“The amount of pain that people are willing to endure to avoid feeling some original source of pain is astounding”
The human mind is capable of amazing things. Coming up with the computer I’m typing on, writing MLK’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, moving the brush to form van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, developing every vaccine and medical breakthrough ever. The mind is there, front and center for everything. It is THE cause in the cause and effect relationship. And yet, we have almost no idea what is going on in there. Chemicals this, hormones that, add a dash of heredity and we’re starting to brew a cocktail that no one can help to understand. Yet, some people still try. One such masochist is today’s guest Emily Anhalt. She is currently a psychotherapist and psychological assistant, and is at the very end of a long road to becoming a psychologist where she will continue to better help people understand their relationships to the man (or woman) in the mirror. What does she think about mind? What does she think about thinking? What does she think about thinking about your thinking?
Disclaimer: Emily Anhalt is a psychotherapist and psychological assistant working under the license of a supervisor. Her interview is not about trying to garner patients or offer advice, she wanted to talk about and make more accessible to people, what it is that happens in psychoanalytic psychotherapy
“There’s a lot of things about ourselves that we don’t know that we’ve worked really hard to not know”
“We’re trying to help people understand themselves. When somebody comes to an idea themselves they’re much more likely to relate to it and take action on it.”
Contents
2:30 – The different types of therapists.
3:05 – The different types of therapy.
4:50 – The PsyD degree.
6:15 – Schooling
7:30 – Being taken seriously as a young therapist.
9:00 – The blocks that people put up.
11:15 – Connecting with your patient.
12:00 – Boundaries and allowing the patient to project.
14:55 – Answering questions your patients ask.
17:15 – The art of therapy.
18:50 – Being comfortable with uncomfortable.
20:30 – What made Emily want to become a psychologist?
21:55 – Overanalyzing things.
23:20 – How getting therapy has changed Emily’s life.
24:00 – Who should be seeing a therapist/Severity of patients Emily sees.
26:30 – Psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
27:20 – Meditation vs therapy.
30:00 – Evaluating emotions as a therapist.
32:00 – An emotion underneath every thought.
34:00 – Coping with other peoples problems.
37:20 – How therapy has changed Emily.
38:40 – True happiness.
40:40 – Seeing a therapist when everything is okay.
42:30 – Advice for people thinking about seeing or becoming a therapist.
