Over months, or years, Joseph works with his clients to peel away the layers and find something deeper behind their discontents and identify new understandings of what really matters. These revelations often seem to come out of the blue – lightbulb moments in which people suddenly gain a new perspective on how to lead their lives. In this new book, Joseph shares the most important of these realisations: the six ways in which we can begin to see ourselves and the world anew, without distortion, and embark on a road to personal growth and a more emotionally mature life. It's easy of think of relationship problems in terms of what your partner is or is not doing and how to change them. If either Reece or Morgan wants to do a little more relationship work on their own, then refer to them my recent blog post, " The Coronavirus Hurts Romance, Too."

Joseph, S. (2022). Think Like A Therapist. Six Life Changing Insights for Leading a Good Life. London. Piatkus/Little,Brown. https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/stephen-joseph/think-like-a-therapist/9780349431864/

Knowing how unconscious patterns inform behavior is a key consideration in understanding the overall context of human behavior and interaction, but it isn’t the only way to think like a therapist. Since surface behavior and deeper patterns of behavior are interconnected, when we effect a change on one level we also effect a change on the other level. A good therapeutic tip is to forgo either/or thinking and take into consideration that both the obvious and the complicated, the situation and the pattern, are all interconnected aspects of human interaction. Patterns predate situations and form trigger points that cause us to react in certain ways. They exert more influence over situations than people think. For instance, Bob had an authoritarian father who constantly told him what to do. As he matured a behavior pattern emerged where he resisted being controlled by anyone or anything in his life. Years later, Bob found himself not having enough money to pay his monthly bills. Upon deeper exploration it was revealed, not surprisingly, that Bob didn’t like being controlled by a budget. In this regard, the pattern informed the situation and what looked like a budgeting problem on the surface was actually a problem of handling the restriction of a budget on a deeper level. The pattern of resisting any form of control was now controlling whether or not Bob paid his bills. If a therapist just focuses on the situation the deeper impulses and implications of the pattern are lost, yet to wait to resolve the deeper patterns of authoritarian control may cause Bob to go bankrupt. To think like a therapist it’s important to see the power or patterns and how they impact our ability to make rational decisions as we deal with life’s challenges. Thinking of problems in this way is understandable but usually not productive. The conversation all too easily slips into arguing over whose reality is right, whose problem is more important, or worse of all, becomes a power struggle with both waiting to see who will give in first. It’s not that difficult to think like a therapist. A lot of it is just common sense. It’s not about knowing who is right or wrong, it’s about applying critical thinking to situations, having a good understanding of contextual information, knowing the role of empathy, staying current and relatable and being naturally curious. The art of doing psychotherapy, on the other hand, requires a lot of skill but thinking like a therapist can make a big difference right now in how you manage your problems. We begin to spend our time doing the things that give us more sense of purpose and meaning. We have a new perspective on life that allows us not to take the small stuff too seriously. We value the time with our family and friends in a new way that cherishes them.

It is easy to know intellectually that this is true, yet it is so hard to live our lives with such wisdom. It is easier to pretend to ourselves that we will live forever, to deny the possibility of our own demise, and to just not think about it. Great. Now what you want to do is facilitate a loving conversation about these fears. If you do a good job with this, their desire discrepancy will become easier to manage. Sex won't have to be the heated battleground with which deeper fears are enacted.What does it mean to think like a therapist? That is the title of my latest book, in which I wrote about some of the most important lessons in life that I had learned from being a psychologist, and especially as a therapist who has specialized in traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth.