And that's a pretty developedthing to be able to say 'it felt
like' is a really complicatedphrase to hold in your mind. And
especially if you're anadolescent, who - I tell
(36:14):
parents, adolescence is such amess, because your entire
nervous system is rewiring endto end. And so many things are
changing so, so quickly. Itdoesn't feel like I'm getting
stabbed in the chest. I'mgetting stabbed in the chest.
And a parent listening to thiswith a specially sensitive kid
(36:35):
might have a familiar experienceof the child saying, Stop
yelling at me. When you're like,I am literally just, I'm
whispering right now. What doyou mean? Because they are
experiencing-
Don Schimmel (36:51):
Experiencing it as yelling, exactly.
Tyson Conner (36:55):
And they're not psychotic. They're just
communicating in adevelopmentally appropriate way.
That to an adult sounds likeexaggeration. The other thing
you mentioned that I wanted tounderscore was this idea of,
this is just a general therapyadvice thing that I that I try
to tell people, If anyone whosays my my theory and my therapy
(37:18):
can treat and cure anybody is, Idon't think practicing in a, in
the best manner.
Don Schimmel (37:27):
Grandiose.
Tyson Conner (37:29):
And I love that you mentioned OCD, specifically,
because kind of famously,listener, Freud wrote a really
famous case study about the RatMan who is someone who we would
diagnosed with OCD today. So asort of analysis of OCD is
pretty deep in our theory, goingback to the founding guy, and
(37:50):
research has shown over and overand over again, that
psychoanalysis, orpsychoanalytic or psychodynamic
therapy, doesn't help reduce thedistressing symptoms of OCD. It
can -- psychoanalysis, orpsychodynamic therapy can be
really helpful for making senseof a life of OCD, in the same
(38:12):
way that a psychodynamic therapycan help people make sense of
all kinds of lives. But if thegoal is to make the distressing
symptoms go away (which I thinkis an important goal) then this
isn't the right treatment,
Don Schimmel (38:25):
And that's different than a person who
exhibits mild OCD, because weall do. And then I think, we
have the luxury of being able toexplore that, but if a person's
symptoms are absolutelypreventing them from
functioning, they need something-- I like to think of it as it's
(38:51):
a little bit if somebody comesin and regardless of the age and
is saying they want help withweight loss, they're still going
to have to go exercise andthey're still going to have to
go perhaps to a dietician tofind out right, but I can help
(39:13):
them understand. What shall Isay, in general, a psychodynamic
psychotherapist can help them tounderstand maybe what is
motivating them, but they stillneed to rely on so called tools
out there. One of the things Iwanted to, to mention also, if I
(39:36):
don't, I don't want to get aheadof you here.
I don't want to have this endwithout talking a little bit
about a common question thatthat parents ask me about what
(39:57):
happens if either parent decide,you would be a good fit for my
son or daughter. But, but but Idon't think my son or daughter
is interested. What I will sayis I will say, to go home, and
the say to your son or daughter,I am not asking you to commit to
(40:21):
this for the rest of your life,I'm asking you to go in and one
or two times and make a make ajudgment about whether you think
it could be useful. If you breakit down that way. That in 99% of
cases, if you don't require thatsort of commitment, adolescents
will do it one time or twotimes. And usually, at the end
(40:46):
of that first session, I'll say,Hey, you want to talk some more
next week? Okay. And they'll doit. The other thing is, is
another question that parentsoften ask me, is, what do you do
if a kid doesn't talk? Because alot of teenagers come in and
they won't talk. I had a kid,for example, that came in and
(41:10):
would fall asleep on me as asign of defiance. And I decided
that, and I often will tell myconsultations this is that you
had to learn to love defiance.
If you don't like defiance, thenyou're going to get into power
struggles. But if you enjoy, ifyou enjoy defiance, which I
happen to do, because part of mestill a teenager. Is that you go
(41:32):
with it. So for example, withone of the kids that I thinking
about he he would come in, andhe would say he would be very
nice, and he would smile and sayhello, and then he falls asleep.
And so what I decided to do israther than panic, because all
his parents are going to justlove these sleeping session, is
(41:55):
i decided i would have I wouldpretend I was him. And I would
have a conversation with me. AndI would say, I would say, I'd
say let's pretend the guy's namewas junior, okay? And I'd say,
I'd say so Junior, how was yourweek? And I pretend to be Junior
(42:16):
and I say, Oh, my, my week wasjust fine. How was yours, Don?
And I would go on like this. Andbefore you know it, the kids
started to giggle and laugh. Andbefore you know it, he woke up
and he engaged. Another kid oncedecided, I don't think I want to
(42:37):
be here, I'm gonna leave and hegoes to he goes to my door. And
I'm sitting here in a little bitof a quandary. Now, what in the
world am I gonna do? It feltlike, I can't stop him from
leaving. And so what I said wasplayfully, I said, Well, you can
leave but before you leave, Ihave to de-electrify the door
(42:58):
here. And he stops and he saysthat door isn't electrified? And
I say oh, no, no, no, no, it is-- now, by the way, this is not
a psychotic kid. So he was ableto join the play. And so we
spent, the first half of thesession playing, and I kept
(43:19):
looking for the button. So Icould turn off the -- another,
I'll give you one more example,another kid I loved came in and
fell asleep on me, refused totalk. And so what I did, I
happen to know her phone number.
And so I texted her, and shewoke up. And then she texts me
(43:42):
back. And then she falls backasleep. And then she texts me
back. And before you know it,and this is the beauty of sort
of allowing defiance and notgetting threatened by before you
know it, she started texting mepictures, very serious pictures
of what it feels to her based onthings she'd found off the
internet. So there are all kindsof ways to deal with, with kids
(44:04):
who were resistant to therapy.
But you kind of have to enjoy
Tyson Conner (44:07):
I feel like a couple. I keep coming up with
it.
two things I want to talk about.
But the there's two conceptsthat feel really important for
work with adolescents based offof what you're describing. And
the first is you came up at thevery beginning. And then again
now, which is the idea of apower struggle, and how power
struggles are to be avoided intherapy. Power struggles are
(44:29):
inevitable in adolescence, theyneed power struggles with
parents, with teachers,sometimes with police, or just
the security at the local QFC orwhatever. But adolescents are
figuring out what it means tohave the power they have and
some of that's social power andsome of that's physical power.
(44:52):
And it's a messy confoundingthing. And what I'm hearing you
say repeatedly is you avoidthose.
Don Schimmel (45:01):
I absolutely avoid it. Because otherwise I'm just
going to do what the parents aredoing and parents, for parents
to have me do with their kidswhat they're doing, they would
have a right to say, what's thedifference? I try to share that
(45:21):
concept with parents where Iwill say to the parents is think
about a power sharingarrangement, I'll say, is that
and you can start that actuallyin toddlerhood? You do that in
some people sa well how in theworld can you share power with a
toddler? Well, the way is donewith a, with a toddler is often,
(45:43):
you give them a choice, you cango to bed in five minutes and go
to bed in 10 minutes, andthey'll choose 10. It's more
sophisticated with teenagers.
And for sure, because they'llsee through it very quickly, and
so the power struggles that comeup is not so much about, what,
what they're going to do or notdo, but who's going to prevail
in the session, we're going totalk or we're gonna not talk,
(46:07):
and, and so, and so one of theways that I give kids power, or
share power with them, is I givethem plenty of freedom to be
with however they want to be,and to accommodate, to their
sort of world view of the adultsare stupid, and that we don't
(46:28):
know anything. And rather thaninsisting that, oh, you should
listen, I've been, I've beenhere, and I know how it works in
life?
Tyson Conner (46:40):
Let me tell you, when you get older.... A thing
to avoid. The other thing thatfeels really important is what I
think playfulness, and and howthat stands in contrast to
playing. Because sometimes youdo play with adolescents.
Sometimes you play with adults.
But there's this, thisplayfulness that's more of a
(47:03):
persistent attitude. That feelsreally important. Which at least
in how I think about it.
Playfulness is a great way ofkind of taking the edge off a
little bit. Because you'redealing oftentimes with
emotional experiences andaffects that are really, really
(47:26):
overwhelming and really, reallypowerful. And playfulness around
them, allows us to speakhonestly about them. And even
get right up next to themwithout being absorbed and
obliterated.
Don Schimmel (47:40):
Exactly. Play. I'm glad you brought that up.
Because because one of thethings that Freud said there's a
difference between thedifference between play and
reality is that play and realityare serious. But, but reality is
(48:01):
real. And in the, in the, in thecontext of playing is is things
are "as if," and so for example,I will often be self effacing
and pretend to be sort ofincompetent. But it's more as if
I'm that way. I'm not really?
Because there is a certaincompetence. The paradox is that
if you, if you're veryconsciously engaged in a certain
(48:23):
amount of self effacing, a mildamount, it's the paradox there
is there is a certain level ofcompetence that you're
exhibiting, but you'repretending to be incompetent.
And it's serious. It's seriousstuff, but it's not real. And
that's what the difference was,according to Freud, between
(48:46):
between playing and non playing,is that it's not about reality,
it's not about seriousness, it'sabout what's real and what's not
real. That's one of the reasonswhy when we watch a movie or
read a book is, is that we'resuspending disbelief. We know
(49:09):
what's real. We know what'sreal. They know, they know
what's real, but we'repretending as if it is. With a
young child. With with a youngchild, it's more imaginative
play. And you incorporateobjects into the into the play.
This doll, this mother doll, andthis father doll. We both know
(49:32):
they're not real, but we pretendas if they were real, and this
is as if they had a voice.
Tyson Conner (49:40):
And as you were describing that I was thinking
about how much of adolescence isabout playing the as if and
playing as if they already arethe thing that they're going to
grow into? I really likespeaking of movies, I really
(50:01):
liked the movie Rebel Without aCause as a brilliant little
encapsulation of adolescence.
And it fits at the time therewas a cultural obsession with
teenager-ness and James Dean isan incredible actor. But this,
the scene that comes to my mindis the scene where these three
sort of disenfranchised kids whoare somewhere between child and
(50:23):
an adult whose parents treatthem in some ways too much like
children and other ways too muchlike adults, go to an abandoned
house, and they play housetogether. Where, the James Dean
pretends to be the father andNatalie Wood pretends to be the
mother. And the other kidpretends to be the child. And
(50:43):
they're all taking on in thisplayful way, these roles that
they're actively trying to growinto at the same time. And I
think, I think there's a lot ofadolescence that's about that.
And sometimes the line betweenam I playing as if, or am I
really being this is deeplyconfusing. And I think that that
(51:06):
stance of playfulness sort ofhelps keep it safe. Keep it safe
enough to explore.
Don Schimmel (51:14):
The same way that when kids play with army trucks
or with dolls, they'resuspending disbelief. It gives
them an eye, it gives them anopportunity to explore
possibilities. And I thinkthat's also applicable to adults
is oftentimes, when an adultcomes in and says, I could never
(51:36):
do such and such I say, well,let's pretend for a moment. What
if you were, well, how would itstart? We don't have to do it or
anything. But let's pretend fora moment that you were going to
say that -- it might besomething as somebody once said
to me, I could never I couldnever get a divorce. She was
miserable in her family. I said,Well, if you weren't gonna get
(51:59):
one, what would be the firststep you would take? So in that
sense, that's playing withpossibilities. It's moving
beyond the concrete. You knowthat you can do it. By the way I
wanted to mention to you --totally out of sequence. But, we
were talking very early in thispodcast about, about adolescence
(52:20):
and separation. And toddlerhood.
That there is a very famousauthor Peter Blas, who actually
designated adolescence as thesecond separation and
individuation stage. The firstbeing toddlerhood.
Tyson Conner (52:48):
For our listeners who might be less less steeped
in the developmental stages ofpsychoanalysis, in the first
separation individuation stageis about is about a child
experiencing themselves as anindividual at all. Before that
you're just your relationships.
And then you start to realize,oh, wait, Mom and Dad aren't in
my head. I have a whole separatebeing. Whoa, and adolescents are
(53:12):
doing that again.
Don Schimmel (53:16):
Yes, you're doing it again. They're refining it.
Margaret Mahler wrote a book inthe 70s called The Psychological
Birth of the Human Infant. Andshe goes through, you may know
about this as a series ofstages, beginning with a
symbiotic or essentially asymbiotic stage. And then the
(53:38):
stages of, of coming into theirown, and being able to what she
called achieve the stage ofobject constancy, which was,
which basically means I cancarry around the relationship in
my head, I don't have to bephysically present.
Tyson Conner (53:58):
Oh, boy. And that ties into a lot of the work that
we do as therapists and a lot ofhow people grow. And I feel like
we could talk about this foranother four hours easily. And I
want to respect your time andour listeners ears. If a
listener has heard this andwould like to find you, either a
(54:22):
parent who's looking for therapyfor a kid or another
professional who's looking forconsultation, or to take a
class, where can you be found?
Don Schimmel (54:31):
I can be found very easily by emailing me.
Should I give an email address?
Tyson Conner (54:39):
And it will also be linked in the show notes. You
can say that as well.
Don Schimmel (54:42):
It's Dschimmel@comcast.net. They're
also welcome to call me at (425)775-2205. Welcome to call me
even if it's just to get areferral. Oftentimes people will
call me, I won't have an openingnecessarily, but I'd be happy
(55:03):
to, to hook them up withsomebody that I trust that's
good. And that's a lot of whatI've been doing lately is just
simply helping people getconnected with people that are
like minded.
Tyson Conner (55:17):
Especially as we're coming out of the pandemic
and sort of moving into whateverstage we're in now, a lot of a
lot of new issues are coming up.
Don Schimmel (55:26):
If they are also interested in taking a course.
I'm, I am going to be in fact,it's listed right now. It just
came out last week. I'm teachinga class through the Northwest
Alliance for psychoanalyticstudy. It's the third or fourth
(55:50):
time that I've taught it. It'scalled -- this isn't specific to
adolescents, but it's calledworking with narcissistically
vulnerable clients through thelens of self psychology. But I'm
also in the spring, I'm slatedto teach a course on how to work
with adolescents. Parents, alsothrough the Alliance also to the
(56:13):
alliance.
Tyson Conner (56:14):
Okay, awesome. And that's, that's where we met -
the class you taught at TheAlliance. And that was in 2020.
So most of our conversation washow do we even do this now that
we can't see each other? Thatwas an interesting time. But
(56:35):
anyway, thank you. Again, thankyou for coming on the show. And
I hope we have you back at somepoints because I feel like we
could go anywhere.
Don Schimmel (56:45):
Anytime. Yes.
Pleasure.
Tyson Conner (56:51):
Special thanks to Don Schimmel for coming on to
this episode of the podcast.
Don's email address is in theshow notes. If you'd like to
take a class from Don, he oftenteaches at the Northwest
Alliance for PsychoanalyticStudy, which is also linked in
the shownotes. The RelationalPsych Podcast is a production of
Relational Psych, a mentalhealth clinic providing depth
(57:13):
oriented psychotherapy andpsychological testing in person
in Seattle and virtuallythroughout Washington state. If
you're interested inpsychotherapy or psychological
testing for yourself or a familymember, links to our contact
information are in the shownotes. If you are a
psychotherapist and would liketo be a guest on the show or a
listener with a suggestion forsomeone you'd like us to
interview. You can contact me atpodcast@relationalpsych.group.
(58:32):
The relational psych podcast ishosted and produced by me. Tyson
Conner. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
you buddy.
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