Journal

Right. So i wanted to figure out what it is that we want to know about the person. Of course we start by talking to them about what they have on their mind. But after this. When we want to learn more about them. Hmm its a good question. Well there are multiple overall areas. Lets list them below.

So we will start by adding the area of occupation. This would be a great basic one. Although realistically we would start by their overall well being. This should be added first then. What else. Well occupation covers either their education or their work. What then? Well after occupation we would get into their close relations. It should at least be added. But i think that prehaps it would be good to look at what they spend their time on. This could actually be a great point in itself. Their weekly routine. Them taking us though their normal week and the patterns there is here. What should we call this? Tour though their week? A normal week in their life? How does a normal week look in their life? Perhaps just a normal week in their life. I like that so far ill add it to the list and on the second place. Now this is only something that they would inform us about once or with larger intervals. Because it does not change very often. So ill have to add some mark to it showing its nature. What is the nature. That it is great to know but not very variable. Maybe it should be habits and routines. Hmm im in doubt here. Lets keep it like this so far. And lets mark it with relatively permanent. Anywho what else? After close relationships. We will go over interests. I was just thinking that making them name three interests might be a good way to get their mind going. But im not sure. And anyway we can look into the more specific areas and types of questions later. This is actually really fun. I can also look into different therapy techniques and types. For example narrative therapy. Anywho. Lets keep going. After their interests. And what is interests by the way. After their interests we would look at their. Uhh their expectations would be cool. Who they would like to be and who they think their close relations would like them to be. We will call that expectations and ideals. But that is a side one. The basic would be their history. So that is their timeline. Or biography. Like where they used to live, who they lived with. Right. Hmm what then? Well then i guess we get into the more specific ones. Which also is where it gets super interesting. I guess that Identity could be one. Like values or idea about who they are. What they are good at and what they are bad at. Thats good. Identity and values. Yes very interesting. Okay what else. Hmm im not sure. I guess sexuality and ideal partner would be very interesting. Ideal partner is good. And what that reflects in themselves. You could also ask them if there is something hidden or secret that they do not tell anyone or very few. And you could say that in asking this we do not ask them to tell us what it is. But a lot of people have some secrets that they do not tell anyone for different reasons. And it is important here that we do not give the impression that we want to figure out what it is or narrow down what it could be. But if they say yes there is then it is possible to talk about how it is to have a secret like that. Thats a very interesting one. There is two interesting parts to it. Both how is such a question formulated and how is such a conversation had. And secondly what questions could there be followed up with after the first. What ways can it go? Okay this is pretty cool so far. I dont know if i feel overwhelmed of the list. I guess i can have more than ten without feeling overwhelmed. But if i get many more i might have to group them somehow into some that are foundational and some that are explorative. Or something like that. I dont know yet. But its actually a good suggestion. There could be status, foundational and explorative. I dont know yet. Well lets see. There is also emotions. That could be interesting. Im not exactly sure what that would look like. But i guess that we there would move towards emotional therapy. But anywho. Then there is the parents. But that is under close relations. But i mean a deep dive into the dynamics of the relationship to each parent and the relationship between the parents. That is also one. Right. These are like deep dives. Or what we could call explorative. The ones that require us to have a decent understanding of them. In order to not move to quickly. Right i just remembered that it is also very great to ask them what they would like to get out of this. I mean what is their goal. If they could make a schedule where they showed what it is that they would dream that each session gave them what would that then be. For example. First session (make you understand who i am), second session (get insight into my problem with structure), third session (get insight into my problems at work), fourth session (get insight into my relation with my parents). And it does not have to be that specific. But is there a overall idea about what it is that you would like to gain from the sessions? This could be added. Now what would we call that? Hmm hope for the sessions. Thats good. Now should that be after a normal week? It could be. Right what then? Well thats a good question. I have many good ones now. Hmm. It would be a good place to start. With these ones.

Overall well being
A normal week in their life (RP)
Hope for the sessions
Occupation
Close relations
Interests
Timeline (Biography)
Expectations and Ideals (Own and Others)
Identity and values
Sexuality and ideal partner
Unspoken secrets
Core Emotions
Parent relations

Now next would be to look into each section. For example i just thought about close relations. That something you could look at would be that which you liked the most about your relationship to X and one thing that they would like to improve. But this might be for another day perhaps. Or perhaps not. hmm. Im not sure what it is i want to do here. Do i want to make a structure of the above? I think that would be best. Because some of them can be considered exercises. The timeline for example and the normal week in their life. Right im considering moving expectations and ideals down into exercises. Hmm. It definitely could be. I guess that it is something that is not updated every week. Okay. It could also be under exploration. I think it is better there. Thoughts and feelings is also a foundational one. One which shifts from week to week. Thats an important one to remember. Lets see if there is something else we have forgotten. I could make a sort of framework based on this i think. Like a sort of method. Hmm pretty interesting. But lets see if we have forgotten something. It can be worries. I don’t know if that should be one. Or problems. I feel like that would be one. Worries and problems. That might be a foundational one. Okay so far we have seven foundational areas. And we have five explorative areas. Other than that we have three foundational exercises. Hmm okay. Found another one. The imagine that is done exercises. That is actually a great way to get to know someone and their ambitions.

Foundational
Overall well being
Occupation
Close Relations
Interests
Significant Events
Thoughts and feelings
Worries and problems
Health

Explorative
Identity and values
Expectations and Ideals (Own and Others)
Ideal partner
Core Emotions
Family relations
Scenario

Foundational exercises
Hopes for the sessions
Timeline (Biography)
A normal week in their life
What would you do – Imagine that’s done – What would you do then

(Not yet approved)
Unspoken secrets
Sexuality

Now we can start with some of the questions and subareas. Ill start by listing some questions i have found interesting before. Just because i want them gathered together here. Right i have them here. Im considering deleting all those that is just fun conversation stuff. Right i also just realised that a good question is to ask someone to imagine they were someone else and then evaluate themselves from that other persons perspective. That other perspective ‘imagine you were this person’ type of question is pretty interesting.

Are they working on anything exiting at the moment?
Do they have any personal passion projects?
What is their favourite thing about themselves?
What do they remember from their last birthday?
Who shaped their life in the most important way?
Do they have someone in their family they aim to resemble?
If they imagine they have an interaction with someone. What behaviour from this person would hurt them the most?
What do they dislike about themselves the most?
When was the last time they felt embarrased?
When was the last time their parents told them they loved them?
When was the last time they told someone else that they loved them?
When was the last time you felt like you truly belonged?
What was the last thing they changed their mind about? (Big thing where they used to think that, now they think this)
How old they were, when their parents started to try and get to know themselves and their traumas, in order to not pass on their traumas to them?
If at some point in the future they decided to write a book, what do they think it would be likely to be about?
What feelings have they noticed the most in themselves during the last week?
Lets say they have a day off. What do they do? Now imagine that is done. What do they then do?
What is the one thing you remember that you have spend most time thinking about the last couple of days?
What do you believe in?
When, or in what situations, do you feel the most angry at yourself?
How gentle would you say you are with yourself when you judge your own behaviour?


Okay what then? Well i’m not sure. A lot of these questions are great. I guess the next would be to find some way to make this into a model. I think that the foundation is great in order to get a feeling of what areas they feel most eager to talk about. And also to make sure that you have all the foundational knowledge about them you need in order to get a feeling of their situation. But i’m not sure weather i want to split the areas. Hmmm. I guess that one thing that would be good to to here is just to find a lot of good questions. That would be useful no matter what. Then perhaps after that there is some pattern in which can be sued to create the different areas.

Close relations
(One thing that you appreciate about your relationship with someone and one thing you would like improved)

Terapi form (shared understanding)

I was thinking about how it would be best to work with someone who has a problem. First i think that it is important that i truly understand their experience. Right. That is something which i should always aim to do. But i also want to find some structure so that there is a method to this. And here it is good to have the fundamental and explorative framework. So that i have a sort of mapping of the different aspects of their life. Now it is important that the categories does not have clear boundaries. And that they does not fit everybody. And for each person we need to find out what different areas we can look at. But i like the idea of looking at the foundational structures. I don’t know what to call it. Something like close relations would be a category for example. Close relations, Interests, Occupations/Education, Health. That would be examples i think of. But what should each of these be called. Relevant aspects of their lives? Areas of their lives. I don’t know about that. Hmm. My intuition is split here between going towards a structure and framework for getting to know them and not.

1)
I think the right choice would be to make a framework for each person together with them. So that i don’t make them fit into a specific structure. Thats good. So the first thing would be to get to know them and together with them make a framework which we can use patterns that there is in their life and in their experiences. Right and an example of how that would look would be the above with fundamental areas and explorative areas. But that might not be the best example. Maybe it would here be best then not to distinguish between fundamental and explorative. Or at least figure out which is fundamental and which is explorative together with the client. Right.

2)
Okay so now we start making the framework. Right. And how is this done? Well through them talking about their life and experiences. And as we go along we add elements to the framework. That works well i think. Right so this would take some time. But at some point we would be content with the framework we have created, and think that this is a good proposal of the overview of them and their situation.

3)
Good now that we have a overview of their situation and the different aspects of it. So here we sit down together with them, look at what we have found so far and try to figure out what we would think that the problems are.

4)
Okay. Now we have sat down with them and talked and come to some understanding together about what we think their problems come from. Now the next part begins where they should be supported in gaining an understanding of their problem. Now here we would look at each problem at a time. If one thing they struggle with comes from anger we would have to understand what anger is and what it comes from and what the different types are. And they would need to understand this in order to understand their own situation. So this would be to make sure that we have a general understanding of the core aspects of the problem. Now this general understanding would have to come from me and them. They would be the ones who provide the experience and i would have to provide general knowledge. Or in other words there would be a mutual teaching where we try to get on the same page, meaning that they teach me in their understanding of the specific problem (and general observations about it) and i teach them about the general observations that i have about the problem.

5)
Now. Next after this we would sit down together and try to analyse their situation based on our general understanding. Seeing where it corresponds to what we know and where it does not. If it does not seem to correspond to the general understanding then we would have to dive into this and figure out what it is that characterises this which makes it different form the others. This in itself would make us understand the problem more. If it does seem to fit then what? Well then we now would have an idea of what changes that should be made in order to improve the situation. So ideally we should now share our understanding of the problem and we can now together sit down and analyse the case together.

6)
Next would be together figuring out what changes we would like to make in order to improve the situation. This understanding would give us some concrete ideas about what should be changed. That is we would ideally end up with a concrete list of things we would like to improve.

7)
Now we should make an action plan of how these changes should be created. This would end in us having made a plan for how we would like these changes to be achieved.

8)
After this we would look at the situation again. How have the plan worked out. If it worked great, we can move on to the next point. If it did not work we must figure out what it was that we did not take into account, and we have to go back to step 4 and see what part of our understanding was wrong and try to correct it by adjusting our understanding to this.


This is the core idea. (1) Create an understanding and a framework together. (Them updating me so that we are on the same page). (2) Then we discuss and come to a shared understanding of what problems there are and where we should start. (3) Then we create a shared understanding of the different aspects of the problem, which is acquired through an exchange where they provide me with a general and individual understanding and I providing them with a general understanding (the important thing here is that i don’t assume that i know more about the topic than them, we simply exchange the knowledge that we have and discuss it). (4) Then, based on our new shared understanding, we again analyse and discuss weather we can specify the problem. (5) If we specify it we again need a shared understanding of the different aspects of it. This is repeated until we are satisfied that the problem definition is concrete enough. (6) From here we sit down to discuss what changes we would want to see in order to improve the situation. (7) Then we discuss what actions would lead to these changes and we sit down to make a plan of action.

How psychoanalysis can be useful

Right i wanted to figure out how i could use the theories and methods of psychoanalysis. Now so far i have an idea about how i can use it. When i read the Dora case i realised that what comes to you in your mind comes for a reason. So for example if we will dive into my relationship with my mom. Then i could attempt to say whatever comes to mind when my mind gets prompted with the idea of my mom. Here it is essential that we don’t ask the person to describe their mom. But to say whatever comes to mind. And there are things which might come to mind but they do not wish to say because they don’t want to say something which is not true or which is unfair. The interesting task here is to try and explain this to the person. And in some way make it clear to them that we want whatever comes to mind. How is this done then? Well that must be done by explaining why it is important. As i sit here writing i have a good idea of why it is important to say whatever comes to mind. I think that an example would be a good way to explain or show this. Hmm. Right lets make a list of the useful elements of psychoanalysis. Okay what else? Hmm well there is a lot of things about the unconscious which is interesting. This would be methods which comes from theories like that all negative thoughts about others (reproaches of others) comes from insecurity about yourself or an attempt to defend yourself in some way. This is a very relevant theory which can be used whenever a certain negative thought or criticism seems to show up about others often. Okay great what else. Well he has the idea that symptoms can be difficult to get rid of if there is an unconscious psychological advantage. This would mean that there is an unconscious desire to stay ill. I like the idea that you could explore weather there is some psychological advantages of the symptoms that you experience. And its interesting to try to explain that this is something that often happens. And that we cant be sure that it has happened in their case but that it would be useful to try to explore in some way. Lets add that to the list too. Right thats great so far. What else is useful? Well there is a lot of interesting things which relates to the sexuality of the person and eventual perversions. Because these can be a symptom of a role or event that was experienced in the past. But i’m not entirely sure how i would be able to use this. I guess that this would be where you would have to know something about how the life-drive works. Hmm. Im not sure about this. I don’t think i know enough about it. Let is browse through the text a bit. Okay there is another point which i find interesting. That is that the purpose of pleasure and doing things only because it gives us pleasure is that it motivates us. We want to experience it. And this gives us motivation to take care of ourselves and develop ourselves so that we can experience it. I find that quite interesting. That it is an effort to take care of ourselves and to develop ourselves. And why would we put in this effort? If there is nothing we can look forward to then it does not make much sense. Spending a lot of effort and doing uncomfortable things to acquire food only to once again to make the uncomfortable feeling of hunger go away. That is not really enough to motivate us to do it. As well as all the other ways we have to take care of ourselves. We need pleasure we can chase and look forward to. That is what makes you jump out of bed in the morning. So if a person gets immense pleasure from jumping in Another interesting concept is countertransference. Further there is the defence mechanisms which would be very interesting to look into. Ill place it on the list for now. Ah but i will place them further down as things i don’t really understand. Right.

(1) To examine whatever comes to mind when they are prompted with the idea of something.
Often we think that we need to figure out what question we will ask and what angle we will take on a topic. But maybe the best way to encounter a topic is to not have any angle at all.
(2) Negative thoughts about others, comes from an unconscious insecurity about yourself or an unconscious danger towards something you value.
(3) The symptoms of an illness can be difficult to get rid of if there is an important unconscious psychological advantage of them.
(4) We need pleasure we can chase and look forward to, in order to have enough motivation to provide the effort it takes to take care of ourselves.
(5) Unconscious defence mechanisms
(6) Transference and countertransference