The question I am a trainee psychotherapist having a major issue, which I feel I cannot get past and I’d really appreciate some advice.
From day one I disliked one of my lecturers. He is very false and tries far too hard to be likable. I’ve been talking about him to a lot of people. He is very good at charming people in public situations. I’m someone who is so against being fake that trying to do so has had a negative physical impact on my body. It seems this man can’t stand that he can’t charm me.
He is an emotional sadist and has attempted on many occasions to break students in the name of showing us how challenging and difficult the work can be. There is no aftercare and I don’t see how students reliving memories of trauma in front of an entire class is benefiting any of them.
Last year, I was sitting chatting to one peer, who hates the lecturer as much as I do, when I had an encounter with him that almost made me throw up. Many of my class were hopeful we would not have him again, but we’ve found out he is teaching us until the end of the year. I cried when I heard this. I can’t bear having this smarmy man teaching me any more.
Philippa’s answer We have a problem in society today: we are getting too good at hating. Too good at thinking in terms of goodies and baddies, and we are always the goodies, aren’t we? But maybe we’re not. We’re getting too good, in my opinion, at judging and labelling others. Maybe there aren’t goodies and baddies. I think we are all a mixture of both. And perhaps there are better ways of thinking than such black and white terms of good and bad, right and wrong. Perhaps such concepts are unhelpful for us individually and as a society.
Your dislike of this authority figure – which I suspect many readers will identify with – was instant, “from day one”, so my guess (it can only be a guess) would be that he reminded you of someone who emotionally neglected you or otherwise caused you harm at some point in your life. I think it is possible that he has, unwittingly, triggered an emotion that may belong more in your past than it does in the present.
Perhaps he does put on a larger-than-life act when he is in public and he may try too hard to be friendly. But his having a different mode of being, which you dislike, would not be enough, on its own, to cause this extreme reaction, unless you are somehow previously inclined to dislike someone who comes across as he does. When someone has neglected us, or caused us harm, it is a human trait to be on edge around anyone who reminds us of that person; humans are predisposed to make generalisations.
You will know as a psychotherapy trainee that when we relate to someone not as they are in the present but, instead, react to an emotion they have unwittingly triggered from our past, we call this “transference”. This is because we are transferring a feeling that we associate with one person on to another.
Alternatively, rather than thinking he is the sole source of your bad feeling, locate this feeling instead within yourself. Not many people want to do this because it is so much more satisfying to hate than it is to understand what triggers our own dislike and then take responsibility for it. You experience him as smarmy and as someone to be wary of, but it will be useful to find out how that causes such an extreme reaction in you.
Many psychotherapy courses encourage trainees to do personal work in the training group, as it is easier to learn theory when you experience it, rather than just reading and talking about it. You say there is no aftercare, yet almost all courses insist students undergo their own therapy in order to undertake training. This is because learning how we humans manage and don’t manage our emotions will inevitably stir them up.
You cannot assume his motivation to work as he does is sadism! We often believe we know others’ motivations when we are only projecting what we assume it would mean to us if we were to act in that way.
Rather than gossip behind a person’s back, address any issue with that person with them. Talking behind someone’s back is called “negative contracting”. Negative contracting may be a useful way to bond with others, but it doesn’t feed your own personal development and it will influence how other people experience the person gossiped about in potentially harmful ways.
To get unstuck, you could talk to him about the reaction he brings up in you, or work through these feelings in your own private therapy sessions.
If you don’t see this as an opportunity for growth, you could switch to another institute, but you might be faced with the same situation again, as a propensity to dislike may be one of your issues.
Recommended reading Transference and Projection: Mirrors to the Self, by Jan Grant.
Philippa Perry’s The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *(and maybe a few you don’t) is published by Cornerstone at £18.99. Buy it for £16.14 at guardianbookshop.com
Every week Philippa Perry addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Philippa, please send your problem to askphilippa@guardian.co.uk. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions
