EPISODE 02

[EPISODE]

[00:00:00] A: This podcast is not training or supervision. This is an invitation to delve into these really big topics. When we are talking about clients, please know it is not you. It is a weaving together of stories that come up over and over again. 

[00:00:18] J: With Edge of the Couch, we are here to create a space to delve into the topics that were either shied away from or dismissed because they were too big, too nuanced, too risky or too uncomfortable to discuss in school or even supervision. We are two passionate therapists sharing our personal opinions about the therapeutic process. 

[00:00:41] A: Hi, everyone. This is Alison.

[00:00:42] J: And this is Jordan.

[00:00:44] A: And this is Edge of the Couch. Today, we are talking about when a client won't cry, how to kind of respond, what to do in that moment, how we handle it. So, let's dive right in. What comes up for you, Jordan, when I say, “Ah, what do we do when a client won't cry?” 

[00:01:01] J: To begin, it's important that we look at the assumption that crying means that you're doing work, like that you're processing. And when we're beginner counselors, when somebody's crying, it can be that sense, that sign of like, “Oh, I'm I'm doing it. I'm a therapist”. Even when there are some clients that are just prone to crying, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're in a place of processing are that they're taking in what we're bringing in as therapists. And so, when a client doesn't cry, it doesn't always mean that they're not doing some sort of version of processing.

[00:01:41] A: Yeah, I agree with that too.

[00:01:45] J: High voice!

[00:01:49] A: I agree with that to a degree, for sure, that deep processing can be happening when a client, even if a client isn't crying, and that processing cannot be happening, even if the client is crying.

[00:01:59] J: And sometimes them not crying is actually – especially if there's someone who cries. And so, for them to be contained in their emotion and to be able to speak about their experience can sometimes be a sign of growth, and a sign of healing.

[00:02:17] A: Totally. And I do think that there are these moments in the clinical space that come up with my clients where I'm in the interaction with them and I'm also curious about why they are not crying.

[00:02:30] J: Yeah.

[00:02:30] A: It kind of comes up for me in two different ways. The first is, you can see that the client needs to cry, or a part of them wants to cry, and they're stopping themselves from crying.

[00:02:41] J: What do you see? I think as we are more experienced, you can can tell without even really –to be able to name what the signs are. But if you can name the signs of how you know –

[00:02:54] A: That’s so good. Well, one is just like in general tracking, if you notice a shift or change in them, in tone, breath, position, all of those things. But also, sometimes it's almost like you can actually see the muscles like in their throat or chest. Like they're swallowing differently. You might notice that they avert their gaze or I mean, welling eyes is a pretty easy indicator to see. But that does happen.

[00:03:22] J: Lips sort of swell. Their voice might break a little, like you said, tone. 

[00:03:30] A: Voice breaking, the tone, you might ask the question, and then there's like a long pause. It might be the because they know that they can't answer without crying. Those things come up for me.

[00:03:43] J: To go back, you said that there are two things for you.

[00:03:45] A: Yeah, that being the first. So, they look like they’re going to cry, or you get a sense that they're trying or want to cry, but they won't let themselves. That's how I conceptualize it. And then the other situation is when a client is telling a story or talking about something that to me feels quite emotional, but they seem completely emotionless. There's almost this like, casualness to it, like a laissez faire, like, “Oh, et cetera, et cetera. Here are these terrible things that happened to me. Anyway, and for lunch, I had a peanut butter sandwich.” And that's where I'm very curious, like, “Whoa.”

Another one of my clients might be crying a lot telling this story. So, what is going on here? So, those are the two moments that come up for me. What do you think about those?

[00:04:32] J: With that sense of lack of congruence, like between what they're saying and maybe what they're feeling or, like the story that they're telling versus their affect. And I think there's a difference between again, like somebody who is – and with experience, I think you can tell the difference, shut down, and they're sort of in this numb place. Maybe there's like a glazed look in their eyes.

[00:04:59] A: Yeah, dissociated to some degree?

[00:05:01] J: Yeah. And that's when we can say like, “Are you here right now? Are you in your body? Do you feel your feet on the ground?” And typically, when I notice that, and I ask that, the answer is like, “No, I'm not here.” Then we shift into finding ways of feeling of coming up for air, of feeling okay, and grounded.

[00:05:20] A: From the back room.

[00:05:22] J: Yeah, versus somebody who – there are sometimes I can notice a part of them that is refusing to cry.

[00:05:30] A: Yes, that is what I'm talking about, not the dissociated people because that makes sense to me and I think is manageable. This type of person. Yes. Say more.

[00:05:38] J: There's like a part of them. If I'm working with them, I might say a teenager part. But there's a part of them that is almost crossing their arms and saying, like, “I'm not going to cry.”

[00:05:50] A: Yes.

[00:05:51] J: I'm digging in my heels. And saying, “I'm not going to give you that.” I don’t know what the word is.

[00:05:56] A: And I wonder if it sometimes comes with an energy too of like, crying doesn't help anyway. “It's not going to do me any good. So, I'm not going to do it.” There's like crossing the arm like, “No, I won't and it's not going to help anyway.” Yes, that is who I'm talking about. Yes.

[00:06:15] J: How do you manage? How do you navigate when you notice that?

[00:06:19] A: Yeah, it's such a good question. It's almost like the dual processing that happens as therapist, where we're here, we're present, we're hearing the story and we're also like kind of backburner considering other things. For me, it's like that's often what's happening, where I'm hearing, I'm noticing I'm tracking and then I'm also wondering, do I bring this up? Do I just name it? Do I have to wait a little bit for rapport to be better established?

So, it depends on where you're at in the relationship with the client. But let's imagine that I feel like I have pretty good rapport with the client. And I'll say something like, “Can I share with you what I'm noticing right now? As you share that story with me.” And then if they give me permission, I might say, “As you shared the story, I noticed myself having quite an emotional reaction, because it feels like kind of a big, heavy story. And then when I look to you, I noticed, you seemed quite some calm about the whole thing. Tell me what's going on there? Are you feeling not common side? Explain that to me?” And then that sometimes we'll get into some bigger stuff. What about you? How do you manage those moments?

[00:07:21] J: I think I go into what's happening right now, which is I think I do with somebody who's dissociated to some degree, I would say, like, “What's happening right now?” Or, “What do you notice right now?” Or, “How do you feel in your body right now?” Because that's when we can assess even further and like, I can notice if I'm accurate, and if they say, “Oh, I'm fine. This is fine.” Or sometimes I guess there's this other group of people where it's like, “It's scary for me to cry. So, I'm trying to hold it together.” And so that's a different group of people, then people were like, “No, I'm fine. It's been a long time.”

[00:08:00] A: Yeah, “It's hard to talk about.”

[00:08:01] J: Yeah. I do think that sometimes that might be true for some people, like things that are traumatic don't always need to be something that we sob over. Yeah. But there is the sense of, I don't know how to describe it, but it's within a larger context of knowing them and going like, okay, if I do know them well, I might say, “I'm wondering if a part of you is saying I refuse.”

[00:08:30] A: Yes.

[00:08:31] J: And so, I really like to use that part of your language, because then they could maybe say yes to that without, especially if there's a whole another part that wants to cry, that is present, that wants to be close. And then to be able to name the different parts, we can work with them in a different way. Or, like I said, there are some people who really are on the verge of tears and I may not pick up on that. But they say like, “Oh, it feels intense in my chest”, or “I feel like I'm about to cry.” I'm like, “Oh, I did not pick up on that at all.”

[00:09:08] A: So, interesting. I recently had this experience.

[00:09:10] J: Tell me.

[00:09:12] A: Well, just, you know, at the end of session, like, “How are you feeling as we wrap up?” And they're like, “Very emotional.” “Very emotional?” And then having that conversation like, is that normal for you? Do you get that feedback that you can sometimes seem totally together, but you're actually having a little bit of a storm rages within? And yeah, and then how am I going to know that when you're feeling emotional with? What are some of the ways so I can know and I don't miss it again, because I don't want to miss it. I want to be able to see when you're in the emotional place. So, what lets me know that you're there. And that can be really interesting to people. Sometimes people know, and some people have no idea what they are like when they are emotional.

[00:09:52] J: Yeah.

[00:09:53] A: This is why, I don't know if you do this, but I always like to explore with clients, their beliefs and values around crying. Even if it's not so much the focus just like, how do you feel when you cry? What do you think it means when people cry? Because people have shit around crying. There's lots of child, there can be childhood stuff, there can be lots of like, “I only cry in private.” There can be lots of like crying is weakness.

[00:10:20] J: Right, cultural, gendered.

[00:10:23] A: Oh my gosh, everything, everything, everything. And so, if you know that as the therapist, that's so helpful for you. Because then you can use it and you can explore it together. We've talked about us as therapists crying too, like, if a client views crying as weakness, and then you cry, you're going to have to explore that with them because they make perceive you in a way now. So, having that information is really valuable, just really, really powerful and valuable. So, I really encourage you to ask your clients like, tell me about what crying means to you.

[00:10:57] J: Yeah. What's your relationship with crying? What's your experience of crying?

[00:11:01] A: Exactly. Sometimes I just genuinely do want my clients to cry. I just do. I want them to cry sometimes and I know that I've heard that from people like, “It feels like you just want me to cry.” I do

[00:11:16] J: You do say that?

[00:11:17] A: Absolutely. Right on their face if I say anything else, because to me, and like, talk about values around crying, crying, it's just a normal human experience. And if we are repressing crying, we are bottling something that, you know, there's no point in bottling, and it feels like a part of a bigger pattern. So, it's like, “Oh, you're repressing crying, what else is shoved down there? And what is getting in the way of you being able to go to that place here in this space with me, in the you and I togetherness?”

[00:11:51] J: And sometimes what's getting in the way is it feels dangerous to cry, whether it's in my body, it's dangerous, because it feels like there's no bottom to this feeling. And I worry that if I cry, it will never stop. Or it was actually dangerous in childhood, that I would feel bad or –

[00:12:10] A: Told to shut up.

[00:12:11] J: Yeah. With crying.

[00:12:13] A: Man up, stop being a little girl, whatever those things are. Yeah. There's a tenderness in it. The tenderness in it around even talking about crying, because you can be poking wounds, deep, deep, deep wounds, lifelong, people in their 60s, 70s, who haven't cried. I don't know if you have this experience. And people are like, “Why? I haven't cried in 20 years. And I'm like, “What? We have to talk about that.”

[00:12:40] J: Yeah. And sometimes there are people who were like, “I want to cry. I think it would feel good to cry, but I just don't.”

[00:12:45] A: Yeah, that's so interesting. I don't think crying is bad. I just can't do it. But then I'm like, “Are you sure that you're okay with crying? Are you really sure you're okay with it? Are you fully okay with it?” I have curiosity about that.

[00:12:58] J: Yeah. I swear, there were some people that I have talked to that say, or at least attributed to medication.

[00:13:04] A: I’m sure, that's true. Medication does so much shit.

[00:13:07] J: Yeah, it's like, you might numb or like blunt some emotions. And so sometimes people will say, “Oh, it's because of this medication that I'm on that it's harder to access crying.” But let's also take this other perspective, which is what happens when a client is crying and apologizes?

[00:13:26] A: Oh, my god, which happens all the time.

[00:13:28] J: Yeah.

[00:13:28] A: Tell me what you do.

[00:13:31] J: Well, typically, it's in one of the first sessions. And it's from somebody who does not cry and they say that I don't cry very often and I'm surprised by the fact that I'm crying. And apologize for crying to which I immediately say, “No, like, I feel closer to you”, or “This is the place to cry”, or “I welcome the crying, I welcome your tears. I'm here.” And the people that don't want to cry, again, we want to explore that a little bit, maybe not in that moment, but at some point.”

[00:14:07] A: Yeah, there is something really amazing and I think you're right, it happens a lot in the first session. People get really emotional. And my theory about it is that they've spent all this time packing it all in and then they finally sit down in a space where they're allowed to talk about it and it's a lot. I think if people get surprised, they surprise themselves. Like, “Oh my gosh, I'm very emotional about this.” But you're right all those things are good way to respond. “This is the perfect place to cry. You never have to apologize for crying here. This are things that I like to say.”

What about when a client surprise cries? Do you know about surprise cries?

[00:14:48] J: Tell me more. What do you mean?

[00:14:50] A: A surprise cry happens, in my opinion, so sometimes I know that what I'm about to say is like a hard question or a tender subject. I am mad and that there might be a reaction to it that's emotional. And sometimes a cry will really surprise me. Like, I think we're talking about something that is not as deep or I don't see the crying coming and suddenly, like they're not the solving client. What are those moments like? Do you have those moments?

[00:15:18] J: Probably. I'm not having one that comes to my mind. But when that happens, it is like, “Okay, we're going to slow down and this is where we're going to be. Let's be here.”

[00:15:34] A: Yeah. A reaction that I often have is, “Oh, something happened.” Because it's just like, “Oh, okay. I don't know what happened.” It’s an invitation to let me know what happened, because I don't know what is going on right now. Those are nice moments. I mean, hard moments, tender moments, but they can be really special.

[00:15:57] J: Yeah, it makes me think about when the moments where I really feel like a therapist, which is like –

[00:16:04] A: Capital T for therapist.

[00:16:06] J: Like TM, good therapist TM, is when people are – I notice that there's that welling up, and somebody is putting distance between them and what they're speaking about by maybe talking about in the past or they might say you, when you feel this way, you do this and are not personalizing it to their own experience, even though they're talking about themselves. So, I might either say like, “You mean, I, I feel this way. Can you say it that way?” Or I go, “What is here?” And I put my my hand to my heart. And I slow down my voice and that's when somebody gets in the moment, gets in their body, and then the tears come. And that's when I feel close to them. I feel closer to them. I feel like if I'm talking, if I'm being real, I feel like, “Oh, I did it.”

[00:17:10] A: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:17:13] J: Yeah. And which isn't a bad thing. But it's something to notice when we want clients to cry, is it that part of like, “I want you to cry because it makes me feel like a good therapist.” But in those situations, I do feel like it's right there at the surface. And I might say that, especially if it's in the first session, I'm like, “This is wanting. This has been wanting to be seen. This is right here and let's be with it. Let's be here.” And slowing down and being in the moment and being in our bodies, and maybe even sharing that, at some point, how I felt close to you, being able to witness or to be with you in this place.

[00:17:56] A: That is very true. Especially, I think, for clients who do bottle. I've had this experience with many clients who, three, four sessions in, they're still very cool, calm, collected, and I might say, “I'm really wanting to feel close to you. And I'm noticing it feels like there's a little bit of a buffer here, what's going on?” And that in itself can sometimes be an invitation to just kind of open up, which is really cool. But I think, considering or like, conceptualizing crying as an invitation for closeness is so beautiful, and that's really how I feel. I genuinely feel closer to clients. To be frank, it's not just crying. I feel closer to clients when they're in their feelings, no matter what the feeling is, like, “Oh, you're joyful. I feel connection with you.” “Oh, you're angry and you're telling me how angry you are, I feel connected and close to you.”

[00:18:53] J: Yes. As long as it's congruent and they’re grounded. It’s not a flooding. Yeah, not congruent, where you're like, “You're laughing, but you're talking about something really terrible.”

[00:19:05] A: Or, “You’re angry, but you're actually hurt and you can't talk about it. So, you're just angry.”

[00:19:10] J: Yeah.

[00:19:10] A: The congruence is, “Oh, it's like this kind of je ne sais quoi feeling, and it's hard as a new therapist for those listening.” The client is congruent and therefore you and the client together are congruent, but you'll know it when you're there, because it just is such a palpable feeling. And, excuse me, there's like profoundness in it.

[00:19:30] J: I feel like this is important to say here. I see anger as a primary emotion.

[00:19:35] A: Same

[00:19:35] J: And so, when somebody, sometimes when people feel angry, I feel close to them, because I'm like, this is a likeness here. And that again, just like with crying, we need to work on our own stuff. If anger is something that's violent to you in itself as an emotion, then that's something that we're going to have to look at in our own counseling because if it's a congruent feeling, if it's how they feel in their core emotion, that's typically a sign when we would feel close to them, when we feel maybe feeling like a sense of, “This is good.” With a capital T.

[00:20:14] A: I know. It's so hard to like explain. It's a just right feeling. I don't know how better to say it.

[00:20:21] J: Even when a finger.

[00:20:22] A: In your opinion, why are some therapists so against anger? Because it comes up a lot. There's a rejection of anger in the therapeutic space. I think.

[00:20:30] J: In some ways, it's cultural. There are other theoretical orientations where anger is hiding, hurts.

[00:20:39] A: Yes. It only does that job.

[00:20:41] J: And it can for sure. Because I work with a lot of women, it has this particular meaning around anger, and it's not okay.

[00:20:52] A: Yeah, there's a messaging.

[00:20:54] J: Yeah, to reclaim anger, and to say, “This is how I feel. It's not hurt. It's not anxious. It is anger towards this person, because I was wronged or my boundaries were crossed.” And that's when I'm like, “Yes. This is you holding on to yourself. This is you understanding, we're responsible responsibility lies that someone hurt you and you're not responsible for people hurting you.” And, or maybe it's about injustice, like, or even just relationally. Somebody in your life did something that was not okay, but instead you rationalize it away, and it's like, “How do I be okay with this? How do I be okay with that person hurting me? My close person doing something that hurt me?” And it's like, “No, we can be angry.” 

[00:21:44] A: Yeah.

[00:21:43] J: And it might make you closer, if we're able to have the anger in the relationship and it be received.

[00:21:54] A: I mean, that was almost a perfect segue, because that is my theory about why some therapists, not all therapists, are scared to go to anger in the therapeutic place, or they're always convinced that anger is something else. And here's my theory, is that, if we give clients permission in the therapeutic space to just really feel their anger, that also means that we have to give them space to feel angry with us. If we ever violate or hurt them, and I think that is scary to some therapists. And so, they always want to – I mean, who am I thinking about when I say this? I don't know, a collection of people. A concept more than individuals. But that if we go to hurt if, we go, “Oh, your anger is actually about hurt.” We, I think as therapists feel like, “Oh, well, I can buffer hurt. I can, like, hear that I’ve hurt someone to be able to heal it.” But if I hear that someone's just angry with me, I feel very uncomfortable. That's my theory, because I am so pro anger in the therapeutic space. I'm like, “It sounds like you're angry. I want you to feel your anger. And if I've ever done something to make you angry. I want you to be angry with me.”

[00:23:05] J: Yeah.

[00:23:06] A: Not violent, not rude. Well, maybe rude sometimes, but not violent. I don't want you to like hurt me physically. But I want you to tell me if I've angered you.

[00:23:13] J: There is the flip side of people who default to anger and so, those clients, you want to cry, you're like, “There is hurt underneath us and I want you to cry.” And the anger is like a defense against crying. That sense of wanting to crack the code, sometimes that is how I approach things. Which angle do we need to take? What is it? Is it about childhood? Is it about being in your body? And how do we get behind this defense of air anger in order to get what's real, which is the hurt.

[00:23:47] A: It comes up a lot for male clients in my clinical experience where they can talk about the story. They can say, “Yeah, it makes me sad.” And then there's like, no portrayal of sadness. And that that does in some way feel like cracking code. But then there's, “Oh, man, I'm have such two minds.” One mind, I absolutely believe, that people cry as a human as a reaction. I think that there's an internal inherent desire to be congruent and authentic about like, when I'm talking about things, I feel sad, and sad can make me cry. And then on the other hand, I think if people don't want to cry, they don't want to cry. And I shouldn't be forcing them to cry. But I do want them to cry. So, there’s like this internal battle. I do experience that at all. 

[00:24:39] J: When I have those experiences, sometimes I might name them, like, “As a therapist, one part of me wants you to cry, wants to get you to a place where we can have it clear. And then another part of me just respects you're – you get to choose what emotions you dip into, who you dip into them with, you get to choose the direction where go in therapy, and if this isn't where you want to go, let's change direction.”

[00:25:08] A: Yeah. Do you ever feel offended? This just came up for me, I don't know. If a client won't cry with you, but tells you what how they readily cry with others. Does that hurt your feelings?

[00:25:18] J: I don’t feel offended. I feel disappointed. It feels personal. I guess, I’m not good enough.

[00:25:27] A: I’m doing something wrong. Yes, totally. Like, what can I do to make this a space where you can cry? Why can you cry with your friends? But not me?

[00:25:36] J: Yeah. I bawled my eyes out the other day and you're like, you never cry with me? 

[00:25:41] A: Totally. Or like, when you explore the crying and then the client is like, “No, no, I cry with my wife all the time. But I can't.” And I'm like, “You can't cry here? Why can't you cry here?”

[00:25:50] J: So, that's another piece around, let's talk about the meaning of it. And maybe it's a level of intimacy that they may not have, or, you know, some people have this idea about therapy, that you are there to talk about things, to –

[00:26:07] A: Fix things, fix all problems.

[00:26:08] J: To make sense of what's happening in a cognitive way rather than sitting with a feeling. Some people even think that being in the feelings gets in the way.

[00:26:19] A: Some therapies are like that.

[00:26:20] J: Well, therapist too, but I think is well [crosstalk 00:26:23], “Oh, this is just getting in the way of the conversation that I want to have.” And that's when I feel these mixed emotions, because I do say in that moment, this is the work. This is the work, being with the emotions. And sometimes there's a part of me that sort of knows that the person that I'm working with, doesn't see it that way. And sometimes I rush past having that conversation, because I want to tell them, this is the work, that talking is a completely valid way of engaging in something. It's just in that moment. I can get really stern actually, when I think about it, just like, “No, this is the work. This is good.”

[00:27:04] A: You're in the work.

[00:27:05] J: Let's be here. And my voice literally sounds like that.

[00:27:11] A: Huh? There's something weird.

[00:27:12] J: There’s an energy behind it, fit for me there.

[00:27:15] A: I love talking about this. I'm excited. I do. I feel jacked. I'm excited for all the new therapists and student therapists, because it is so relational, like crying is a relational experience. We cry by ourselves, yes. But there's such a different energy when we cry with someone else. And that experience like, “Oh, what comes up for me, I get stirred around this is like – that is the neediness.” It makes me curious. There have been times when people's crying has made me uncomfortable, very rarely, far less often. And I'm kind of trying to figure out what that's about.

I think one of the times is when you're seeing a couple and one partner is crying a lot and the other person is either completely emotionless or like not attending to their partner at all. I hate that. And that's when I'll often say like, “Hey, so and so. Do you see your partner crying? What is that like for you?” I think especially when you're in the experience of a couple that has come to therapy is a last-ditch effort, which a lot of couples do, and therapy is not a fix all. A couple’s therapy is not – there’s no guarantee that it will work. And in fact, a lot of people through the process of therapy, realize that they no longer want to be in that relationship and relationships end, because they've been in therapy.

So, that's an interesting thing. But I have definitely had the experience where one person, multiple times, one person is so much more emotional, and the other person is just completely cold and distant and that is painful for me to witness. I feel uncomfortable watching it.

[00:28:54] J: I know, even as you're saying that, that that's my stuff.

[00:28:58] A: Yes, me too.

[00:29:00] J: And I'm sure it's hurtful. I'm sure it's hurtful to the partner as well. But that discomfort, that maybe even anger, like for me, anger might come up of like, “You need to be attending to your partner.”

[00:29:12] A: Totally.

[00:29:13] J: That is my stuff and that would be, I think that I'm able to put that aside, but it's something to think about and something to be aware of.

[00:29:20] A: Yes, exactly. Like, I think in the moment, I can still do the work, but there is well, and I've had couples where that has been the theme and then they've broken up and it's come to find out that things were a lot more hurtful in the relationship then, and I think that was like a part of me knowing something was wrong, but not being named in the setting. And then only finding that out after the relationship ended.

So, you want to trust your gut, you want to listen, you don't want your shit to come up in the room, but you can't pretend it's not there, because it's there. There’s nuance in it. There's nuance in it, for sure.

[00:29:58] J: What's the meaning of crying for you?

[00:30:01] A: I love crying. I cry daily, especially because of the existential work that I do personally and professionally. I will literally look at my dog. Imagine the day that she dies and just like cry with her. I don't know why I love it. It's hurtful. It's painful, but it feels so human to me. Like I said earlier, I would absolutely be lying if I said I didn't want my clients to cry. I don't need them to cry 100% of the time for validation, but I like it. I'm fine with it.

[00:30:35] J: Yeah, me too.

[00:30:36] A: I’m like, “Oh, you’re crying. Good. Nice. Perfect.” I came from a home where I wasn't invalidated for crying. My mom is also a crier. She gets emotional seeing commercials like I do. We cry at movies. And I'm very thankful to have a father who cried, who was not afraid to cry. I don't know, I can't speak for him. He didn't appear to be afraid to cry. If you remember multiple times, like him, he used to watch movies in the basement and come up and just be like, “That movie was so sad.” And like be sobbing and that is inherent permission giving when you see your parents cry. So, although hilariously, I'm in a relationship with a person who is very uncomfortable to crying, and comfortable. I think that being in a relationship with me is literally like exposure therapy for him, because I'm like, “Here it comes. What are you going to do? I'm about to cry.” And he's had to really practice how to be present with someone who's crying, who is like weeping because I cry in a big way. I'm a big crier. Tell me about, what's there for you?

[00:31:45] J: Well, growing up, I mean, I cried and cried and cried and cried. And I was made fun of, for real, in front of my family members. Cry baby was my label. There was like a bit of, I need to hold back a little bit because it's about being – like I'm being immature for crying. So, I want to buy myself all kinds of merch that's says – I reclaim the fact that I'm a crybaby.

[00:32:18] A: Feeling’s job, they're great. The feeling’s job.

[00:32:20] J: I don't know if I love crying in the same way, but I am somebody who is so curious about myself. I'm a therapy nerd, as a client as well. And sometimes, it can get in the way of me processing or being in the moment, being present. But I am witnessing myself crying as it's happening. And I will say like, “I am crying, what is that about?” I will relish the experience, I will revel in the experience and be in awe of what is happening in the moment. And be like, “What is this about?” What is it about this particular thing that is making me cry? Especially if it's a commercial or a show or something.

Last night, I watched, this Disney, the Disney short of like, From Our Family to Yours, and it's this Filipino family. It's wordless. And she's making the star lanterns for Christmas, which is what they have in the Philippines. It’s like she's doing with her grandma and then at the end, she makes – it doesn't really matter. But I cried and cried and cried last night watching that. Meanwhile, my four-year-old is just like, “I want to watch that again. But I don't understand why you're crying.” And I just kept saying, “I don't know why I'm crying.” Even though I sort of know I'm crying. But I love that it says something about me, like it says, at the core of me, that I am always so curious about and I think I bring that same curiosity to my work with clients.

I also have this affinity for clients who say, “When I was a kid, I was told that was a cry baby.” I'll be like, “Me too.” Depending on the relationship is, I might keep that to myself, but I really feel an affinity to that person who says that.

[00:34:20] A: I think this is a wonderful place to end because it leaves you the listeners with this thought of like, “Okay, what is it like for me when a client cry? How am I going to respond? What comes up for me around crying in general, but what does it mean for me in the therapeutic space?” Yeah, what a beautiful invitation for you to get to know your clients better while also getting to know yourself better, which is so cool.

[00:34:42] J: And maybe also to begin to hone those skills about recognizing the different phenomena of crying and how it shows up differently. Because the meaning does shift from person to person but also moment to moment in therapy, and it can be really important to be able to to delineate, which is –

[00:35:02] A: What's going on.

[00:35:03] J: Yeah.

[00:35:04] A: I've just tagged you in a post from my feelings shop that I was hollering about earlier. And her most recent thing is about a cry baby pin that she made. So, I feel like –

[00:35:12] J: I love it.

[00:35:13] A: – you really like it. Do you want to sign us off?

[00:35:17] J: All right, this was Edge of the Couch. I'm Jordan.

[00:35:20] A: And I'm Alison.

[00:35:22] J: See you, listen to you, talk to you next time.

[00:35:25] A: Bye-bye.

[OUTRO]

[00:35:29] A: Thanks for listening. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at connect@edgeofthecouch.com to tell us what you think, ask a question or let us know what type of episode you'd love to hear.  You can even send us a voice note for us to play in a future episode. 

[00:42:49] J: You can support us by giving us a review on Apple Podcasts, sharing the show with a friend or supporting us on Patreon.

[00:42:56] A: Join us next time at the Edge of the Couch. 

[END]