[Clinical Notes] Threats

 In this edition of Clinical Notes, clinical psychologist Margarita Holmes delves deeper into the issues raised by a Two-Pronged reader who is struggling with a difficult relationship and feelings of inadequacy. In our last Clinical Notes, she addressed John Snow, one of the commenters in the previous article who says he is the man in the Two Pronged story. And now, she explores the nature of his threats and points out key differences between therapy sessions and an advice column. 

Writing an advice column is not like giving therapy. This is the mantra I would repeat constantly when I first started writing columns like “Two Pronged” over 25 years ago. That was because people had no compunction to say, or hint quite sledgehammer-like, that if I didn’t answer them immediately and personally, “I will kill myself/ and/or my boyfriend/girlfriend.”  

Thus I needed the constant reminder (as Mr Baer did when he first started) that our current contract, for example, was with Rappler.com and our responsibility was to the Rappler community and not just to the particular letter-writer, no matter how sure they were that their husband and/or father would kill them if we didn’t answer her personally. 

There are many other ways in which writing is not the same as giving therapy. Among them are:

1. Therapy usually lasts a few sessions (sometimes even a few years). In nearly all cases, answering a letter writer via column is a one-shot deal. 

2. Therapy is more interactive (if the client doesn’t speak to, or even refuses to look at, you that is still grist to the therapeutic encounter. If a letter-writer doesn’t send you an email to begin with, you have no column to write. Therapy is more about the process; a column is more about the product (if you want more clarification, please ask in the comment page and I will respond). 

3. Ideally, therapy waits.

It waits for the client to discover something for himself, be it the demands he makes on himself, the possible meaning of someone else’s words or behavior towards him, the implications of his own actions, etc.  Writing a column usually requires a more direct, proactive and certainly quicker approach. You give suggestions, express your own emotions more openly.

4. Therapy is face to face, in real time. Writing a column is anything but… 

There are times however, when responding to a column one has written may seem more like therapy (even if it definitely isn’t) than merely responding to a person’s comments. Our July 20 column is one of them. 

Take John Snow’s example.  He wrote nearly half (7 out of 15) comments about the column mentioned above.

Happily, John is intelligent and articulate.

Our interactions via the comment section seemed “therapy-ish”  because we responded to each other fairly quickly (almost, but not quite, like real time), and this lasted over a few days, rather than being a one-comment-followed-by-one-reply interaction.    

Also, it said more about John Snow (and, admittedly, probably more about Jeremy Baer and/or Margarita Holmes) than any of us might have been aware. That often happens in therapy, hardly ever in writing columns. 

In a column – everything is under control. The letter-writer has time to compose his letter the way he wants and  can embellish, add, subtract etc, etc. as can the columnists.   

While clients may lie either consciously or unconsciously, to the therapist or to themselves, eventually the truth will out. 

That is not the case in writing a column. A letter-writer might purportedly write to us for advice, when in reality they don’t care what we have to say, (OUCH!!) but just want to send their partner a message, especially if said partner wants nothing more to do with the letter writer.

Does that mean it is possible for us to be “kuryente’d” (played for a fool)? Absolutely. 

Dos that mean we should stop writing columns? I don’t think so, do you?

John Snow does not come across as a devious individual, purposely lying to create an image. Far from it. In fact, if anything, perhaps he was too honest too soon and thus revealed his hand when he didn’t intend to.  Again, this happens often in therapy, very rarely in writing or responding to columnists.

The most glaring example was Mr Snow’s comment, written July 26, 2016 when he said:

“Really this article should be deleted until you have met Sarah on 7^th Aug. There are too many lies in here and it is stressful to keep reading it on your public website. 

“I will ask Sarah to not meet you until it is deleted.” 

If this were a therapy session, I might have commented (depending on what else was going on – facial expression, posture, etc.) : “You seem overwrought about this column.” Then waited for a response…

But since this is a “commentary” on a comment made in Two Pronged, let me make a few points: 

John’s two comments above reveal: 

1. That he and only he is the reason for his being upset.  He says it is “stressful to keep reading it on your public website.” First, since the column hasn’t changed from when he first read it, he doesn’t have to keep on reading it. Second, it is only a column. Sure, we give it all we’ve got whenever we write, but in the final analysis, it really is “just a column.” Some like and some don’t; some believe it and again, some don’t. 

2. John must really be very upset because ordinarily an intelligent person does not make meaningless threats. 

Threats only work if the threaten-er has something the threaten-ee wants or needs and which the latter worries will be denied him.

Mr Baer did not approve of my suggesting to Sarah that we meet if she wanted to. He strongly believes that “What happens in Two Pronged stays in Two Pronged” – no leaching into the rest of our lives. And Mr Baer is, of course, spot on.  

There were only two other occasions when I broke my own rule. This would have been the third. I suggested a meeting for no other reason than that I felt talking to a fellow Filipina would have been a good, hopefully healing, encounter. In that sense, I was emotionally invested.

But I am not so emotionally invested that I would succumb to John’s threats. Neither would I feel a need to either cry out in pain or rend my clothes in frustration if I didn’t meet Sarah at all.

SO… why have I written about threats, therapy and column-writing in the first place?

Perhaps it is to remind myself of the most important lesson in clinical work: 

What matters most in therapy is not the university one graduated from, the school of therapy one espouses, or even the mentors one has or has had. What matters most in therapy is the relationship between the client and the therapist.

Perhaps, it is also to give Mr Snow a gentle reminder that you might get more things with sugar than with shit. Judging from the quality of his responses, I am fairly sure Mr Snow already knows this. Thus, the times he threatens rather than uses sugar, can probably serve as a sign he is emotionally overwrought.  Knowing this is something that could make life easier for him in the future.  [I hope I am not merely projecting here ☺ ]

Finally, it is also a shout out to Sarah.  Helloooooo, Sarah.  You know how to contact us. Should you do so, that’d be great. However, should you decide not to, that would be just as terrific too… especially if this decision is entirely your own and not someone else’s. 

Ingat,

MG Holmes