You'd ask a cancer specialist whether the treatment recommended for
you isone the doctor would select for him- or herself. We decided to take
a similar tack and ask some top psychologists whether their professional
expertise gives them an advantage in finding solutions to common problems
in their own lives. The experts spoke--with remarkable candor. Here, in
the second of two articles, is what they had to say.
Along with lawyers who argue in their own defense and physicians
who prescribe for themselves, psychologists who manage their own mental
maladjustments invite the notion that expert knowledge is useless, or
worse, when the need or the trouble is personal. Every time a
psychologist surfaces on the wrong side of the bed sheets or a
psychiatrist's teenager falls off the behavior wagon, "Doctor, heal
thyself" becomes more a dare than a prescription. Indeed, social
dogma--if not fact--holds that psychologists and psychiatrists are driven
to their calling because, as one put it, "we all have permanent
twitches."
True? Certainly the acquisition of advanced degrees confers neither
wisdom nor self-knowledge. On the other hand, professional training molds
sophisticated approaches to problem-solving, relationships, and stress
reduction. The real question is, can therapists tap into these approaches
and apply them when their lovers leave, their spouses die, their bosses
bully, or their weight balloons?
Predictably, the therapists I asked about the subject did the one
thing they all agree they do well when confronted with a thorny set of
issues: talk. They talked about routine problems and big-time crises.
They revealed what pushes their hot buttons and how they make themselves
feel better. (Cookies are popular.)
Although PSYCHOLOGY TODAY's panel of experts were somewhat less
likely than nontherapists to get professional help, they emphasized again
and again that some problems either can't be solved alone or shouldn't
have to be. "If there's one thing most of us should know," said Ellen
McGrath, Ph.D., a California therapist, "it's to go for help when the
chips are really down. Just do it."
MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS, M.S.W.
Weiner-Davis is a family therapist in private practice who
specializes in pragmatic, brief therapy and is considered an expert in
saving marriages. Author of Divorce Busting (Simon and Schuster),
Weiner-Davis lives in Woodstock, Illinois, with her husband and two
children, a daughter, 13, and a son, 7.
Weiner-Davis's first published article--on parenting strategies,
published in The Family Therapy Networker Journal--humorously chronicled
her own parenting experience as "hopelessly inexpert when it came to my
own children. All of my professional cool seemed to go out the
window."
That was then. Today, she says, mothering a teenage daughter who
"challenges me in many different ways" is only tolerable because of her
training. "If I didn't know basic principles about how people develop and
change, I would have hanged myself long ago," she laughs. "If anyone
should be an expert on changing behavior patterns, it's me. There are
lots of times when my theoretical understanding of change is a godsend,
both in terms of dealing with my kids and my relationship with my
husband."
How does she do it? Helping people change what isn't working in
their relationships, she says, requires a keen awareness of the systemic
laws of interrelationships, of how entangled people become in a maze of
habits, memories, perceptions, and hurts. "You started it!" and "It's
your fault!" are, she says, the verbal tips of deeply rooted emotional
icebergs. But when it comes to her own family, "those laws don't always
show up. When you stand at a distance with your clients, it's different
from having your own button pushed by a son who refuses to do what he's
told or a daughter who is fresh. I sometimes react like a regular person,
not a therapist."
And how is that? "Sometimes I get in a rage, I scream, and then I
feel really bad about that. At those times, my husband is likely to
follow me out of the room and say 'Well, there goes the world-famous
therapist!'"
Successful therapists, and people who are successful at anything,
she says, "have a lot of competitive feelings or we couldn't have
accomplished what we have. I like to see myself as in control and in
charge of myself. So when I'm out of control, it's hard for me to
remember that teenage rebellion is healthy."
Weiner-Davis recalls the day her daughter, "basically a good kid,"
shaved off two inches from the nape of her neck and leaned forward to
show off her bald spot. I know she expected me to fly into a rage. But
instead, I started to cry, which blew her mind--and mine too. I realized
this was the first time she had ever made an independent statement that
she didn't ask about first, even though this one wouldn't wash out with
the next shower. I relaxed. It grew back very quickly. I went on to the
next thing."
For Weiner-Davis, the key to "getting on with it," reducing stress,
solving relationship problems, and making her own life "work," is the
same key she offers patients: solution-oriented brief therapy. "One of
brief therapy's trademarks is emphasis on developing solutions as opposed
to analyzing. It's fine if you want to spend a lot of time and energy
figuring out who hurt you as a child and why. But what stresses us and
those around us is what people are doing now."
Tags:
bed sheets,
cancer specialist,
candor,
expert knowledge,
family,
finding solutions,
hot buttons,
maladjustments,
molds,
parenting,
professional expertise,
professional training,
psychologist,
routine problems,
social dogma,
sophisticated approaches,
stress,
stress reduction,
therapy,
time crises,
wrong side of the bed
