A SURVIVAL GUIDE TO PSYCHOTHERAPY

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo
California Institute of Integral Studies
August 2009

In order to use the mutual experience, one must have in one’s bones a theory
of the emotional development of the child and the relationship of the child to
the environmental factors
D.W. Winnicott

One should always start out on the wrong foot.

Carl Whitaker

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009

 Contents
Foreword:............................................................................................................................................. 3
I. The Client ......................................................................................................................................... 4
1. It is all about the client..................................................................................................... 4
2. Learn about the client....................................................................................................... 4
3. Clients want to heal........................................................................................................... 4
4. Follow the client.................................................................................................................. 4
5. Clients already know the answer.................................................................................. 5
II. The Therapy ................................................................................................................................... 5
6. Therapy as a Relationship and a Holding Environment. ...................................... 5
7. Listen....................................................................................................................................... 5
8. Let the affects flow. ........................................................................................................... 6
9. Don’t push the river........................................................................................................... 6
10. No right, wrong or simple answers.......................................................................... 7
11. Encourage responsibility............................................................................................. 7
12. Don’t decide for the client.......................................................................................... 8
13. Validate the client’s feelings. .................................................................................... 8
14. Be empathic..................................................................................................................... 8
15. Be nondefensive............................................................................................................. 9
16. Do not judge your clients............................................................................................ 9
17. Symptoms are metaphors. ....................................................................................... 10
18. Objectionable clients. ................................................................................................. 10
19. Beware of labels ........................................................................................................... 11
20. All is present in the session. .................................................................................... 11
21. Therapy is a process................................................................................................... 11
22. Cut back on interpretations...................................................................................... 12
23. Appreciate silence. ...................................................................................................... 12
24. Be totally present but don’t turn into a full-time therapist. ......................... 12
25. Acknowledge the anxiety in the room.................................................................. 13
26. Believe your clients’ stories, but with a grain of salt. .................................... 13
27. Notes-taking................................................................................................................... 13
28. Be grateful...................................................................................................................... 13
29. Intersubjectivity............................................................................................................ 13
The Therapist.................................................................................................................................... 14
30. Do not confuse your role with you......................................................................... 14
31. Watch your own feelings & fantasies ................................................................... 14
32. Work in yourself............................................................................................................ 15
33. Your job is not to teach, save or rescue you clients. ...................................... 15
34. Don’t try to fix, cheer up or fine-tune your clients.......................................... 16
35. Don’t try to know it all. .............................................................................................. 16
36. Neither better, nor worse.......................................................................................... 17
37. Personal Modeling........................................................................................................ 17
38. You’ll make mistakes.................................................................................................. 17
39. Be honest, transparent and candid....................................................................... 17
40. You are a human being.............................................................................................. 17
41. Be yourself...................................................................................................................... 18
42. Humor............................................................................................................................... 18
Bibliography...................................................................................................................................... 19

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 2

Foreword:

I wrote this paper originally as par of my preparation to begin my

psychotherapy practicum on fall 2006. Although some my view and
understanding of psychotherapy have evolved as I gain experience both as a
professor and a clinician, I am happy to see how most of what I wrote back
then still holds true to me as the bedrock of my therapeutic practice.

Almost needles to say that what follows are highly personal lessons; they
deal with my issues and with those aspects of therapy that concern me the
most (my own “issues” as we therapist like to say). I have tried to be as
comprehensive as I can, but again, the focus is in what I need to keep in
mind; therefore, many of these suggestions may not make much sense to
other practitioners. Likewise, what follows reflect both my understanding of
psychotherapy and they approach it is taught in CIIS’ Integral Counseling
Psychology program.

I am not claiming in any way that these principles are “the” way
psychotherapy works, only and humbly the way I understand it. Although I
would not want to get into a debate about the general validity of my
conclusions, I’d love to know your thoughts and reactions about it. You can
contact me through the www.ciis.edu website.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that, although I have included a bibliography at

the end of this guide, I am afraid that it only represents a very small piece of
the material consulted for this work. I have incorporated ideas from many
readings, classes, conversations, etc. The concepts, ideas and “tips” about
how to “survive” as a beginning therapist, how to deal with the clients and
what to do and what not to do come from many of my teachers and mentors.
As a result, it would be impossible to list and give credit to all of them. All I
have done is to put them together to create this survival guide. Paraphrasing
Anthony De Mello, my task has been that of a weaver and the dyer, so I take
no credit at all for the cotton and the thread. My hope is that these principles
maybe as helpful to others as they have been for me.

Love,

Sergio

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 3

 A SURVIVAL GUIDE TO PSYCHOTHERAPY
I. The Client

1. It is all about the client.

Everything, even the client’s opinion has about you, has very little to
do with you. The client improvement (or worsening) is more his/her
doing than yours. Avoid feeling that you are instrumental in assisting
the client to enjoy life more fully (the need to be needed) or giving
yourself credit for the client’s growth. You are not that important.
Psychotherapy is not so much about what the therapist does or says,
but how the clients experiences (the Selfobject experience) what is
being (or not being) said or done.

2. Learn about the client.

Learn about her 1 life, hobbies, family, interests, world, idiosyncrasy,
habits, the way she relates to others, what “pushes her buttons”,
expectations for therapy, how does she feels about herself, about
significant others, about therapy, etc. Encourage the client to talk
about her feelings, thoughts and fantasies, including those about you
and your feelings thoughts and fantasies. Learn to develop, from the
first meeting, a sincere interest and appreciation for the client.

3. Clients want to heal.

When the eye is unobstructed, the result is seeing; when the ear is
unobstructed, the result is hearing; ... When the mind is unobstructed, the
result is wisdom; When the heart is unobstructed, the result is love. If you
could get rid of illusion, you would be happy. 2

Clients want to get better, to solve their problems, to be happy; they

just do not know how. Acknowledge their courage in trying, be
empathetic and supportive to their efforts and patient with their (some
times seemly unending) wandering away of the “real” issues. Hold
them in their process. Help them by pointing the way they stand in
their way and how to remove obstacles for growth. We are witnesses,
not guides. Relax; you are only a facilitator, not the protagonist of the
story.

4. Follow the client.

Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than
3
these cometh of evil.

Start with what you have. Ask “what is going on?” “Where is the
distress?” Clients know what they want to talk about and deal with.

1
In order to make the writing and reading easier (and since I am the one writing), I will write using the
masculine for the therapist, while alternating the gender of the client.
2
Anthony De Mello
3
Mt 5:37

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009

 The therapist never writes the agenda for change, clients do. Beware,
in as much as possible, of your unconscious agenda and ask where is it
coming from?

Whatever happens is good; fear is good, anger is good, resistance is

good, openness is good. All is well. There is no plan.

5. Clients already know the answer.

...the maximum help you can give patients is to foster reliance on their own
resources rather than yours. 4

Even if they do not know it. Help them discover those answers within.
Your main responsibility as a helper is to assist others in finding their
own answers. Align with the client’s healing powers (their unconscious
plan to get better).

II. The Therapy

6. Therapy as a Relationship and a Holding Environment.

See therapy as a reliable and understanding relationship where two
people work together towards free spontaneous growth. It is not about
clever interpretations, but the therapist’s ability to develop a safe
environment for the client, encouraging her to try her own solutions,
walking together in the therapeutic relation, where two persons meet,
relate, and by means of it, healing occurs.

Think of the therapy room as a setting, a potential space 5 and a sacred

holding environment, where client and therapist assemble to grow and
(in Winnicott’s terms) to play.

7. Listen.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we
speak. 6

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me
what I thought, and attended to my answer. 7

Listen well, listen carefully, listen with your whole self, listen to what is
being said (discrepancies included), to what is not being said, to how is
being said, why is being said and when is being said. Everything
counts, from the way the clients greets you, how and where he seat,
how he begins the session, the topic he chooses to talk about, the
questions he asks, to the way he says goodbye. When the client asks a
question, ask yourself, what is he really asking? What is the question
behind the question? When focused in listening we are less prone to

4
Strupp & Binder
5
D.W. Winnicottn
6
Epictetus
7
Henry David Thoreau.

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 5

 react, to jump into conclusion. Is a bit like meditation, if we are able to
remain in the present moment (not reacting, not making inferences or
drawing conclusions), we will be able to see and hear what is really
going on. We might be able to realize even what the client really is
telling us, behind all his words and affects.

Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it, there is beauty and
great understanding. 8 Listening means immersing oneself in the world
of another human being; allowing oneself to resonate to the spoken
and unspoken message.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are
listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being
conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it... You can only listen when the mind
is quiet, when the mind doesn't react immediately, when there is an interval
between your reaction and what is being said. Then in that interval there is a
quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is
not intellectual understanding. Listening has importance only when one is not
projecting one's own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all
these screens through which we listen, and really listen? 9

8. Let the affects flow.

To urge the patient to suppress, renounce or sublimate her... transference
would be, not an analytic way of dealing with them, but a senseless one. It
would be just as thought, after summoning up a spirit from the underworld by
cunning spells, one were to send him down again without having asked him a
single question. 10

Do not try to placate anger or console a cry. Help your clients to go

deeper in the direction they are going (but do not push them; intensity
does not necessarily equal progress).

9. Don’t push the river.

Psychotherapy must proceed at its own pace and any effort to speed it or slow
it because of the character of the therapist can only be destructive. 11

Avoid the “this hurts me more than it hurts you” critical attitude:

Clients are whiney, clinging, depending children and need to mature.

Life is tough and every man is for himself. The sooner they learn this,
the better. Should not we force them to grow up? Keep shattering
their vain hopes, stepping onto their clinging fingers for them to see
reality. Of course, it will hurt us more than it will hurt them, but it is for
their own good; right? Wrong.

At times, it seems hard not to be critical to clients. Of course it is easy

8
J. Krishnamurti
9
J. Krishnamurti, Book of Life
10
Sigmund Freud
11
Carl Whitaker

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 6

 to get the impression that clients make their lives harder than
necessary, they should know better. They are full of resistances and
defenses, they behave childlike and illogically. We should point this to
them, right? Wrong.

Clients are just blind not to realize that whatever is going on in therapy
is not about us, it is about their parent, mother, brother, sister,
whatever. They are not sophisticated enough to see this, but luckily for
them we are. Should not we point it to them every time they do it?
Wouldn’t we do well in explaining them that they are kidding
themselves, that they would be better of facing the facts? Wrong.

Being critical as above, we become the latest version of the clients’

parents, teachers and preachers, telling them how inept they are.
Pointing out what they do wrong would not help and instead will
reinforce the precise assumptions underneath the behavior (the
pathogenic beliefs) that they are trying to eradicate.

Respect the client’s views and struggles. Whenever you thin that you
know better what she should be doing; seriously consider the
possibility that it is her who knows best and work hard to try to
discover the ways in which she is right.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear
them and be influenced by them for good or ill. 12

Be thoughtful, considerate and gentle. Respect the client’s pace. You

will not be doing her any favor by pushing or forcing her to realize
something (even if it has been clear for you since day one). Don’t push
the river.

10. No right, wrong or simple answers.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 13

In psychotherapy (and maybe in everything in this world) there is no

absolute truth, right or wrong. Things are useful and useless (in
Patañjali’s Yoga klista and aklistah); and even these are relative to
each client’s specific situation and moment in life. What may be seen
as an undesired resistance in one client may be a healthy self-
preservation mechanism for another that has kept him “together”.
Keep in mind that defense mechanisms are unconscious means of self-
protection.

There are no simple answers or solutions to any of the client’s

problems. The client is –at the very least– as a complicated human
being as you are.

11. Encourage responsibility.

12
The Buddha
13
Oscar Wilde

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 7

 Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves
responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. 14

Be realistic when establishing goals. Don’t do for the client what she
can do for herself. Don’t make promises of solving problems or create
false expectations (don’t seduce the client). If you take onto yourself
the responsibility your clients need to learn to direct their lives, you’ll
be blocking rather than fostering their growth. Allocate the
responsibility where it belongs, with the client. Our job is to gently
assist them to learn to make choices independently and have the
courage to accept the consequences of those choices.

The therapist is engaged in the art of making subtle suggestions, many

of them more by our deeds that by our words. Point to the client
whenever she does in the therapeutic relationship the behavior she is
working on. When making observations, use “parts” instead of general
statements.

12. Don’t decide for the client.

Never make decisions for the clients or guide them to the conclusion
you think is best (even if you think you are right). Instead help them to
own their actions, their feelings and face reality (but don’t push them).
Resist the temptation to give advice. Your task is to help clients
discover their own solutions and recognize their own freedom in action,
not to deprive them of the opportunity to act freely.

13. Validate the client’s feelings.

Approaching a person with the intention of really being honest often reminds
me of taking a cold shower. The anticipation is frightening, the initial impact
shocking, and the outcome, refreshing, cleansing, and invigorating. 15

Remember that the client may feel inadequate, deficient; even by the
fact of coming to a therapist. Communicate to him (by deeds more
than words) that he is Ok, that you are not judging him and that you
unconditionally accept him.

14. Be empathic.
The patient, as I finally grasped, insisted –and had a right to insist- that I learn
to see things exclusively in his way and not at all in my way. 16

Empathy is not a technique but an attitude. Put yourself in your

client’s place. You’ll learn more about your client by allowing yourself
to feel what she is feeling than by trying to figure her out. Empathy
does not necessarily imply love, affection or compassion; it can be

14
Sigmund Freud
15
Schutz, William; Elements of Encounter, p. 100, Joy.
16
Heinz Kohut

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 8

 expressed in disagreement or in accord, and that it does not imply a
fusion with the client. Alternatively, it can be achieved by actively
arousing, or letting oneself be pervaded by an absorbing human
interest in the person one wills to understand. It implies approaching
the client with understanding, respect and wonder, 17 to establish a
relationship.

Whenever you don’t understand, ask the client for help, when you
think you understand, check with her.

15. Be nondefensive.
Better curious than furious.

Whatever feelings clients express about you, be interested,

encouraging and without judgment. Acknowledge the client’s
reactions and assume that they are accurate. Always be willing to ask
yourself what you did to provoke any particular response, and be
willing to encourage the client to talk about it. Whatever the stimulus,
do not preen when praised and do not punish when attacked 18 . Don’t
attempt to justify yourself or to dismiss the client’s reasoning with an
interpretation.

16. Do not judge your clients.

Don't judge a man until you walk a mile in his moccasins 19 .

Remember that the freedom to express feelings depends on the

assurance that they are value-fee, that they will draw neither blame
nor praise. How could you judge a client? Remember that most
probably you would be doing the exact same things had you growth in
his family and had his life. “Empathy is vicarious introspection, a
method for inquiring into the subjective experience of another...” 20 Get
interested not judgmental. Kohut teaches that it is hard to change and
grow until someone has really seen (and I would add understand)
where we are now.

Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look
straight at me and you see yourself. 21

In as much as you are able to keep in mind constantly that you are just
like the client (perhaps maybe luckier), you ought to be able to stop
from judging and instead unconditionally accept him. Again, a
religious simile might help to clarify this point. It has been suggested
that the most remarkable feature of Jesus was the fact that he knew
that, as a human being, he was not better than the rest of us. Highly
evolved people everywhere share such feature. If they do not judge,

17
In an I-Thou fashion.
18
Michael Kahn
19
Native American adage
20
Heinz Kohut.
21
Charles Manson

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 9

 how could you?

The concept can be taken even beyond, to the spiritual realm of

“oneness”. If you keep in mind that neither the client nor you are your
“personae”, but parts of the whole (just like two drops of water in the
sea), what is there to be judged? If you can see through the illusion of
separateness and acknowledge that we are all one, there is nothing to
like or dislike about the client. Being all one, who is the one judging
and who is being judged?

17. Symptoms are metaphors.

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity. 22

Symptoms are artistic creations of the psyche, a magical attempt to

alter an unbearable reality. There is always a good reason for
whatever the client does. Reframe symptoms as efforts to grow.
Every symptom has a reason, a meaning, there is wisdom in them. A
symptom is a solution; ask yourself a solution to what? What is its
purpose or function? Symptoms are symbols pointing at something;
but in as much as possible, think of horses, not zebras 23 . Honor the
symptom, since it is doing something for the client. What is the client
getting out of it? Try to focus in the roots, not in the leaves, but do not
ignore the leaves either (which is what is visible anyway).

18. Objectionable clients.

I am human and let nothing human be alien to me. 24 .

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of

ourselves. 25

What to do with a client that you just find unacceptable? (whether

because you dislike her, because her presenting problem overwhelms
you, etc). There is really not such thing as an unacceptable
client/problem (within the limits of your own physical integrity). If you
find it hard to accept someone with unlovely qualities, think of the
person as being up against those qualities inside. One can accept the
person while disapproving the action. Just as with children, even when
they do “wrong” we keep in mind that they are only children and as
such, they are not evil, just do not know better. In other words, the
fact that one censures the behavior; does not mean that one
condemns the child. Think about what the client’s being through.
Find the scare child within her. Connect to her humanness.

If there is something you particularly dislike about the client or you

would like to change in her, first take a good look within and find out if

22
Sigmund Freud
23
Galloping footsteps should evoke suspicion of horses before zebras. More obvious hunches should be
entertained before rarer ones.
24
Terence
25
Carl Jung

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 10

 it not something that could better be changed in you.

19. Beware of labels

As well as diagnosis, syndromes, disorders, acronyms and the like.
Although it might be useful to develop some preliminary hypothesis, do
not get attached to them. Every person, every situation, every
problem is unique. Accordingly, there is not such thing as a text-book
neurotic, teenager, mid-life crisis, divorce, depression, etc. The
moment you label somebody as a “bipolar”, “ADHD”, “depressive”,
etc. you’ll stop looking at the person and only see the label, you will
loose the unique individual before you and only see psychopathological
symptoms. In that very moment, you’ll stop seeing the person and
start disregarding anything that does not fit with the diagnosis. This is
a well-known fact, applied to our profession. Krishnamurti 26 used to
say that the day we teach a kid that a fluffy, colorful moving object is
called “a sparrow”; he/she has lost something 27 . From that day on,
every time he/she sees a new (and unique) similar fluffy thing, he/she
will say, “Oh, another sparrow, I know sparrows”.

20. All is present in the session.

Life isn’t mind over matter, it is present over past, and present over future. 28

The client will bring into the session whatever he is dealing with
outside. Focusing in the relationship (while keeping in mind the
client’s history, background and context) will help you both to
elucidate what is really going on. “So, how are you and I doing today?”
At the moment of the encounter between therapist and client, the
client’s whole world is present; all the significant relationships, basic
hopes and fears; all are present and focused on the therapist. Make
and effort to check into the “here and now” each session.

21. Therapy is a process.

Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will
gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. 29

Psychotherapy is a walking together, a constant unfolding, a process

that accelerates the development of a person, a series of experienced
events that catalyze the natural growth of the psyche. Enjoy the ride
with the client as she unfolds.

...let go and submit to the therapeutic process rather than trying to run it.
…recognize our helplessness and focus not on how to do the work but on how
to let the work happen, how to restrain our impulses to block the process…
accept a far humbler (and more difficult) role than that for which our
academic training prepared us. We must witness rather than guide, enter into
the patient’s pain rather that cure it. … We must be willing to be confused and

26
As quoted by Anthony De Mello
27
That is the awe for its uniqueness.
28
Carl Whitaker
29
Rainer Maria Rilke

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 11

 lost if we are to accompany someone into chaotic, uncharted areas of [the
patient’s] soul”. 30

It is the search that matters, the asking of the questions. Therapy, as

life, is a journey, not a destination. The process itself is healing, even if
certain goals are not achieved. 31 Life is an unanswered question but
let's believe in the dignity and importance of the question. 32

22. Cut back on interpretations

Psychotherapy is not making clever and apt interpretations; by and large it is
a long-term giving the patient back what the patient brings…[I]f I do this well
enough the patient will find his or her own self and will be able to exist and to
feel real. 33

Our role is not to make clever interpretations, but to let the client
explore, play and be creative with whatever he is bringing to therapy.
Kohut explains how interpretations are irrelevant, since it is the client’s
experience of the relationship (being understood and seen) what has a
real impact. Must probably client are not even interested in listening
to “brilliant” interpretations.

23. Appreciate silence.

See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the
moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to
touch souls. 34

Befriend silence; become comfortable in it, inside and outside the

therapy room. If during the session, what does it tell you? Who
provoked? Observe the process and how it fills (or not) the room.
Doing nothing is doing something. Sometimes is good and even
necessary to leave the patient alone, and not insist that every little
thing means something (even if deep down you know it does).

24. Be totally present but don’t turn into a full-time therapist.

Your clients deserve (and are paying for) your full undivided attention
during the session, but do not carry them on your shoulders once the
hour is over. Avoid losing yourself in your clients, learn to “let clients
go” and do not carry around their problems until you see them again.
You will certainly think (and even worry) about them during the day,
but do not be their therapist 24x7. Trust that they have the capacity
to live their lives and make their own decisions outside the session.
Likewise, don’t “therapize” your partner, family and/or friends. Be the
best therapist you can be for your clients, but leave that “persona” in

30
Sullivan, B.S.
31
Especially when the number of sessions is limited.
32
Tennessee Williams

33
D.W. Winnicott
34
Mother Teresa of Calcutta

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 12

 the therapy room.

25. Acknowledge the anxiety in the room

A journey of a thousand miles begins in the first meeting.

Anxiety prevents the person’s internal communication system from

functioning appropriately. The client most likely feels anxious and you
should be too (especially in the first session). Normalize the situation
without belittling the client’s feelings. Acknowledge his courage in
being there, and provide some assurance that it was the “right move”,
that she is not crazy and that there is hope.

26. Believe your clients’ stories, but with a grain of salt.

Remember that people (you included) don’t always tell the truth. Even
if they are being as honest as they can possibly be (and many times
they will not be that honest), you are only listening to your client’s side
of the story. Keep looking at clients in an I-Thou way, honoring their
self-exploration efforts, while acknowledging that there are many
things going on during the session. Many times, even if we want to, we
cannot tell the truth because we ignore our real motives, which have
been repressed long ago, buried in the darkest cave or our mind (our
shadow). Our unconscious is always there, like a puppet-master,
pulling strings of which we are not even aware. How can our clients be
fully honest with us when we cannot even be honest with ourselves?
And since we all do it, nobody should be condemned for it. All the
same, always remember that, in the session, reality is not as important
as the client’s perceptions.

27. Notes-taking.
Do not take notes during the session but do not rely on your memory
either. At the end of each session, write about the main issues
discussed, your feelings and unfinished business. Use a few minutes
before the session to review such notes.

28. Be grateful.
The privilege of entering into another’s life is among the highest a
person can ever get. Be thankful of the honor of being a witness of the
client’s struggle and story and a confidant to her. Our clients trust us
with what is most valuable for them, their life stories, their fears, their
feelings and desires. It is a privilege and a responsibility to be the
recipient of such treasures. Honor and respect that and vow to do your
best to assist them to find their own answers.

29. Intersubjectivity.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 13

 substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. 35

You are me, and I am you. Isn't it obvious that we “inter-are”? 36

In the therapy room, as the client begins to go deeper into himself, so

too does the therapist into his own self in a series of reciprocal
transactions. The therapist is not an objective viewer, removed of
what is going on in the session; as such, he cannot be the arbiter of
reality. The truth we believe about ourselves, the world and the client,
is no more (though no less) ‘real’ than that of the client. All we can
‘know’ is our own psychic reality. The client is affecting you (and you
would do well in welcoming this) at least as much as you are affecting
him.

The Therapist

30. Do not confuse your role with you.

By acceptance I mean a warm regard for him as person... ...no matter what
his condition, his behavior, or his feelings. 37

Transference is powerful. It is about you, but do not take it personal.

Remember that the client hate, admiration, sexual desire, etc., may
have less to do with you than with her past and ways of organizing
experience. Don’t let yourself be destroyed or demoralized by the
patient, even when she ignores you, attack you or deprecate you.
Many times, erotic transference is not about sex but early longing
(usually a longing for a parent-child connection), so (i) do not take it
personal, (ii) don’t criticize the client, (iii) don’t join her, (iv) allow the
feelings to persist, without gratifying them.

31. Watch your own feelings & fantasies

Be attentive and own the feelings and fantasies the client elicits in you
(fear, anxiety, sympathy, sexual desire, anger, hate, desire to rescue
or to parent him, furor sanandi, etc), do not try to ignore, suppress or
brush them away, they are telling you something. Keep in mind that
the client will try to do to you what he does to others (and push you to
do to him what he is used –or expects– to receive from others). One
way to discover the client’s transference is to ask “what is he trying to
make me do?” Does he want the therapist to like him? Is he asking to
be kicked out or abused by the therapist? Is he trying to seduce you?
Does he want you to take care of him (or vice versa)? Is he fighting to
submit you? Likewise, you will project your own old patterns and
repetitions/ selfobject needs/ organizing principles onto the client. It is
almost like waltzing back and forward, letting the client guide us
(transference) while being very careful not to step on her toes
(countertransference).

35
Carl Jung
36
Thich Nhat Hanh
37
Carl Rogers

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 14

 Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. 38

Trust your own feelings and intuition. Where does this “x” feeling
comes from? Does it come from your own past/needs/stuff? Or is the
client’s transference or projective identifications? Be willing to share
them (if they are for the client’s best interest). Be attentive to what is
going on inside you. How are you feeling? Are you confused? Bored?
Angry? Happy?

32. Work in yourself.

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening
the axe. 39

The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision is not being
afraid of who you are. 40

The nature of therapy requires the therapist’s commitment to his own

growth, which makes him a perpetual patient, thus avoiding becoming
a therapeutic technician (kind of keeping a beginner’s mind). You have
blind spots that your clients will trigger or at the very least detect; be
open to hear about them and explore them. The fact is that we all are
like snails; wherever we go, we carry on our back a shell full of our
psychological stuff (our unresolved issues), which will not go away until
we deal with it. No matter where you go, “you” will be there with you.
Gnothi Sauton 41 .

33. Your job is not to teach, save or rescue you clients.

If we can abandon our missionary zeal we have less chance of being eaten by
cannibals. 42

Therefore, one should act without being attached to the fruits of activities, for
by working without attachment man attains the supreme goal of life. 43

The setting, the client and even your previous conditioning may be
pulling you to become the client’s messiah, guru or prophet. In such
model, everything seems to depend in the
wisdom/knowledge/cleverness of the therapist. Do not fall in the
“enlightened therapist” trap. There is an enormous temptation and
pressure for the therapist to produce something, to intervene in some
way, to use a technique, to ask the right question, to make the right
interpretation that would produce the Eureka feeling in the client,
which would help her make sense out of things and live happily ever
after. Bear in mind Freud’s admonitions against the educative and
therapeutic ambitions (furor sanandi) the craving to help, the self-

38
Dr. Spock
39
Abraham Lincoln
40
Shambhala tradition
41
Know Thyself
42
Carl Whitaker
43
The Bhagavad Gita (3,19).

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 15

 indulgent hunger for cure 44 . Don’t try to produce great
“breakthroughs”.

Embrace the therapeutic experience not getting attached to results

(the fruits of action), allowing the process to unfold and the
transference to form, neither trying to make things happen nor
developing a specific agenda. Understand that client may apparently
“get worse” before showing any therapeutic gains. Also make friends
with the idea that many times you will not know whether a client is
progressing or whether you are being helpful in her growth process.
Learn to function in ambiguity, with now knowing, begin comfortable in
a place of not-knowing, focused on Being rather than Doing.

Observe yourself, especially when you sense a disagreement/struggle

with the client (even if very mild or subtle, even if the client does not
seem to notice it). It may be a salient indicator that you are trying to
guide the client to see things “your way”. Give up your missionary
seal.

34. Don’t try to fix, cheer up or fine-tune your clients.

Your job is not to “fix” your clients, make them feel better or help them
“fit” in society. Wholeness, not perfection is the purpose of therapy;
this has been stated many times in many different ways. Jung used to
say that he’d rather be whole than good. To accept the good and the
bad of life 45 . Human beings with the ability to honor life’s darkness as
well as its light. The ‘cured’ client would no longer seek for a happily-
ever-after ending, or trying to meet society’s expectations but be her
own true self. Kohut talks about the therapist as a helper who
supports the patient until she “emerges from it [therapy] a more solid
and authentic adult that the one who entered treatment”. It is not a
question of what to do, but how to feel differently, how to be different.

35. Don’t try to know it all.

If you ask me a question I don't know, I'm not going to answer. 46

Watch out for the myth of psychotherapy: In the therapy room there is
one distressed person with problems and one professional who has it
all together 47 . In reality, you do not know all the answers and you are
not supposed to (even when you think you have “the” answer, you
would not give it to the client, right?). How could you know what is
best for the client? Don’t worry when you don’t know what you’re
doing; worry when you think you do.

44
Whenever a psychotherapist has too great a need to cure his patients—in order to prove his own worth,
for instance, rather than out of concern for what the patient needs—he will tend to become easily
frustrated and intolerant of patients who don’t get better quickly. Until they learn to recognize and come to
terms with this rage to cure, therapists generally have trouble distinguishing their own needs from their
patients’ needs.
45
Klein’s “Depressive position”
46
Yogi Berra
47
Michael Kahn

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 16

 36. Neither better, nor worse.
You are neither better, nor worse that you client (and you are not
supposed to be) Together you are just “fellow travelers” in the path of
life 48 . The therapist has to clear his own path (as much as possible)
and then invite others to walk a similar one together; as someone who,
while may have already visited this specific “country” is nonetheless a
wanderer, still learning and discovering new things.

At one level, we are all each other’s manifestations of Avalokiteshvara

the bodhisattva of compassion, illuminating each other through our
mutual interactions.

37. Personal Modeling.

One must live the way one thinks or end up thinking the way one has lived. 49

You have a responsibility to your clients. Whether you like it or not,

they’ll observe you (just like children would) to see if you follow your
own preach, if you walk your talk. Even if you do not think that your
clients see you that way, your behavior in the therapy room should be
your most accomplished example of what a healthy human being
should/could be. This includes taking care of yourself and your own
needs.

38. You’ll make mistakes

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also. 50

Face the fact that you’ll make mistakes. Console yourself in the
additional fact that, in an almost paradoxical way, not the therapist’s
skills, but his blunders (including but not limited to the empathic
failures) are what promote significant therapeutic change. According
to Winnicott, clients will certainly use your mistakes in their process;
therefore, you would do well in learning to use them yourself (even if it
means a study of your own unconscious countertransference).

39. Be honest, transparent and candid.

Be yourself. Especially do not fake affection. Neither be cynical about love. 51

Never pretend to be what you are not, or to feel what you do not feel.
You can decide whether you want to share your thoughts and/or
feelings with the client, but in any case, never lie to the client. Be
genuine, strive to be transparent, not wearing any “therapist mask”
and do not pretend to be someone you are not.

40. You are a human being.

48
Irvin D. Yalom
49
Paul Bourget
50
Carl Jung
51
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata.

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 17

 Some cannot loosen their own chains yet can nonetheless redeem their
friends. 52

Holy men may be in niches, but they are certainly alone. Keep yourself
human, real and accept your limitations and struggles.

The client will affect you. Be attentive to your own process, your own
countertransference (cotransference) and your own selfobject needs.
Be spontaneous. Whenever you think that it would be in the client’s
best interest, do not hesitate to share what is going on within you.
Therapists (just as clients) have needs but keep in mind that therapy is
for the client’s benefit. Ideally, as long as you are aware of your
needs, you will be able to discriminate if any given desire or pull to
share comes from you or from the client, and whether it would be
beneficial for him.

All know the way, few actually walk it. 53

Be willing to walk the path that your client is walking. If the client
walks faster than you or goes beyond where you are, be willing to learn
from him and be encouraged by his example. By helping in such
occasions, you are not being hypocrite, you are doing your job
supporting the client.

41. Be yourself.
Do not attempt to be the Buddha. 54

It is not about theories but persons. It is not about techniques but

being honest and fully present. What is happening between the two
people takes precedent over the method one is using. Find your own
voice and counseling style.

42. Humor.
More errors are made solemnly than in fun. 55

Therapy is important but it need not be deadly serious. Humor can be

useful, not only to break a grim mood, but also helps to keep the
therapist sane. Relax, it is only therapy. It is serious business but not
life itself. You should be able to enjoy this work. Take this guide with a
grain of salt, go out and try it. In twenty years come back read this
guide again and see how you are doing.

52
Friedrich Nietzsche
53
Bodhidharma
54
Dōgen
55
Don Herold

© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 18

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Ivey, A (1994) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling. Pacific Grove: Books-Cole

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© Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo, San Francisco, Ca. 2009 19