{"id":62,"date":"2023-11-12T01:17:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T01:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondarysource.com.au\/?p=62"},"modified":"2023-12-11T22:10:27","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T22:10:27","slug":"couples-therapy-and-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondarysource.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/11\/12\/couples-therapy-and-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Couples Therapy and the classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently I\u2019ve been watching Couples Therapy<\/a>, a documentary about the work of New York psychoanalyst Dr Orna Guralnik. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might seem weird to enjoy watching people in relationship crisis, but it feels less like schadenfreude and more like a mixture of empathy and admiration. Here are people at their most human, willing to expose all of their vulnerabilities, their confusion and anger, the maddening minutiae of their married life, in order to make it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thereby go the rest of us.  Watching, I thought of philosopher Alain de Botton\u2019s advice<\/a> for a first date, which is to dispense with the idea of meeting a perfect partner by making your opening question: \u2018what kind of crazy are you?\u2019 Maybe the trolls in Disney’s Frozen also had it right: encouraging Anna to look past the oddities of the reindeer-loving Sven.  Everyone\u2019s a bit of a Fixer-Upper. And the Couples Therapy patients were brave enough to be fixed-up on camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What struck me most was perhaps an obvious point about communication.  Each couple\u2019s \u2018presenting issue\u2019 was often wrapped up in an angry cloud of righteousness.  Sometimes complaints about a partner flowed out in a train of vitriol.  Other times the emotional load produced only fragments, sentences started but not finished, words grasped for and lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orna\u2019s brilliance was to listen to the noise, and the gaps in between, and to catch something.  To find the thread and pull on it.  And it was beautifully, firmly, but tenderly done. Sometimes Orna repeated what she had heard, a validating, comforting statement: \u2018that was hard for you\u2019.  Sometimes she added a word on the end of a sentence to draw it out: \u2018you\u2019re upset because\u2026<\/em>?\u2019, \u2018you need that so\u2026<\/em>.?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And her patients responded with more.  Not much, but enough to open something up. Another fragment to piece together the story behind a complex emotional picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might seem a leap to make the link to my History classroom, but all we do all day as teachers is try to communicate.  I\u2019m sure that some students feel as blocked and barriered in an academic space as those couples sharing their personal life on Orna\u2019s couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So recently I\u2019ve found myself channelling Orna\u2019s gentle coaxing.  I\u2019ve avoided jumping in too soon to teacher-summarise a student\u2019s contribution. I\u2019ve nodded and validated, made my genuine interest obvious, holding back to see what might emerge.  I\u2019ve added the \u2018so\u2026?\u2019 and \u2018because..?\u2019 as invitations to go further and deeper with a fledgling idea.  Sometimes I\u2019ve just said, \u2018tell me more\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m used to the risk now that there will be<\/em> nothing more; in 25 years of teaching I\u2019ve looked at plenty of blank faces when a discussion has run its course.  But what\u2019s the worst that can happen if we wait that moment longer, probe just a little deeper? Often there is<\/em> something; a last hand will go up to share a thought that has been percolating, something that needed the invitation and the pause.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if students just repeat their original answer, at least they have held the floor for a moment longer.  Their place in this discussion has been validated, their belonging in this space confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Orna\u2019s patients left they hadn’t been healed but they had been heard.\u00a0 Finding your voice, I\u2019m sure, can be a lifetime\u2019s work.\u00a0 But there is an opportunity every day for us to help students cultivate theirs, to try it out, to see what happens when we reach for more.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I won\u2019t change careers just yet, but at least I can ask the questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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