Interviewer: Hans Welling A video recording of this ... · 1 The Experience of the Psychotherapist...
Transcript of Interviewer: Hans Welling A video recording of this ... · 1 The Experience of the Psychotherapist...
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The Experience of the Psychotherapist
Transcript of an Interview with Leslie Greenberg (Version 13/04/2013)
This interview was held in Lisbon on 17 june 2011
Interviewer: Hans Welling
Duration: 58:50
Brackets: comments later added by Leslie Greenberg
A video recording of this interview can be seen at: http://www.psicoterapiaintegrativa.com/interview%20leslie%20greenberg.php
H – (laughs) OK. So, my first question would be... that you started off as an engineer, you
worked as an engineer and then you changed and why did you change? A... well paid job, sure a
secure future...?
LG – (laughing) I didn’t actually work as an engineer. I mean, in any substantial sense, I just
worked like for three months or six months between... doing things. So, a... well, one of the
humorous stories is that I became an engineer rather than a physicist because I went to a guy, a
guidance counselor and because I liked working with people. So, the guy, this counselor, guided
me to become an engineer rather than a physicist, because engineers work more with people
and that's very funny. (laughing) A... Somebody once, in New Zealand, introduced me saying “He
used to work with engineers, but now he likes to work with people.” implying engineers aren't
people. So, really I even went into engineering because I had an interest in working with people
but I was politically involved in South Africa fighting against the South African Government, the
Apartheid Government. I was really involved in societal politics, student politic, and I liked
working with people. The majority of my friends [who were doctors ended up] became
psychotherapists. So, there was an intrinsic interest right from the start. And I think growing up
in a kind of totalitarian country like South Africa was, being a psychologist, did not have a lot of
possibilities, I didn't even consider going into psychology Then, I came to Canada and it was
the... early sixties and the early seventies, and then psychology was very high profile. People
were really interested in it and that opened a possibility for me and then I’d lost the social
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relevance of the political situation in South Africa. I was searching for greater social relevance
and in the end I've decided to change and coming to psychology. So it was a sort of mixture of...
H – It's a whole new study?
LG – Pardon?
H – It's a whole new study again? You know?
LG – Yes.
H – Five years?
LG – Oh, no. but I didn't... I didn't have to start again. So I thought I was going to have to start
again. Coming from my British background it was unthinkable, any other alternative a... and it's
also a very interesting story, cause I called up the university and I asked them, you know, what
would I have to do. And they said “Well, you have to do makeup of two years about.” So, one
day by chance, while I was doing my masters degree in engineering, at this point I went to
Canada and I did my masters degree there, a friend of mine said “I'm going to Toronto. They
have a new big computer at [York] university. Do you want to come with me?” So I said I wanted
to go because I heard... I was at this time really contemplating dropping out of... engineering
and going to India for a year. This was the time of The Beatles and... (laughing) it was hip going
to India. So I was definitely not wanting to continue to do my PhD in engineering. So I heard‐
through my wife [who had completed]was a psychology undergraduate ‐ so, I heard that there
was this woman at York University, Laura Rice, who believed that curiosity was really important
in psychotherapy. And that idea appealed to me a lot. As I went with this person, this friend of
mine who went to use the computer at York, and I went and I knocked on her door and this was
something like the 10th August and she was there and 10 days later I was accepted into the
doctoral program [in psychology].
H – Can you tell me a little more about that meeting?
LG – Well, I remember very little, but she tells the story that I appeared there in one of these
South African cloth (laughing), a sort of Hawaii type shirt made out of the South African cloth,
long hair and a beard I guess I had then and she said she was trying to figure out whether I was
one of these real flaky kind of people who wanted to escape engineering by coming to
psychology but she decided that I wasn't. I had very good grades in math, in physics and so on
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and it was respected as a hard science and so... I don't remember that meeting very well but she
accepted me and then I had to do one year of makeup but I was accepted straight into PhD
Program. So I really didn't have to redo everything and, you know, that was an incredible
experience. It wouldn't happen today.
H – Hum, hum. It take me right into the next question. I was... So, our work is built on that of
others and you learned and worked with Laura Rice from a Rogerian Tradition and with
Freedman from the Gestalt Tradition, what did you learn from them? Not everything, but like it
was that...?
LG – Yes.
H – this central...?
LG – Yeah. I think firstly, from Laura, she really was... a Rogerian through and through as my
supervisor and that helped me develop confidence in myself. She really had such faith and
believe. I experienced her as having such faith and belief in me that I really felt free to say what I
really thought and felt, and at the same time she was articulating Rogerian Theory, and that
made so much sense to me of what I had been sort of developing with my friends in South
Africa. We really would sort of listen to each other and believed in exploration and curiosity
and.... [I had validated the nascent belief of the importance of having faith in peoples
possibilities to grow and to listen for this.] so, it was about the relationship, supervisor
relationship, she provided, and the theory that she espoused that really helped me develop. And
then she was first and foremost a process researcher and that really opened up something that I
knew nothing about, but fitted my sense of what a researcher should be. Cause I thought
psychology research was rubbish. Coming, as an engineer, I thought I wanted to be a
practitioner or do something meaningful, but I thought doing experiments on human beings was
just missing the complexity. But then she opened up this possibility of really studying the
process of what really happens and ways to do it and then... That's why she took me on,
because I had these mathematical skills. She was hoping that I would be able to analyze moment
by moment, interactions and we started off to do that with Markov Chain Analysis that I was
really familiar with, but that really failed, but out of that, though, this approach of task analysis
that we developed. So, those are the things that I learned from her. From Harvey Freedman I
think I learned how to [focus on the here and now of experience and to] do two‐chair work. I
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observed him and he was exquisitely sensitive. I had no idea what he was doing and I don't think
he had much [explicit] idea of what he was doing, in any articulated manner.
H – Hum, hum.
LG – Because in the end I did my doctoral dissertation on studying two chair work. I interviewed
him and I interviewed [the] Polster[s] and they could only speak in very global terms, but he
[Friedman] was a master at it. I think I absorbed that implicitly. So, from him I learned
something about how to work with people.
H – When did you feel the need to create something new? You know... It's...
LG – Yeah, Yeah.
H – Do you remember that moment that... this is not enough, I have to make my thing?
LG – Well, I'm not sure if was that I had to make my thing. I was interested in studying the
process of change and a... I was very against, and Laura Rice was very against, creating another
therapy. And I was not in favor of that but I think it was the advent of cognitive therapy and
when it became so dominant I felt it was really important to articulate an alternate view to that
and then I think it was actually the couples therapy which we named as the first [emotionally –
focused] therapy: emotion focused couples therapy and it wasn’t in individual therapy cause I
always thought I was Rogerian and Gestalt and so on, [although the first book I wrote on
emotion in Psychotherapy was on emotion it didn’t name it as a therapy,] but then having
developed the couples therapy ,[ based on combining emotion with systemic perspectives we]
named it [emotionally focused couple therapy] and seeing what doing one outcome study and
having a name did for getting attention, it seemed to me that it was important [to name a
therapy and do outcome studies]. Then, by 1993, well, I returned to York University in 1986.
Laura was retiring and I was sort of taking over [her position], and then together we tried to get
a research grant. And that was when it became necessary to name a therapy and develop a
manual. So, it was really a functional external forces that induced us to have to do it, and then
we named it Process Experiential [Therapy] because both Laura and Robert (Elliott) had no
connection with the couples therapy and didn't want to name it emotion focused therapy. It was
in an experiential tradition, so we first named it Process Experiential Therapy.
H – So there is really a moment. You needed a name?
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LG – No, no. I don't think so.
H – OK. What did you learn in those years about what you should do, I don't know, better or
different in order to be better therapist?
LG – I think two things. That I should focus on an emotion and that I needed to combine
following with leading or following and guiding. And that was helped a lot by doing the couples
therapy, [and family therapy] because in the couples therapy I had become easier with giving
direction, meaning to take more control. So, [through my] client‐centered therapy I entered
with a very strong superego at first, like you mustn’t direct people it is bad to control it is bad to
influence and it was [now] eventually coming to a resolution, and that was that there is a
dialectic that one needs to really follow, that that's really important, but that that's just one
side, [on the other,] one also needs to guide. I think those were the things that I learned. But
then, from my research I'd started learning to really pay attention to the moment‐by‐moment
process. So I was learning things all the time, about little many moments.
H – Other things that... Could you say two things that a therapist really shouldn't do?
LG – Shouldn’t do?
H – Yeah.
LG – Don't believe that you know better then your client what's going on in your client. Don't
force them, impose on them. And don't invalidate people. It’s experience... I think those are
different...
H – Hum, hum.
LG – You know...
H – What do you think it motivates you most in this work?
LG – I have a real conflict through out of my life. Curiosity motivates me and then ambition. And
there is a dialectic between them, because I start off always with curiosity but then my ambition
is high, and it takes over and then I follow my ambition and it... because ambition has to do the
real world, and has to obey the dictates, of what's demanded by publishing.
H – Ambition, how? Being known or being...?
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LG – Making an impact, but I think some of it is narcissistic or... being right. I wanna be right.
(laughing) That is really dominance I think, yeah, but I …
H – But you hide it pretty well. (laughing)
LG – (laughing) Are your joking, or..?
H – No, it is not so obvious to me
LG – Right, right….. I believe that I have the right view and I think, I feel very misunderstood that
people don't understand. (laughing) I mean, that speaks to such a faith in my own view.
H – Can you say something more about... what do people not see?
LG – They don't see how fundamental emotion is. They don't see how fundamental empathy is
and they don't see that they should do task analysis. They don't see that the kind of research
that they promote, the randomized clinical trial, the outcomes, are complete nonsense [at this
stage of psychotherapy development]. And that they don't do what they claim to do, [because
they don’t have large enough numbers to produce randomization, and the self‐report measures
used are not really very valid measures of change, they are too influenced by things like
dissonance , persuasion and induction to answer that they are feeling better at one particular
moment in time ], that they overlook the complexity and they reduce it to rubbish, and yet
that's the way of the world. So, that's where ambition... so, I ended up doing that kind of
research in order to get the recognition that what we are doing is valuable.
H – But how is that a conflict?
LG – Because that takes me away from doing more meaningful things. So, in my career, sort of
RCIs and task analysis or... if you spend your time doing randomized control trials, not RCI but
RCTs right, you don't do... I don't do task analysis and really study how people change. If I really
just did intensive analysis and studied how people change we would never have done
randomized clinical trial and there wouldn't have been a recognition of what we do.
H – It's funny... It takes me to a bit of things that I wanted to ask later, but I'll go to them now.
There's... for instance, if you look at two people that come to mind, like Linehan and Shapiro
from EMDR they have all these training institutes, that flourished all over with thousands of
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therapists. I Mean. You try to found your school and your own thing... I guess, what I wanna ask
you is what do you hope for the future, for EFT?
LG – In making that contrast I think, you know, this statement of how come we didn't develop
that kind of marketing of what we do, the same as DBT or EMDR.
H – I didn't think of it as marketing. But you see it as having a lot to do with marketing
LG – I see it, I see it as having a lot of marketing and promoting. I mean, this is a question that
I'm often kind of confronted with… you know? That's often raised. How come those other things
had got so much recognition and EFT hasn't, although Sue Johnson has really promoted the
couples therapy. So, that has a similar kind of recognition.
H – Yes, right.
LG – The way I understand it is I grew up in a British system in which sort of intellectual values
were very different. If you spoke something that was truthful, people would find it...
H – Recognize that was true?
LG – Yeah, they would recognize it was true. You don't have to go out and market and sell it and
promote it because people should find it if it's true. So, I just never had a mentality that you
needed to promote it. So, that's one thing. Now, all my younger colleagues were really very
eager to be engaged in promotion, certification that kind of …
H – You said I had a mentality does that mean has changed?
LG – Well, I see that you need marketing things in order to get them out and that is what works
in this world. Am I happy with it? No, but... you know, I do see that it's sort of a necessity in the
current context but I don't like it is as a value.
H – Hum, hum. It's a fact of life.
LG – Yeah, yeah. And you know, if you... I don't know I thought I was just having it, there is
something similar about non‐directivity, right... it's not sort of pushing it at you, and it's
assuming that you will find it , like build it and they will come. If you build it, they will come. So,
yeah. So my assumption was in academia “you do your work and then people either find it or
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not.” But I mean, I know that it is not that simple and power is endemic to life and... so, but the
question you really asked was what about the future...
H – Yeah what do you hope that happens with
LG – What I really believe in is that eventually we will form an integrative approach to
psychotherapy and there will be no schools. They will really understand how we work with
people and how best to facilitate people. Will it happen? I think it will not happen easily or
quickly. I mean, what I really believe in is that the markers [of in‐session problem states] and,
you know, people enter into different states and I think [we need] good ways to intervene [for
each state]and some of them will involve cognitions and [others] behaviors and [others]
emotions and [others] interaction and then eventually we will study them and the change
processes [involved for each problem state in the context of a specific intervention.] So, that's
my hope. Again, given the way the world is we have to develop a strong voice of experiential
and emotional focused therapies in order to sort of have a place at the table. So I think that’s
what has to be done now. That's a sort of pragmatic... you know, I don’t know if it's ambition as
such but I mean, it means you have to do things that aren't following curiosity alone.
H – You know, I think you once said something about Perls, that he was stardom and that kind of
attitude, and in the mean time you're becoming a celebrity yourself.
LG – Right, right.
H – How are you dealing with that?
LG – I'm not... I'm not... I don't remember saying that of Perls because of the stardom part, you
mean like a guru I guess, but...
H – Yes, I feel like that.
LG – You know, I mean more I saw Perls as harsh and... and... but I think maybe I said I didn't like
the style of therapy that got promoted, because it's more like a performance.
H – Yes.
LG – You know, he was going around...?
H – You knew it all and he was right
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LG – OK. Yes. Some of it was that he was interpretive but also the style of doing hot‐seat work
and doing these films were sort of… like it became more a performance than what a real
therapy is like. So... I mean, there's a danger of that and am I dealing with being sort of a
figurehead? I hope to maintain my humility.
H – I can see that it is really a dilemma. You know? It's like... and it's a very strange dilemma as
well, because if you in one hand, you just said you want to advocate it, you don't want to say to
people “I know it as a therapist, I know it better than you do.”
LG – Yes.
H – In one hand you have this... you know that therapy... “why don’t they see I'm right.”
LG – Yeah, yeah.
H – It's really a conflict.
LG – Right, right. And in a sense I, you know, that's a dialectical tension. I think I developed a
view and everything is duality and opposing things and then you have to integrate them.
H – What would you... what do you think that are the limits of EFT? I mean, what do you think
that can’t be changed or can be changed by EFT? What do you feel like?
LG – Well, I think in the way that I present it, EFT is good for people whose functional
impairment isn't too high. So, if people are really highly disregulated and hard get out of bed in
the morning and ,are cutting themselves and self‐harming. EFT is not the first line of
intervention. So, this is a limit under the degree of the dysfunction. Otherwise, EFT is highly
variable; it can vary from purely empathic, supportive relationship to doing different degrees of
intervention and or regulation. So, I think it has a very broad range of applications across
personality disorders and axis one disorders and so on, but not with psychotics, not with
psychopaths.
H – What about personality disorders? There is always this issue of complex personalities and
how far can EFT get with that?
LG – I mean, I think as far as any other treatment can get with that, but that's what I was saying
with axis two disorders, which are personality disorders, right? So, because then you use the
empathic relationship and that… So, both with borderline and narcissistic personality you will
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use an empathic approach and a relationship approach, so, I think... I mean, we haven't tested
it, right? But we wouldn't be using highly activating interventions early on with more complex
personalities. So, I it’s equally applicable, but you wouldn't necessarily jump into chair work, you
know, early on in those relationships. But you might after a couple of years or something.
H – So, it's like you need much more preparation before you can go there?
LG – Yeah, yeah. Much more relational security and working through because some clients are
just very sensitive to the relation[ship]. They need to hold your face in view all the time and a
very sensitive towards what's going on between you, so then you wouldn't [do chirwork but
rather] work with an empathic kind of style
H – You wrote books with Safran in...
LG – Right. 86.
H – 87 and 91. Yeah. And then... so, you kept on the emotion track, that was really for you the
center and the heart of the therapy and (mobile noise) Safran went to the relationship part
and... and relationship...you seem to deal with the relationships issues as far as it may help or
stand in the way of emotional work. But do you feel that... So, you don't really look or focus in
relationship in is own right. It's more like I have to deal with it in order to... in order to get
somewhere else
LG – Right. Really... we see the relationship in and of itself as curative, but that means the
empathic relationship. If I had provide you a good relationship, that's in and of itself curative. So,
we see it also as providing the context for other interventions but we do see the relationship as
highly curative
H – corrective emotional experience?
LG – Yes, yes. I mean, that would be... that's more focus on particular moments, but I mean,
overall, having a good relationship that’s empathic is the most curative [and is corrective itself.]
There too we add the kind of intervention part, but the relationship facilitates the interventions
as well. But what we don't do, is do the therapy through the medium of relational difficulties.
So, we are not looking at conflict or interpersonal patterns or reactivity in the relationship as the
medium of change. We are trying to provide an empathic secure relationship and see that that
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eventually will help change. Without focusing on things that happen [between us] as
representative of your problems.
H – Hum, hum. You think that might be useful or do you think that it misses the point?
LG – The focus on what's going on? Difficulties?
H – Yes.
LG – I think there that is useful to the degree that it is... that there are ruptures in relationship
and to the degree that's getting in the way of other things. So, it occurs maybe in... I mean, I'm
just estimating you know, 20% of relationships of people who don't have personality disorders
or borderline or main borderline. So, it doesn't happen always when you're providing the
empathic relationship.
H – Hum, hum. I asked these things because in... what I feel is that the relationship or the
characteristics of the person really is so determining if... if emotional works flows smoothly or if
there is lot of work to be done before. It looks so different, you know, if...
LG – I'm not quite sure what you... but I... So, the relationship and the alliance are primary and
until then is... working, you can't really work on emotion...
H – I think what I wanna say is that... I kind of missed that fact, because it's so crucial. For
instance if we look at the... at the APA tapes. We have two session taped and six session tape. It
looked so different. I mean, in the two session taped you could do so much work because it is so
accessible....
LG – Right. Right.
H – and then in the six session tape, you know, you can...you have a lot of work and...
LG – Right.
H – I think what I... what I was saying is that, what I miss a little bit in your work is more on...
what you have to do to get... to get people there, to be able to do this.
LG – Right.
H – Maybe it's just a...
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LG – You see, what we say... you know, this is an issue that has been raised. We say that other
people, particularly for me Rogers, has said what you need to do in the relationship. So, we
don't focus on that because that it's not our contribution.
H – OK.
LG – Right? But they... yeah, that's primary and we believe that the empathic relationship is
primary, right? And there may need to be more articulation in that domain because part of the
Rogerian conditions are being genuine, but now currently interpersonal psychoanalysis, you
know, actually arrives in a pretty similar position, but being genuine is a very complicated thing.
And so recently we've, you know, written this book on therapeutic presence, which is just trying
to deepen the understanding of what it is to be in this kind of relationship, but... yeah. The
relationships are extremely complicated and you need a whole set of interpersonal skills and
that hasn’t been what we focused on...
H – that makes it very clear to me, that’s not our contribution , but of course it is important
LG – Yeah.
H – but it's not your contribution, of course. I would like to go back more to the motivational
part. So, one of the things that I would like to ask you is what is... what is beauty for you in your
work? Where do you see beauty?
LG – That's funny because it's fairly easy to answer that. I see beauty in people’s pain.
H – It's surprising.
LG – I think when people go to their most painful wounded places, they are actually the most...
they are the most beautiful, because they are being, they're letting me be with them in a place
that they hardly ever go to, ever let anybody see and I feel this incredible sense of...
H – Vulnerability and...?
LG – Yeah, the vulnerability. So, I think a small child is the most beautiful being. In their
innocence and their openness and when people are... and people usually are only that open and
vulnerable, when they are being vulnerable.
H – That’s for you really beautiful and moving
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LG – Yeah, it's like a flower just opening. And I mean, I guess people could open into awe or
wonder or other experiences but somehow it's when they let you close to their pain.
H – Hum, hum.
LG – So, I mean, that's interesting for me to say in words as well. And I think it evokes incredible
compassion from me and you know, that's the human experience and that's... and it's an intense
experience of intimacy. That is beautiful.
H – It is. Do you cry a lot with clients?
LG – No.
H – No. That was what I thought. I do a lot. How does that work
LG – Yeah, yeah.
H – I guess something else I want to ask you is like, you do feel intensely what your clients feel
isn’t it?. It reflects?
LG – I'm not sure I feel what they feel. You know, that's complicated.
H – OK. Right.
LG – But I do have a feeling in response.
H – Yes, is that too intense?
LG – I feel close or compassionate, but I feel close or compassionate or there are all sort of
tender loving feelings. Not... I mean, if you feel shame, I don't feel shame, I feel concern and
compassion and tenderness.
H – Yes. Sure. You don't feel shame, but you might understand somebody else pain.
LG – Right.
H – I mean, you've been working with intense emotion for years, I mean, there is no
habituation? I mean... (chuckling)
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LG – Yeah. I mean, that's interesting. I... I think about that at times because it's sort of like “Oh,
yeah [so you are feeling sad]” you know? So, I think at times, I may not fully appreciate how
difficult exhausting frightening it is for and how courageous people have to be to be there.
H – Yes, because sometimes is such a big step for people to go there ...
LG – Yeah.
H – For you it is something ordinary
LG – I think that maybe not appreciating the courage that it takes for this person... when I was
younger, you know, I would be in the edge of my seat, so to speak, but now it's not like that. But
that also, probably has its pros and cons, right? It also allows me to facilitate it. It is not as
frightening to me.
H – Hum, hum. Yeah. I remember... it was this story, that you told me in Switzerland in a car
“Oh, I really love teaching.” You said you loved teaching so much that it was like two days in the
middle of the Alps and you looked up and “Hey, I'm in the Alps.” (both laughing) That was such a
beautiful story, but I think it says a lot about you. A... You just talked about your compassion and
maybe your passion for this work, for the emotion, for when people really open up, but I believe
there is also another passion you talked about there, teaching or science...
LG – Yeah.
H – Can you say something more about that?
LG – What came to mind when you say that is when I was 15 years of old, I had a classroom of
my friends in my house with a blackboard and I was teaching them mathematics for their exam.
These were the people who weren’t so good at it. So, I always loved teaching and then I... I
loved mathematics and it was fascinating, just sort of understand it and then to be able to
convey it to others
H – You are not teaching mathematics now, so...
LG – No, no.
H – So, what is... what is the... the real...
LG – What's the motivation...?
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H – Yes. What’s the real thing about teaching?
LG – Well, recently somebody said to me you said, you know, that one of the six emotions is
interest. And she said interest isn't an emotion and many people say that. I remember when I
read that interest was one of the basic emotions that really reverberated with me [I think e have
a seeking system as basic as an attachment system] and a... So, I think... and I'm just interested
and I have a lot of curiosity and then teaching comes out of that.
H – It's like be... sorry for interrupt you.
LG – Oh, no.
H – This is like you really wanted to share your understanding...?
LG – I think it's one of...
H – Look what I found...
LG – Yeah, yeah. And I think that ties into client centered therapy because I think I've always had
a high need to be understood and I think as an adolescent and a young person dating, I was
always worried if the other person wouldn't understand not only me but understand my ideas
and how important they were and I was a Rugby player and I was a highly intellectual and they
didn't quite fit together. So, it wasn't cool to be intellectual. So, I've always needed people to
understand what I'm thinking, because it's very validating of me. So, I think there is a high need
to be understood and then when I'm teaching and when I'm able to make clear enough I feel
people understand. And at some deep personal level, that feels like being understood. And I just
feel great excitement about conveying what I know and people appreciating. There's a strong
interpersonal part and there's a strong intellectual [curiosity], you know, fascination, a passion.
H – A pleasure?
LG – Yes. It is pleasure. Definitely pleasure. So, Perls said there were, you know, in his sort of
flowery language. He said there were three orgasms, right? It was an orgasm into anger, into
grief and into excitement and I made the strong critique, you know? When I was a student, I said
that he misses, that it is an intellect... there is an orgasm into... intellectual insight ,into seeing
something new. So, that's how I have always experienced it. And teaching it is an opportunity to
communicate it.
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H – To really communicate this beauty that you saw and you understood...
LG – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
H – yourself. Mathematicians that...
LG – Exactly, exactly.
H – The beauty of mathematics, when all fits together.
LG – Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. This is how it works. So, the counterpoint to beauty is pain. Is...
beauty is in the understanding of something.
H – Something else which I remembered now is when I saw you teaching, first time, in your
workshop for the first time, I saw this person stood up and a looked very grounded and he
standing and he slowly started to talk. And he would never stop and you would never know
where it come from it is like a very...
LG – Sorry. You wouldn't know where... you wouldn't know where...
H – Well, it seemed like to come all so natural. It's like...
LG – I see. Yes.
H – I was curious if... what kind of state is that, you know? When you... when you start talking...
LG – Yeah, yeah.
H – and you suddenly say I remember this example and, you know... and then when I was
there... and then you suddenly moved back to the theory and all seems like... it's coming, you
know?
LG – Yeah.
H – And that works like that, but...
LG – Yeah, yeah. In some way, I mean, I'd theorized that I'm in a state of flow.
H – Hum, yeah that crossed my mind as well
LG – Yeah. Because some of this insanity of traveling around the world and... like last year, I
was... it wasn’t all work, you know? But I was traveling for seven months in one year. It's like,
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because I get into a state of flow and I am teaching, so, it's a very pleasurable experience, a
very... So, doing therapy, truly investigating something and teaching or putting me into state of
flow a...
H – You don't really think about what you are going to say. Before, do you prepare? I was kind of
surprised, like... what nerves come here and say “I don't really know what is in these videos.
Let's have a look.”
LG – Yeah.
H – It seems so very...
LG – You know, of course I've written books and I’ve prepared a series of slides. So, things are in
me different levels, right? You know? So, I do think at some point, but writing and teaching or
always of clarifying of what one is thinking. So, this is what I said with Laura Rice. Laura Rice
somehow listened and validated everything I said. So to speak, you know. And we would sit and
I would say? It's like why is this this way? And maybe is this way and... I mean, she wouldn't
interact and we wouldn't co‐explore, [she would listen] but I think that gave me such a sense of
safety in doing that and providing the relationship. I wasn't like “Yeah. She's my supervisor.” But
I wasn't worrying that she was judging me. So, when you get rid of conditions of worth, then you
just open. So, it has something to do with the confidence to have a voice, to say what I think, but
I do worry about being criticized or being attacked, but I guess only minimally. (both laughing)
Then I feel very hurt.
H – When was the last time you were criticized?
LG – Well, my wife criticizes me and my children criticize me quite...
H – Of course, but more in terms... we were talking...
LG – In terms of professional...?
H – Yes, professionally. Something that really hurt
LG – I can't remember. (laughing)
H – A long time ago...
LG – Yeah. Yeah... I think so, yeah. (chuckling)
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H – Is there anything... anything else that you are very passionate about in your life?
LG – (laughing) Yes. Some things.... (both laughing) ….. And food.
H – And food... (both laughing)
LG – So, the libidinal impulses are definitely things that I'm passionate about, but... I am, you
know, so involved in my work but I would like… At one time I played squash and a little bit of
tennis, so... but my condition is not so good to be engaged in physical activity, but I bicycle ride
and there at times I enter a state of flow, bicycle riding, but there is nothing else really that I'm
passionate about, I’m about hopefully to become a grandparent and I’m looking forward to that.
H – The last questions I have, I guess more and more technical ones and how... When you do
chair work, sometimes things happen, that wouldn’t really happen in real life. So, you would for
instance having a parent forgiving or saying “I love you” and clients might even comment,: “he
would never say that”, but still it seems to change people and in a deep way. And... I mean, it
seems to be a kind of self‐deception, in a sense and I would like to know if you agree with that
and if you feel that... that's bad or problematic or not.
LG – Right, right. I mean, I think that happens, but I don't see it as a self‐deception and... and I
think, you know, this is a complicated question. But I think it is the difference between concept
and experience. And I think people at that time access an experience and in whatever way they
do of feeling loved by the parent and that is real. So that real experience changes memory and
changes how we feel. You know, and from a constructive point of view it's like... it's not a
deception. It's a construction.
H – Yeah. Sometimes you, I mean, I'm fine with that, but sometimes I get a bit of feel that
everything goes and everything is possible.
LG – Well, experiential everything is, I guess, I mean, as the Buddhist monks, I mean, you can
end up feeling compassionate for your enemy, cause different kinds of experience are or can be
internally constructive. So, I think when you say in my father goes into a chair and says “I love
you.” and you say, I know he could not ever say that in the real world and never would. But I
know that inside of him, that's what he feels.
H – OK.
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LG – You're constructing a certain experience and you feel it. It's not a deception.
H – That there is some truth in that
LG – That person can access some sense of the other, that is representative of that and
therefore feels it is true. I mean, who knows what's actually true.
H – Yeah, it's.. now with the EFT and... and some other therapies, but you seem to use this
changing emotion with emotion and we suddenly see that you can change memory. I mean,
it's... it's like... well, is this the good thing. The other day I heard a story about a woman that had
been cheated by her husband and... she did some EFT or EMDR and after a week it was ok and
didn’t hurt anymore and they continued. Is that... is that possible, I haven’t figured it out
completely, ..is it possible that you... like take away the adaptive valuable of the pain too easily?
Did I made myself clear?
LG – Yeah, I mean, because, you know, the problem in cults for example, you know, you can sort
of persuade people, brainwashing them into believe in anything and they loose their sense of
individuality or autonomy. So, I mean, people can be led, right? Just, I mean, you know? By
persuasion and things like that. So... I mean, there... firstly you are doing it to somebody. I mean,
I don't have an investment. See, that's the issues, if I have an investment sayi in marriage and
feel people must be married and therefore you have to get over your pain of your husband
cheating you in order to stay together, then I'm really influencing you.
H – Hum, hum.
LG – But if you are there working on your pain and say I wanna stay married
H – But let's... let's say that this person trusts you and you say “Well, but I can help you over this
pain.” and you really do this work and... you know, the pain is gone...
LG – Right, right.
H – And she feels acceptance and she goes on. What kind of... for me it's a powerful technique
in a way.
LG – Yeah, but she is saying she wants the pain to go and she wants to... I mean, I'm following I
guess what her goal is. Well, she is not saying I hate, want to get divorced, this is such a violation
that I can not tolerate it anymore. And I [am not] say[ing] you should work on it and may be
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you'll get over and I think you should stay together, cause marriage is sacrosanct. I mean, I'm
not doing that. So...
H – Do you say that there is a way in which EFT could be used wrongly?
LG – Yeah. I mean, it can be misused. I mean, anything.
H – OK. Yeah, but how would you see it?
LG – I think that this...
H – Ethically or not in the advantage of the person?
LG – Yeah, but, I mean, anything could be misused, right? As... given that is a change process
and that there are some influences involved, if you influence people towards your own agenda,
you can be doing harm to them. I think one of the things recently there's been something that
appeared in the literature which is saying... it may even related to, you know, some of the
recent therapies, which is... you don't have to go into all the pain, you can just go to the positive
and therefore taking people into their pain, you are actually misleading them and harming them,
because you could just move straight to the positive, right? But I mean, I think some behavior
therapies may veer in that direction and then... you can say that EFT is being misused. If pain is
beautiful to me, I'm just taking people there because is beautiful to me, but really it is unhelpful
to them. So, I mean, a... I mean, I'm not saying how EFT could be misused. I'm saying that the
critique of EFT could be that you don't have to go into the pain and that's... but, you know, that's
why research is necessary to test if you take people into their pain does it help or does it just
make them worse or are they suffering unduly. But you see, that's the way I think the use of
power and directiveness and influence come in. I don't think I'm harming you as long as is
helping you to achieve your goal...
H – Every therapy needs ethics.
LG – Yeah. Yes. So, I mean, if you came to me and you said “I wanna feel OK about murdering
somebody.” or there are higher level ethics that must apply in any situation, but that has not got
to do with EFT as such, right?
H – Hum, hum... Who is the best therapist you ever met?
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LG – I think I was very impressed with Harvey Friedman my Gestalt trainer, I was very impressed
with Minuchin as a family therapist. I think Laura Rice was a very good empathic therapist. I
think those were the three base therapists that I've been exposed to. (chuckling)
H – I guess I'm through my questions more or less
LG – Good.
H – I hope you enjoyed it.
LG – Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
H – Thank you.
LG – I liked the part of the beauty...
H – You did?
LG – Both domains and, you know, helping me to articulate a...
H – that satisfaction the gives you to share.
LG – Good. Thank you.
H – OK. Thank you.
LG – Good. (chuckling)