Hey J, Your post is thought provoking and personally open as ever! This comment feels right-on! I’m pretty sure you & I’d feel and be much more our usual selves, i.e.playful & laughing, in the presence of another person, especially one we like. Dramatic acting may seem inappropriate for us therapists, but when what I’m saying is authentically me, I frame that dramatic emphasis as “projecting” my voice and feelings out to the folks in the back row of the audience. Professionals experienced in radio work make constant gestures “as though” their audience were in the room with them, in order to bridge the electronic gap. It feels to me like a kind of altered state, in which I’m “pretending” so intensely that my presentation becomes comfortable play, much like playing pretend-games with a pre-schooler. Entering the other’s world as if I’m equally involved as the child, or as I imagine/want the viewer/listener to be, seems an ethical and possibly necessary, certainly useful, way to get through to anyone I’m talking on the phone with, or to an unseen audience. Dr b
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I’m going to take all this good advice and do my next video on dependency issues in psychotherapy soon. I’m really going to try to see if I can make a difference.
