Paul and Mia were consultants and visitors more than twenty years ago. On this day, they met in Mia's office. The reason is that another visitor of Paul, the pilot Alex, died unexpectedly in the flight after receiving psychotherapy. Alex's father sued Paul for negligence and claimed $20 million, making him responsible for his son's death. Mia's firm took over to defend Paul in this case, and Mia received Paul in the law firm instead of her colleague Ellis (Mia was the chief litigator of the firm and volunteered to meet with Paul to discuss the case). Because of their multiple relationships, Paul didn't want Mia to handle the case. With the intervention of Bennett, a partner of the law firm, they finally reached an agreement that Ellis would still handle the case.
In this encounter, a series of problems left over from the negotiation 20 years ago were presented. Mia became emotional after Bennett stepped in and rudely kicked Paul out. A week later, Mia found Paul on the grounds of clarification and apology and began their first interview in the consulting room after more than 20 years. Mia exposed her affair with Bennett, whose boss is also a married man because she wants to smoke (Bennett doesn't let her smoke either). Bennett promised Mia a divorce. When Mia wanted to have a baby for Bennett but found that she couldn't get pregnant, she found Bennett's home and Bennett kicked her out. Mia expressed to Paul the need and dilemma of getting married and having children, and complained that she was pregnant 20 years ago before entering law school. In counseling, Paul guided her to make a decision not to have children. Later, Paul left the city, which led to the suspension of the consultation. Mia also decided to have an abortion and break up with her boyfriend. What happened at this stage had a great influence on Mia, so Mia complained that Paul "owed me a child".
Here we can see that the repair related to Mia's inner growth contrasts with the efforts and success at the social level. Mia is using explicit social efforts and transactional display to resist some unresolved problems in her heart. We also see that Mia's motivation for asking for help is not clear: Mia obviously has many problems in intimate relationship, including feelings and sex with adult opposite sex, and relationships with parents and sisters. At this time, on the one hand, Mia exposed the problem of inner growth, on the other hand, she did not explicitly ask for psychological counseling. She clarified and apologized for her emotional out of control and unprofessional performance at the last meeting. In fact, there are other reasons and factors behind this to promote her visit and response. It is necessary for the consultant to understand the problems, motives and troubles behind it.
During the conversation, Paul explored and anchored her inner state through some real events she told, trying to judge whether she needed to start a new course of treatment to make up for the unfinished consultation twenty years ago. He showed active attention to listening, and went deep into the feelings of visitors with an alert and affectionate attitude, without making judgments. For example, Mia said that she had another boyfriend while dating Bennett. Paul just said "I believe you have your reasons" and continued to listen to Mia instead of asking questions clearly. In some vague feelings, I will also try to give some clarification, which will help Mia to go deeper into her inner feelings. Mia is difficult to achieve intimacy in life and easy to belittle the opposite sex; I also have homework to do in the relationship between my family and my parents. Mia's heart has not yet reached the state of adulthood, and there are deep psychological problems behind the real problems. If we deal with practical problems on the basis of facts, it will not fundamentally solve the problem, but will only bring about "forced repetition."
Because the consultation more than 20 years ago left a grievance for Mia, and the meeting itself was not a formal psychological consultation, Paul caused Mia's resistance in some more urgent aspects at the end, so that they did not specifically define the beginning of consultation and the establishment of the relationship between consultation and interview at the end, and the subsequent consultation talks were still driven by other real events.
In this interview, Mia also talked about her relationship with her parents. It sounds like she is very close to her father, who loves and values her very much, and her mother seems to be excluded from their relationship. It is very contradictory to have a good relationship with her father, to have a close relationship with men, to distrust the opposite sex, and to feel neglected, and to prove her importance to win men's attention. This laid the groundwork for the following story.
(To be continued)