To Love or To Blave

When Freud was asked what the point of being human is, he answered: “lieben und arbeiten.” In English it means “to love and to work.”

Psychotherapists are blessed that their work can simultaneously be an act of love. In that sense, for us, to work is also to love. In some ways, it’s what we might call True Love.

Any fan of The Princess Bride knows how vital True Love is. When Westley lies mostly dead on the doctor’s table, the miracle worker tries to discover what could be so important that it’s worth bringing him back to life.

In that critical moment, when how he answers will determine whether he lives or dies, along with the fate of Princess Buttercup, Westley mouths the words “True Love.”

We all heard it. Or did we?

The doctor insists that Westley didn’t say True Love, but rather to blave, which he claims means to bluff. Westley isn’t seeking True Love, the doctor says. He’s bluffing.

Most psychotherapists would be offended if someone suggested they didn’t love their clients, that they were just bluffing. Not to say that we don’t sometimes bluff, of course. But the genuine love we feel for the people who come to us is what many of us understand to be the essential ingredient for change.

What makes it possible for psychotherapists and clients to encounter love in therapy is the preservation of the therapeutic space. Without that, I wager there would be a lot more blaving and a lot less loving.

For example, imagine a team of auditors sitting in the room with the therapist and client. Because they care so much about not disrupting the therapeutic relationship, which is the very foundation of treatment, they sit quietly behind a curtain. But back there, they’re transcribing every word that’s spoken and scrutinizing it in unknown ways. They promise no one will ever see what they write down. Pinkie swear.

The problem is, they also have a legal duty to use those records in ways that maximize their own benefit.

What chance does True Love have to arise in that room? Both therapist and client begin performing for the hidden audience behind the curtain. The honest, loving words the therapist might speak become transmogrified, filtered through anxiety about how the record will interpret them, rather than trusting that the message, wrapped in love, will land on the client’s right brain, which isn’t so damn literal.

But the auditors can’t transcribe love. They can’t capture nonverbal communication, silence, or the expression in someone’s eyes. All they record are dead words.

And now the performance, the blaving, circles around dead words instead of the sacred space of psychotherapy.

It is no longer True Love. It is a bluff.

Be careful what you let into your psychotherapy room.

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These reflections express my personal opinions on systemic issues in psychotherapy and technology, not on any specific organization or individual. I'm writing as Ian Felton, MA, LPCC, a psychotherapy company doing business in Minnesota.