Thread by @drchanequa

I wasn’t going to say anything but here goes: If I were in practice right now and a new client brought in that recording of Kirk and Kerrion, the best conclusion that I’d be able to draw is that “There’s a problem in the relationship.” That’s all.

I wouldn’t be able to say who’s at fault, nor would I be interested in that (because that’s an almost irrelevant concept in family systems theory). I wouldn’t be able to deduce what led up to it or what happened afterward.

All I’d know is that there was a problem and I’d have to do a whole lot of questioning to gather an idea of what was actually going on.

That’s why therapy takes so long. Because therapists don’t hear a moment and then make a judgment. At least good therapists don’t, in my opinion. We ask a bunch of questions, sit in silence, try to see the big picture & the patterns. We do all that before we start diagnosing.

Incidentally it’s also why it’s unethical for therapists to diagnose people we haven’t actually evaluated - because it’s rarely possible to do that well.

There’s a concept in developmental psychopathology called “epifinality.” It essentially means that there are multiple pathways to the same f’ed up outcome. So there could be multiple pathways to that blowup, some of which I can imagine but others I probably can’t.

A lot of people are triggered by that recording, and that makes a lot of sense. It taps into a lot of pain and trauma connected to people’s experience of parenting and being parented. Remember, though, that a story doesn’t have to be the same as ours to trigger us.

We can - and do - get triggered by a lot that isn’t ours. And ultimately, what our triggering tells us is not about the other people. It’s about the healing work that we still have to do.

Honor your pain and what this brings up for you. And also honor that is about you and your story, not necessarily about Kirk and Kerrion. It’s often easier to focus on the latter to help us avoid the pain of the former.