What psychotherapy is not

"Sometimes tender, sometimes a barbarian, but above all, a human being" – that is how we can describe today's guest, psychotherapist and philosopher Jacek Masłowski. Over years of practice, he has explored both the specifics of his profession and the myths surrounding it. Can you become addicted to psychotherapy? Could it actually do us harm? What should the relationship with a therapist look like, and what exactly is it – a friendship, counseling, a contract, or something else entirely? These and other questions are answered in the latest episode of Andrzej Silczuk's series, "Well Said."  

00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:37 Why do we start psychotherapy?
00:07:14 What type of relationship is therapy?
00:09:48 Therapy vs. counseling
00:14:59 The foundations of psychotherapy
00:16:46 Does psychotherapy always go back to childhood?
00:22:32 Challenges in the therapist-patient relationship
00:25:06 Therapist supervision
00:28:12 Patient concerns
00:31:12 The relationship in Gestalt therapy
00:36:25 Is psychotherapy just a conversation?
00:37:58 Psychotherapy for men
00:52:04 The "trend" of psychotherapy
00:56:04 ADHD overdiagnosis – fact or myth?
00:59:48 Can therapy do harm?
01:06:45 Mutual interest between therapist and patient
01:12:56 How to start therapy?
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Transcript

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Welcome back to the Multi.Life space and our program, "Well Said." I’m Andrzej Silczuk, and joining me in the studio today is Jacek Masłowski. Jacek is a psychotherapist, philosopher, and a long-time professional colleague of mine; we’ve collaborated on many projects, including working with patients, and I have immense trust in him. He is the founder of the Masculinum Foundation, which focuses not only on sexuality and identity but also on the emotional well-being of men. Sometimes tender, sometimes a "barbarian." Jacek, I’m very happy to have you with us today. You’re an experienced writer and author, and today I’d like to talk to you about psychotherapy.

Jacek Masłowski: I’m happy to be here too. Thank you for the invitation, Andrzej.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I recently had a conversation with Joanna Gutral where we wondered whether bosses are sometimes afraid of psychologists. It seems from that discussion that a lot of myths have built up around psychology and psychotherapy. One such myth about seeking psychotherapeutic care is that only people who are mentally ill go to see a therapist. Is that true?

Jacek Masłowski: There are people—it does happen—who truly suffer from some kind of disorder, although in my personal experience, I can say that accounts for maybe up to 5% of all the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with over nearly 15 or 16 years of practice.

Most are simply people dealing with a very broad spectrum of life, relationship, professional, and health challenges that affect their emotional well-being and mental state. They make up the vast majority of people who use psychotherapy.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: What is the motivation for someone seeking help from a psychotherapist? Why do people go to therapy?

Jacek Masłowski: I see three main motivations. The first is that people come for feedback. They come to learn something about themselves, to get to know themselves better, and to see if their way of thinking about themselves is supportive or perhaps self-defeating.

That’s a big, broad topic, of course. The second main reason is that they have secrets. They carry some kind of internal difficulty that weighs heavily on them. At the same time, they lack the relational space to share that burden—or they think they do—and it weighs heavily on their psyche, often leading them to maintain superficial relationships. Once they come to therapy and build trust, and the therapeutic relationship becomes established and deep enough, they release that burden at their own pace. Some very interesting things happen after that.

The third main reason is to look into one’s "shadow." It usually looks like this: a person starts to notice that certain repetitive situations or patterns appear in their life. For example, they’ve lost their job for the umpteenth time, or they’ve heard the same words from a partner who left them, and so on. These people slowly start to ask themselves whether it’s a matter of external factors or if they are somehow participating in it, perhaps even provoking it.

That is the third motivation, which leads us to look into the "shadow zone" for the mechanisms and causes that determine the various behaviors these people notice through those symptoms. In my opinion, those are the three main "drawers" for why people seek therapy.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, knowledge, secrets…

Jacek Masłowski: Knowledge, secrets—or rather, burdens—and the attempt to take control of the unconscious parts of ourselves that are currently controlling our lives.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, a form of awareness.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I see. That middle part really resonated with me, because it made me think about the profound sense of loneliness involved.

Jacek Masłowski: That’s exactly right. You see, the therapeutic relationship, by its very nature—due to the trust, the confidentiality, and the fact that it is an asymmetrical relationship—is unique. The therapist does not expect a return from their client or patient, depending on the modality, for what they provide. In everyday relationships, I would say the principle of equivalence applies.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Like between friends.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, I get something from you, you get something from me, and in the long run, we both feel that the relationship is balanced in terms of what we exchange. However, that’s not the case in a therapeutic relationship, because the therapist is in a different position.

I call this position the "super-parent." A "super-parent" is someone who, at the very least, tries hard to be responsive to the needs expressed by the person in psychotherapy, without even the possibility of reciprocation. This is one of the reasons why psychotherapy is a paid service; the money serves as an equivalent for the exchange that would otherwise have to take place in ordinary relationships.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So it’s a transaction.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, it is a transaction, and it somewhat relieves—I say "somewhat" because people in therapy don't always experience it that way—the pressure to reciprocate, which is based on the rule of reciprocity, the strongest rule of social influence.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That’s very important, because I’m thinking that we’re sort of segueing into one of the myths—that I can’t burden a "stranger" (and we’ll put "stranger" in quotes) with my difficulties, my problems, my secrets, my ignorance, and my unconscious, because I’ll owe them something. But pointing out that the "psychotherapeutic person" receives payment balances the transaction. This also applies to situations where I am a consumer of, say, subscription-based services; if my employer pays for my therapy, I am still not indebted to the psychotherapist, because the psychotherapist has been compensated. That is significant.

Jacek Masłowski: This equivalent is very important.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: Right. Thinking about these "three drawers"—the areas clients come with—does that in some way help us define what psychotherapy is?

Jacek Masłowski: It’s more about defining what it isn't.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: Please, go ahead.

Jacek Masłowski: Let's look at it from that angle. Psychotherapy is certainly not psychological counseling, nor any other type of counseling.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: And what do you mean by the term "counseling"?

Jacek Masłowski: Look, it’s very often the case that for various reasons, people who come to psychotherapy have this idea that "the therapist will tell me how to live."

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: OK, like should I stay with her or should I stay with him?

Jacek Masłowski: Am I doing this right or wrong? Is this good or bad? Am I OK or not OK? Should I do this or should I do that?

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: We ask ChatGPT about that today.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, but ChatGPT still hallucinates, whereas with a therapist, there is a chance to talk things through. People are indeed using chatbots, but that is a separate issue. In my opinion, it is very dangerous if you try to replace a person with a chatbot. But getting back to the point – therapy is not primarily about giving advice. The second thing is that psychotherapy, or perhaps the psychotherapist, is not someone who cures you.

Because the psychotherapeutic process, as I understand it, is a process of self-healing in the company of someone who is there to support you. It happens that people come to a session, then another, and keep coming for a year, saying, "Damn, nothing is happening, nothing is changing." And it doesn't change.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: You aren't changing anything for me.

Jacek Masłowski: That is essentially an underlying accusation that you, the therapist, should be the one to make me feel better, to make me build better relationships, or whatever else.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Well, you know, it is so obvious that people have a service-oriented expectation, that they would like it to be that way.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, but the service doesn't consist of the therapist being a demiurge who manages your life space; rather, the therapist is someone who strengthens your processes of becoming autonomous in life. Because all those statements I mentioned – "What should I do?", "You aren't causing change in my life" – are statements stemming from dependency.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk:  Autonomization means independence.

Jacek Masłowski: And entering into autonomy simply means that I am the author of my own life, meaning I make choices consciously, or at least as consciously as I can. But I am also open to the consequences of those choices—not consequences understood as a burden, but...

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: …as authorship.

Jacek Masłowski: …as authorship, but also as outcomes, as my own growth. Because every experience we encounter in life is my perception. It is there so that we can grow. Although the word "growth" is understood in many different ways today, I believe that is why we receive these experiences in life. And the therapist is someone who accompanies me in this process. Someone in whom I can see myself reflected, a relationship in which I can see myself, where I can practice something in a way that is safe for me, for example, expressing anger that I couldn't express in the relationships I've been in so far, from childhood up to my current relationship.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: And here you can get angry and even talk about it.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, and this is where the therapist co-creates a space with you to explore the things you fear, the things you’ve blocked off, or the things you don’t yet understand. That’s primarily what it’s about—I call it a kind of "training relationship," where you place the therapist in front of you and practice certain behaviors—within the boundaries defined by the contract and social norms, of course—practicing forms of expression that were previously outside your range of possibilities.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Or things that happened accidentally, without you knowing why.

Jacek Masłowski: That could also be the case.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I understand, and that only highlights the transactional nature of it, because if you, as the therapist, are my "punching bag"—and we’re using that term loosely, of course...

Jacek Masłowski: I’d say not even necessarily loosely, because it really is a bit like that.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Literally—a punching bag... Formally, if I looked at my patterns, I might feel a huge sense of guilt for having used you for practice.

Jacek Masłowski: That’s one thing. And two, being aware of that rule of reciprocity, you would still be blocked from exploring a new form of relationship or a new way of being together, because of those very mechanisms that keep holding you back.

But here, you have someone you’re not just paying—that’s not the main focus, I feel. You’re aware that this is a person who is ready for this. They are professionally prepared and emotionally equipped. You come for a specific purpose; you’re not coming to a friend, a mentor, or a parent to ask what you’re allowed to do or not allowed to do. I mean, you can try, but a therapist who is grounded in their role won’t play along; they’ll reflect it back to you, sometimes explaining why they’re doing so through psychoeducation. To a large extent, this allows you to build that specific type of relationship I mentioned—a safe relationship that allows you to truly explore yourself in relation to others, in a new way, under safe conditions.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I think there’s one more variable: it’s a relationship where the therapist is focused on the client with positive intent.

Jacek Masłowski: Definitely.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: It is very important that it is positive by definition. This means that nothing that happens during therapy will be directed against the person receiving it.

Jacek Masłowski: You know, I was taught that psychotherapy has two very important foundations: it is non-judgmental, meaning I don't judge your behavior—I can tell you how I feel about it, but I won't tell you what you did wrong or right. And it is amoral, meaning I won't tell you what is good or bad. Aside from legal requirements, of course—if you come in and say you’ve committed a crime or intend to, those are different stories, as there is a legal obligation to notify the appropriate authorities.

However, as a rule, your thoughts on sex, religion, relationships, how you treat your body, or your views on various minorities are not within the scope of the therapeutic relationship and are not subject to any judgment. It’s more of a situation where you can communicate these things, and then, with the help of a therapist, explore where they come from, what they do to you, why you have them, and whether you still want to follow that path or not. But that is just one example. In reality, therapy is a super-rich space for self-exploration.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Alright, next myth. Is psychotherapy always about digging into childhood? Because, wait, most of us have a childhood that was more or less positive. Some of us have had experiences that were difficult. And right now, I don't feel ready to talk about that at all. Sometimes that acts as a barrier to seeing a psychotherapist, because I might want to talk about feeling unappreciated at work, but I don't want to touch on home life.

Jacek Masłowski: Again, I’ll draw on my own experience: not always, but very often, and it depends a bit on why we are actually going to therapy. My experience shows me that therapy is a bit like a visit to an orthopedist.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Interesting.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, where you come in and say, "Doctor, my back hurts." And the doctor says, "Okay, you know what, please get an X-ray and come back to me with the images, we'll take a look." You go, get the images, come back to the orthopedist, put them on the table, and he looks at them. "You know what, your spine is actually fine; I’m not sure what I can do for you here because it’s okay."

A bit disappointed, you turn around and start to leave, and the orthopedist looks at you and says, "Wait, wait, hold on a second, walk back and forth one more time. You’re limping a little bit, I feel. Didn't you break your leg once?" And the person says, "Gee, I don't remember breaking my leg. Well, you know what, actually, when I was 6... Okay, let's get an X-ray of that leg."

And that shows me, in my therapeutic practice, that we often come with a symptom where the source is not where we expect it to be. And it doesn't have to be childhood at all. It all depends on what the subject of the therapy is. You know, if you have trauma related to horseback riding, your relationship with your mother might not have much to do with it. It could be that you just fell off a horse three years ago and broke your leg. We deal with that, not what you were doing when you were three. But very often, it is indeed in childhood—and not just in relationships with parents, let's emphasize that, because that's another myth, that it's mainly "parents who did something to us"—we completely forget that we then go to school.

And here, again, I’ve been working mainly with men lately—actually, only with men—and it’s roughly 50-50 at the moment regarding the sources of their problems with functioning in the world.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Peer bullying, right?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, very much so. And the kind that was completely unaddressed. So, childhood is actually the area from the moment I was born—because sometimes the source of trauma is there—all the way up to young adulthood. First encounters with a girl who rejected me when I told her I liked her, and so on. So, it’s more about the past, not necessarily just childhood, but yes, it is often childhood.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I’ve been thinking about that fall from a horse; perhaps there’s a backstory there about someone who really struggles with failure and setbacks.

Jacek Masłowski: That could be, but you know, it all depends on... Honestly, I look at psychotherapy like an onion. You can keep peeling it forever.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Like an ogre, just like an onion. Psychotherapy is the same.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, psychotherapy too. A proper therapeutic process. You’ll always find something else. The only question is whether it really makes sense to strip everything down to the core. I don’t think so. That’s why, again, I was taught to establish a therapeutic contract and define a specific goal—the outcome we want to achieve. I usually focus on that outcome rather than everything I see. Unless it serves a purpose, something I feel is worth bringing into the process and discussing, then sure. But honestly, you could end up never leaving therapy. Besides, we both know people who have been in therapy for 15 years, and there’s always something going on, right?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And that immediately begs the question: can psychotherapy ever really be finished?

Jacek Masłowski: Well, you can finish psychotherapy for a specific issue.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Depending on the issue, I see. So, are there situations where, for some people, the therapeutic process will indeed last that long?

Jacek Masłowski: That may be the case, though you have to be careful here. Because if you are in a therapeutic relationship with someone who came to you for help, on one hand, the process can evolve as you uncover new sources of the patient’s or client’s current life difficulties. But there are also people who are confluent—they just merge. They have a very hard time letting go of the relationship.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: OK, letting go of it. They get attached.

Jacek Masłowski: I’ve had a few experiences where... They get attached? Not necessarily. Some do get attached, but there are also those who react with anxiety to separation.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: They become attached.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, they become even more attached. I have a therapeutic relationship in mind right now, a process that lasted almost five years, where a person came in with a clearly defined goal. We got close to it after two years; we were very near the finish line. We had already started talking about how we needed to slowly prepare for ending the process…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And suddenly, "bam!"

Jacek Masłowski: And there was such a regression that this person seemed to retreat so far in how they experienced their life and functioned within it, saying: "Look, I can't leave. You have to help me."

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: "You have to do it."

Jacek Masłowski: You have to help me. And those are very difficult situations.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I understand.

Jacek Masłowski: As I said, it requires a great deal of mindfulness.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: All right. In that case, can the fear that one might let a psychotherapist become dependent on them be justified?

Jacek Masłowski: That one might let a psychotherapist become dependent on them? That the therapist might become dependent on the patient?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That the patient feels dependent on working with the psychotherapist.

Jacek Masłowski: That can certainly happen, too. There are such people.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And what would that entail?

Jacek Masłowski: Among other things, it can be linked to that separation anxiety.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, on the part of the patient or client, but I also understand it could be on the part of the person providing psychotherapy who doesn't set boundaries or monitor themselves.

Jacek Masłowski: I think that would be very unprofessional conduct for a therapist; if that is the case, it likely means that something in their supervision process, for example, didn't work as it should.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Tell me about supervision, because that is also super important. I was thinking that for some clients, coming to a psychotherapist with their problem—we all have our peak of pain in different circumstances, and we have an experience we want to share—they are very afraid that the therapist, or that during the process they reach a point where they could let go and talk about their experience, but they worry and start to care for the therapist, fearing that their story might hurt them.

Jacek Masłowski: That can happen, too. It happens quite often.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, who is a supervisor?

Jacek Masłowski: I think a supervisor is… Maybe I’ll start by explaining what a supervisor is for, and it will be easier to understand who they are. You see, it’s always worth keeping in mind that the most important, primary tool in a therapist’s work is the therapist themselves. Not the techniques, not the tools, not the methodology, but me.

In other words, my personality, my emotions, my beliefs, my values, and so on. Since I am a living human being there, albeit in a very specific role—which we have already touched upon—it means that what happens during the process also affects me. I am not just the person helping to facilitate corrective experiences; I can also feel sadness, I can get angry, I can feel fear, and so on.

The point is that bringing many of my own reactions to what is happening in the relationship into that relationship would, quite simply, be very harmful to it. So, if I were to tell a person who comes to me feeling anxious and seeking support that I have just become frightened by something, I would inevitably undo a great deal of work or even make it impossible to achieve the results we came here for.

And now, supervision and the supervisor. The relationship with a supervisor is a relationship with someone who, first and foremost, acts as a mirror for me, reflecting what is happening in the specific process I am participating in.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: It’s mirrored, right? For the client, the therapist is a mirror of themselves. And I understand that for the therapist, their supervisor is their mirror?

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly. They help me see what is happening inside me, why I reacted a certain way, or how I can model my own behavior for the sake of the process rather than for my own benefit. The second thing is that sometimes I simply might not know what to do. Because I am caught up in an experience within that relationship, and I might see three different options but don't want to experiment on the relationship itself. Instead, I want to examine it with someone who is a "super-visor"—someone above me who sees it from a meta-level, can ask me questions that wouldn't occur to me, and allows me to have a dress rehearsal in supervision: what would happen if I went this way, what might occur, why would I go there, what result should I expect, and so on.

So, supervision seems to be, I would say, one of the fundamental tools of a therapist's work. Its goal is, first, to maintain the hygiene of one's own work, which leads to things like not burning out too quickly—because this is a very draining profession. But it is equally important that the relationship you are in remains focused on the client, meaning I am here for you, and I don't want to take certain aspects of this relationship that naturally develop here for my own personal use.

An attractive woman comes in and starts seducing you as a man, and since you aren't made of concrete, your body reacts to it, right? You feel emotions, you have fantasies, and so on. But you know that you cannot act on them here because the relationship is not for that purpose; in my opinion, going down that path would be a crime, an abuse, and so on. So, you take this situation to your supervisor—you don't pretend it isn't happening, because it is—and you can examine it there. What of yours is being triggered? What is this about? How can you model it within yourself, within the relationship, and so on?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So I understand that the relationship with a supervisor is very similar. Meaning, you don't get advice on what you should do, but rather you hear your own words and can find a solution for yourself in the presence of another person?

Jacek Masłowski: Not exactly "what" you should do, but you can get advice on "how" to do it. Sometimes you might forget certain technical aspects or have a skewed perspective. Your knowledge, which you learned years ago in school or during a specific course, might have become outdated, and you can receive a correction—for example, that a certain technique is better performed in a specific way because that is what the craft dictates. So, in that sense, yes. Not "what," but more "how"—how to approach it?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I come to a psychotherapist and I’m worried that I’m annoying them, or that I will annoy them with my behavior or what I say. What should I do about that?

Jacek Masłowski: Who? You or me?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I am the client, I come to you, the psychotherapist, and I’m afraid I’ll annoy you. I really wouldn't want to do that.

Jacek Masłowski: Are you going to tell me about it or not?

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: That’s a good question. If I had those feelings, those concerns, I assume it’s worth talking about them?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, but notice that if you have those concerns, the fear itself can be a blocker that keeps you from saying it, because you might be afraid of upsetting me.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: That’s true. Or risking judgment.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly. That’s why I asked you whether you tell me about it or not. Do you bring it up? Does it come up in the process? Because if you bring it up, it’s much easier. We can start looking at it from different angles. Where does it come from? Is it some kind of transference? Is it a type of...

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: What is transference?

Jacek Masłowski: Transference is, in short, a mechanism where I don’t see you, but rather someone you remind me of in some way.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: For example, a father.

Jacek Masłowski: For example, a father, and my emotional reactions and beliefs are triggered toward you as if you were that person, rather than Andrzej.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: So, in fact, I’m afraid I’ll upset my father, who will hit me for it, but I’m here and I’m projecting, transferring those emotions onto you, and my head starts spinning. Does the fact that I said it mean we’ve built a good relationship?

Jacek Masłowski: Likely yes. Above all, it means that you are either just starting out or you already feel secure. Because if you bring this up, and it feels risky for you, you’re doing it for a reason: either you feel a sense of inner strength that gives you that security, or you trust me and don’t see me as a threat, or the relationship is building both of those things at once, which is what often happens. But when you don’t bring it up, you show it over time. And this is where therapeutic mindfulness is important, which is what really distinguishes how we function in a therapeutic relationship from everyday relationships.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: So you won’t get angry that I’m bringing up anger here, and you won’t react to it with anger, but rather, I understand, you can name it.

Jacek Masłowski: I’m more likely to notice that you aren’t bringing up anger.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: That’s interesting.

Jacek Masłowski: Well, because you’re afraid to bring up anger, since you might annoy me, for example, or something else. And now, you know, once we’ve been working together for a few months, if you tell me about a situation that should naturally make you angry, but you’re smiling, for instance, I start to slowly explore that with you.

For example, I might ask you: “Is it always the case that when you talk about situations like this—for instance, that your boss again didn’t let you take time off when you wanted—you smile?”.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Yes, interesting…

Jacek Masłowski: It’s very often: “Wait, am I smiling?” – “Yes, you just smiled right now.”

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: And that it’s inappropriate.

Jacek Masłowski: People often don’t register it at all because it’s habitual. Then we talk about appropriateness and inappropriateness, and from that, a—and here I’ll use a Gestalt term—a “figure for work” can slowly emerge.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Right, because you are a Gestalt psychotherapist. EMDR as well?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, I use EMDR techniques to help myself. Well... "help myself" might be a bit of a stretch.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: At work?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, at work.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Tell me, what is Gestalt therapy? Because as soon as you used the word "figure," my ears perked up—it sounds like hunting terminology.

Jacek Masłowski: You know, that’s a long story. Let me put it this way: it’s a therapy that is very strongly based on relationship, on contact, and on the concept that we are all immersed in a certain background. Yes, a background, a field—you in yours, I in mine, and us in ours.

And right now, as we’re talking, certain topics keep emerging from this field, from this background—what we call "figures" in Gestalt. They do something, they affect you and me in some way. In short, in Gestalt, we focus on what these "figures" are, what they’re about, how they affect us, and so on, but it all happens very much through contact and relationship. It is a deeply relational therapy.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Deeply relational, and it’s also worth noting that it falls under the humanistic schools, making it one of the "Big Five" so-called true psychotherapies. The ones recognized as canonical.

Jacek Masłowski: "Canonical"—nice.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I use that term intentionally, you know, because it relates to the draft law on the psychotherapy profession and the identification of these specific psychotherapeutic schools as those that simply have EBM.

Am I hearing a metric here that might be concerning? Let me explain what I mean. You’re talking about someone starting to express anger after two years, or after a few months of working together—if things went well and mutual trust was built—they start talking about things that are difficult for them. Does psychotherapy have to take a long time?

Jacek Masłowski: It doesn’t have to. It doesn’t have to take a long time because, I’ll emphasize this again, it depends on what you’re coming in for. I have an example of a person who had a very specific professional difficulty. It was strictly a work-related issue. The situation was that this person held a fairly responsible position and couldn't—perhaps because, and I’m getting ahead of myself here—they received feedback from their supervisor after making a mistake yet again that they should look into why they had trouble asking for help. The difficulty was that this person would sometimes face a new challenge, not know what to do, and even though they worked in a team, they wouldn't ask for help; instead, they would try to come up with a solution to implement all on their own.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: The word "should" came up, so she took it upon herself.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly. And that was a situation where—and I’ll say right away, this wasn't deep therapeutic work—but if the problem in that situation was asking for help, it took us about 6 or 7 sessions.

We managed to get to the root very quickly, which was a very specific situation with her father, who had said, "You should be able to handle this on your own." And that introject—that belief which had become deeply embedded in the very structure of her being—acted as a mechanism that blocked her from being able to reach out for help.

We weren't doing therapy focused on, I don't know, quality of life or building relationships, but rather figuring out why this was happening, what was blocking her, and then exploring how to change it. After all, you came to me for help; you are here.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That is asking for help.

Jacek Masłowski: You’re already asking me, so what are you experiencing? In Gestalt, we focus on experiencing things here and now. We can create theories and concepts, but what is happening in this relationship right now? When you came here, you did come for help, after all. What are you feeling, and how does that relate to that sentence from the past? And that’s how it slowly starts to fall into place…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: ...to break a person free from being trapped in the past, from feelings of guilt and helplessness.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, exactly, because we are very often, you know, in a fantasy or an illusion of that relationship. For example, through transference.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Very interesting. Especially since I understand that the supervisor used practically the same sentence that her father used, which was, "You should be able to handle this."

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, only she didn't say "on your own."

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So "on your own" was added by her?

Jacek Masłowski: No, no, no. That supervisor sent them intentionally. I was working for that organization at the time, providing psychological support, and it was common knowledge that people could drop by during my shift to talk about any issues related to their mental well-being.

And that supervisor said, "Go see Jacek, okay, and figure out what's going on." And there really was a line drawn—if things didn't change, we would have to move you to a different position because it was just too risky to keep working that way. It was genuinely too risky.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I see. Is psychotherapy just talking, or is there more to it?

Jacek Masłowski: No, it’s about the connection. Again, it depends on the modality we’re talking about—the style of therapeutic work. As I mentioned, I work in Gestalt, but I also use EMDR. In EMDR, there are very specific procedures and methods that have nothing to do with talking.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: In a nutshell, what is EMDR?

Jacek Masłowski: EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Using eye movements through a multi-step procedure, we work with trauma that affects how we function in our daily lives. The eye movement—using a device that replaces your hand, because after six hours of doing it manually you’d be exhausted—supports the process of working with what has become "stuck" in the nervous system and isn't processing adaptively.

There are various elements to the whole process, several main phases. Of course, it’s not that there’s no talking—there definitely is—but it’s not based solely on conversation, whereas in humanistic approaches, it’s much more conversation-focused.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: You mentioned that you work with men. Do men actually use psychotherapy less often?

Jacek Masłowski: That’s in the past. It’s not like that anymore. When I was starting out, I remember being in my penultimate year of Gestalt training and saying that this was the path I wanted to take. Everyone looked at me and said, "Man, does that mean you're going to have a lot of free time?" Not only was psychotherapy elite back then because so few people used it, but men in that group were a tiny fraction. In fact, one of my instructors told me straight out that psychotherapy wasn't for men because men don't go to therapy.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Why?

Jacek Masłowski: I know why now, because once I got into it, it became very clear. It’s the result of many ingrained beliefs about masculinity and how men are supposed to function.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Is being soft unmanly?

Jacek Masłowski: First of all, they don't cry. You know that when you come to therapy, it's not to say that everything is great. Secondly, the idea that you have to deal with your difficulties on your own because that’s what being a man is—well, that’s exclusionary. But that’s all in the past now.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: A toxic definition of masculinity. I take it that’s somewhat behind us now?

Jacek Masłowski: I generally don’t like that term. In my opinion, "toxic masculinity" or "definition of masculinity" is too broad a generalization. I prefer to point out very specific things that, in various ways of looking at masculinity, don't actually help men or the relationships they are in. "Toxic masculinity" is not something I support.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Could you give me an example of that?

Jacek Masłowski: Well, exactly, the kind of beliefs we’re talking about. And what’s more, they don’t stem from masculinity at all, but from a single ethos—the warrior ethos. Because if you take the priest ethos, for instance, he can absolutely be sensitive and cry, and it makes no difference to anyone.

That’s why I think "toxic masculinity" is an oversimplification; it misses many nuances and different styles of masculinity that have historically functioned very successfully and continue to do so. But getting back to the point, men used to feel that deciding to go to therapy was like admitting to themselves and others that they weren't "manly."

But as I said, that’s history. Today, you know, I run a mental health institute, and not only do we happen to have mostly male therapists, but about 90% of the people coming in for therapy are men.

We also have a psychotherapy school now, surprisingly or perhaps not. It will likely be the first psychotherapy school where the majority of students are men, though we are open to women as well. This shows how much of a shift is happening in men's mentalities regarding self-care in general, and mental health in particular. And the main source of motivation for these men—I can say this with full responsibility after 15 or 16 years of work—is modern fatherhood. It’s about how these men build relationships with their children; they are aware of the wounds they carry from their own fathers and don't want to pass them on.

You know, there’s a sentiment I really like. I think it’s incredibly important for men, especially those in leadership positions—like a father, a manager, a politician, and so on—that if you have a wound, and you do—most of us have these wounds, if not all—you have two choices in life: you either transmit it, or you transform it.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That’s interesting.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes. And it turns out that more and more men are transforming those wounds.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That’s a beautiful thing.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes. And for me personally, it gives me incredible energy for my work. Maybe less so at the level of strictly individual psychotherapy, because there’s a very limited number of interactions possible in a given period of time. But the structures I get involved in—I feel they help an increasing number of men reach for what allows them to transform those wounds.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I also think about the bubble theory—that we live in a world somewhat distorted by the social sphere we most frequently interact with. And perhaps it’s not a universal truth about men in Poland. Perhaps. And there are people today who have great difficulty, even though times are changing and social awareness—or knowledge, in quotes—is "at our fingertips" or just a "mouse click away," we still have a situation where someone might be resistant to going to a psychotherapist. What are men afraid to come to a psychologist with?

Jacek Masłowski: With coming at all.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: With the very fact.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, the very fact, I already mentioned that. We do live in a bubble to some extent, and to some extent we don't. And I want to bring up another experience, because about a year and a half ago, we started preparing men to lead support groups—not just in Warsaw, but all over Poland, and now even in various places in Europe.

And it’s clearly visible that it is indeed much easier to build a support group in Warsaw, Poznań, Kraków, Łódź, or Katowice than in Zgorzelec or Puławy.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Why?

Jacek Masłowski: Precisely because here, the social mass, the movement, and the interactions between people mean you encounter men who are already on this transformative path much more often. They talk about it, but above all, they show it through the quality of their lives. There has to be a trendsetter everywhere. And in those smaller towns, more and more men are also heading in this direction. Maybe not straight to psychotherapy, because psychotherapy isn't available everywhere either.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: But an interest in psychology.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, but they are more interested in themselves, in their own psyche, and there are various forms of work. The support groups I’m talking about are like a first step toward breaking out of that tight corset of various beliefs about masculinity—what it’s supposed to be—where men, among other men, start learning different attitudes from one another and experience the fact that there are many different tools and methods for, quite frankly, coming out of that basement.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Because I thought that in smaller locations it’s a bit harder to maintain anonymity, so if I’m the first one to take on the effort of seeking psychotherapeutic support, and I’m the only one, I might be, you know, "labeled," and people might say, "Oh, there goes that weak guy."

Jacek Masłowski: That’s true, you know, I don’t live in Warsaw, but near a county town, and indeed...

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Quite an interesting term – "near a county town."

Jacek Masłowski: I live in the countryside, so definitely. The center of life, if anything, would be in the county town, in Grójec, and I have the impression that only now, recently, have people from Grójec who have a choice started preferring to go to Warsaw, partly to maintain that anonymity, but they are slowly starting to function locally as well, which is shown by two phenomena. First, psychotherapy offices are being established there, and second, there is an increasingly frequent need communicated, for example to our organization, for such a support group, at least one, to appear there as well.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: OK, but I’m in a situation where, in my micro-bubble, I see a man struggling with a difficulty. It’s transparent, we all see it. So, how do you support, or how do you convince a partner, parent, father, son, brother, or grandfather to seek such help?

Jacek Masłowski: There is no single answer to that question. That’s why, as we’ve already discussed, each of us is a bit different, has different beliefs in their head, and has a different quality of relationship. What is most convincing from my perspective is leading by example. That is, if I do something myself and can share it, not in a way that says, "Listen, I see you’re struggling and I think you should go to therapy"—because that often triggers resistance. But it could be that we are in a relationship—you and I—and not because you’re struggling at all. I start talking about it only because I like you and it’s great that you’re my buddy, and I tell you about how I was once in a difficult spot myself and what I did. And that is often liberating.

And here, I have the impression that men have a much greater influence on other men than women do. Why? Because—of course, this is a generalization—there are many women who truly look at their partners, brothers, and fathers with great care, but among men, there is a belief that women want to fix men for themselves.

And it’s like, if my wife comes to me, let’s say, and says, "Listen Jacek, you know, I see you’re struggling, maybe you should go to psychotherapy"—it’s a bit like she’s telling me that I’m broken and need to be fixed. And I don’t really want to do what she wants.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: "You’re not satisfying me, you’re not the way I want you to be"...

Jacek Masłowski: For example, yes, and that can build resistance, passive resistance in the sense that I won’t refuse you, but I’ll forget, I won’t show up, I’ll go once and decide it’s not for me.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: On the other hand, acting out of compliance—doing something just because she told me to—is like going to the hairdresser. I might want to keep my hair long, but she says, "Get it cut," so I do it, even though it goes against what I really want.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly. That’s why the role of other men in the lives of these men is so incredibly important. That’s exactly why we do what we do—supporting and running these support groups in various parts of Poland.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Right, but I assume this resistance to going to psychotherapy isn't exclusively a male trait. Women can struggle with it, too.

Jacek Masłowski: Of course, it’s a human trait in general, though women are perhaps more naturally inclined to take an interest in themselves. There is one other very important thing about men that is almost never talked about, and I think it’s one of the key issues—regardless of whether they are afraid to go to therapy or not.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I’m listening.

Jacek Masłowski: Well, the average man lives outside of himself; he doesn't know what’s going on inside. He’s all about tasks. There’s this to do, that to do, this to read. We’re going to shoot down planes, or maybe we need to take out a bank loan, and so on. "What are you feeling?" "I'm fine." "And what are your needs?" "What needs? I guess I could eat something."

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: "What do I need to take care of?"

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, right? Look, I’ve been working with men for a long time, running tons of workshops. It’s a specific form of work, and for some time now, we’ve been running workshops—well, we didn't just create them, we’ve been running them—on needs and emotions. These are two separate workshops for men because it turned out that both areas are practically untouched by most men.

They know very little about themselves. If I’m living outside of myself, I don’t even really know why I would go to psychotherapy. I mean, how is a therapist going to help me pay off my loan? If that’s what I’m focused on, you know? Only when you start to get in touch with yourself does the source of motivation to seek some kind of support begin to emerge. And not necessarily just "help," because in my opinion, there are three main reasons for coming to psychotherapy, and not all of them are about help—at least not in the common sense of the word.

So, men observe themselves to a much lesser degree. Rohr has this line about how men make the mistake of identifying very strongly with their achievements and very little with their participation. Women are much better at participation. They participate more with themselves, in their own lives, and in their relationships.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: More "here and now"?

Jacek Masłowski: "Here" and "now," but as a rule, they are much more focused on themselves. They feel, reflect, and support one another. This is very feminine and socially accepted, while men are only just learning this, and society is beginning to support it as well.

Until quite recently, the myths we were discussing were widespread. I think the pandemic changed a great deal. I remember watching various TV programs as if it were today, where doctors of various specialties were telling people, including men, that mental health is important and that it needs to be taken care of. And slowly—or rather, not slowly—following the pandemic, we have observed an avalanche-like increase in men's interest in their mental health, their psychological well-being, and so on. It’s, I can’t even say, but it’s a growth of thousands of percent.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Perhaps the pandemic really put that "do-ability" men had to the test, and suddenly it turned out there wasn't much they could do other than wait. And that "Peter Pan," his shadow, caught up with him—with his emotions. That shadow you mentioned a moment ago, where all sorts of things are lurking.  

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, I have the impression that because men were locked down and their ability to run away from themselves through various activities was limited, they began to confront what was happening inside them, as well as in the relationships they often avoid, especially in big cities. You know, you have a wife, a child, but you also have work, the gym, hobbies, school runs... Very few people are truly in touch with themselves.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Right, there’s no time.

Jacek Masłowski: There’s no time, and we know why there’s no time.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Exactly, sometimes it might be to avoid having contact.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Okay, so we have this post-pandemic accelerator. But in the United States 20–30 years ago, that accelerator didn't exist in this form, yet there was a widespread consumption of therapeutic services to some degree. This "trend for psychotherapy" is appearing in Poland now. I’m using the word in quotes on purpose, because it seems to me that it could be a very inaccurate term again. But the question is—is it also your observation that we have become significantly more interested in psychotherapy, regardless of gender?

Jacek Masłowski: Are you talking about us—people, Poles—right now?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: About us—people, Poles.

Jacek Masłowski: Absolutely, definitely. And this has also had a significant impact on what happened to our children during and after the pandemic. As parents, we all know very well that children who were isolated during the pandemic, hidden behind screens, began to show clear difficulties in their psychological functioning.

Few parents are able to provide them with real help. Therapy has become a resource because most parents want to ensure their children's well-being and have been seeking support for them. It often turned out that since this is a tool that can support children, it is also a tool that can—and often must—support us, because these children are not independent; they are in a dependent relationship with us, their parents. So, it is a broad topic, but yes, definitely, psychotherapy has become, I would say, almost normal in most circles today.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I see, normalized.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, exactly.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: You mentioned trendsetting, that there are people who act as a catalyst for others in a given environment. But doesn't this create a risk that psychotherapy will become a substitute for spiritual coaching, a kind of outsourcing where someone tells me what to do—leaving aside what people are trying to do with artificial intelligence—is there such a risk?

Jacek Masłowski: Both yes and no, because your motivation is one thing, and my inclination to fulfill it as a therapist is another. And here we return almost to the beginning of our conversation: if you come to me for coaching, but I am a therapist, I work with you in such a way that you realize you won't get coaching from me, but therapy instead. I show you the difference between the two.

But there is another danger, which I feel is a growing problem and is hardly ever discussed. I mean—this is my own term for a phenomenon I observe—that therapy is starting to be used not for real change, but to justify certain things.

Namely, more and more people in therapy discover that their difficulty functioning in life—for example, in relationships, with their boss, with money, etc.—is the result of a "difficult childhood that my parents gave me."

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: It’s an alibi.

Jacek Masłowski: And that’s it. That’s how I am now. For example, I am very wary of people who come to therapy and say something like: "I have an autism spectrum diagnosis. I am autistic."

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And that’s the end of it.

Jacek Masłowski: Whenever I hear someone say, "I'm autistic," I know that either we won't be able to work together, or the work will take 60 times longer.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, someone shows up wearing that label right on their sleeve?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, and that label kind of lets them off the hook from doing the real work.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Right. It used to be liberating—we were looking for answers, and if it turned out someone was on the autism spectrum or had other neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, we gained an extra tool to help that person navigate things with a broader awareness. What went wrong?

Jacek Masłowski: That’s just one example, though; you could just as easily have a label like being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: True.

Jacek Masłowski: But for many people, just being aware that they are an ACOA is enough to...

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That they are adult children of alcoholics.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, and that explains why their life is the way it is—and "that's okay." In other words, we keep externalizing responsibility, whereas there’s that saying—I think it’s from PERS-S—that it doesn't matter what someone did to us in the past, but what we do with it now. I get the impression that therapy often stops right at the point where it should actually be starting, yet for many, it’s already over. "Aha, okay, now I know. I'm an ACOA, or that's just how I am." Setting aside whether you’d agree with me, I believe there is an overdiagnosis of various conditions, like ADHD; in my view, we are currently seeing an overdiagnosis of these types of issues.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: There are some very interesting studies and commentaries right now suggesting that diagnostic protocols should rely on experienced clinicians—meaning a diagnosis for neurodevelopmental disorders should be made by someone with a high volume of such cases and years of clinical experience. This is necessary to distinguish whether we are dealing with a primary neurodevelopmental disorder or, for example, a secondary one—like an acquired concentration disorder caused by overstimulation. But this brings us back to the same point: is psychotherapy that drags on, or therapy where you’re just given life advice, or therapy where you’re handed a diagnosis at the very start—is that really psychotherapy? In other words, is there a credible, reliable professional on the other side practicing psychotherapy?

Jacek Masłowski: I think trying to answer that would be a massive oversimplification. Why? Because you're getting life advice. For example, if you come to me and I suspect you might be dealing with a mental health disorder, my advice to you would be that it would be a good idea to get a diagnosis from a psychiatrist.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: But that’s not life advice; that’s a specific recommendation.

Jacek Masłowski: It depends on how you look at it, because we were just talking about how that diagnosis could lead you to turn it into a life mantra and so on. I look at it a bit differently, but the most important thing isn't how I look at it, but what I do with it next. That what actually serves the client or patient might fall within the spectrum of psychotherapy, provided—and this is where the supervisor's role comes in—that you have really taken a close look at what you're doing it for.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And the intention, I take it?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, the intention, and what effect it might actually have on that person.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: OK, fantastic. So one of the questions worth asking a psychotherapist when we start our journey, in our first contact, is: "Do you work under supervision?"

Jacek Masłowski: I mean, that’s an absolute must, yes.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: It absolutely must happen.

Jacek Masłowski: Let me go back to this giving advice thing. Listen, I have experience working with men who literally work themselves to death, you know, 300 hours a month.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: The guy’s going to burn out.

Jacek Masłowski: These are people who, for example, are struggling to function. Now, if I give them advice like: "Listen, take care of your vacation, your rest," as a necessity for them to function in their daily life, but also within the process itself—that's a very blurry example. Is that life advice or not? Can I say it, or can't I? It depends on the context and the intention behind it, and what kind of real effect it might actually have.

Sometimes, you know, there is inclusion in psychotherapy, where you share a piece of yourself that reveals something the other person hasn't been able to discover because they lack those patterns in their own life. But I'll say it again: this must be very carefully thought out and ideally supervised. Because when it's supervised, there's like a flag on the timeline of the process that you can monitor to see what effect it has, and you can correct it if it turns out to be necessary.

Assoc. Prof. Andrzej Silczuk: OK, I'm moving on to the next myth: "I would go to therapy, but I'm afraid it might harm me."

Jacek Masłowski: The question is, what does "harm" mean? Because if we're talking about the fact that psychotherapy—through the therapeutic process—leads you to make changes in your life, then I look back at the various people I've worked with. Sometimes it really was the case—I work with a man who runs a large company, a real "one-man band" who does a lot of things, and he comes to me saying he wants to live differently. He's not satisfied with his life, but he has this idea that on top of everything he's already doing, he'll just add something else to make his life great. After a while, once we've looked at the source of this—that he's competing with his father, for example—I usually ask if he wants to continue, being aware of that...

Assoc. Prof. Andrzej Silczuk: ...that he's competing with his father through his achievements?

Jacek Masłowski: He's trying to meet his father's expectations to earn his love, for instance. You have to see this in a broader context, of course.

Assoc. Prof. Andrzej Silczuk: I'm explaining this jargon because it might be obvious to me, but I also want it to be clear for our listeners.

Jacek Masłowski: I usually asked a question like this, being aware that if we go further, you might make changes in your life that lead you to, for example, not wanting to run your company anymore—or anything else. Do you want to follow that path? Let's look at that motivation first, okay? And I've never had anyone who actually made that change within themselves say that therapy harmed them. However, I have known people in relationships with them who said someone's psychotherapy harmed them. "You've ruined my man, he's not the way he used to be," and so on.

Assoc. Prof. Andrzej Silczuk: So, psychotherapy, in quotes, "harms the old you"?

Jacek Masłowski: It changes the status quo you're functioning in. Now, everything depends on whether the system the person in therapy belongs to resonates with that person and that change—meaning it also moves toward change—or whether it resists.  

Assoc. Prof. Andrzej Silczuk: And does it always have to be painful in psychotherapy?

Jacek Masłowski: Let me go back to that example of yours, when you're at the orthopedist’s…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: The one about the spine?

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, but it turns out it’s not the spine, it’s the leg—it healed incorrectly. So, what do you have to do with that leg now to make it heal properly?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I’m afraid you have to break it.

Jacek Masłowski: You can do it under anesthesia, but even then, you’ll still be aware that they’re breaking your leg—and that, psychologically at least, is not pleasant.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That sounds very brutal.

Jacek Masłowski: As a rule, we have to… making that change… I mean, the word "pain"—I’m not sure how to define it—maybe "discomfort" is better, because we are paradoxically leaving our comfort zone, moving from the known into the unknown.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Even if what is known is unpleasant and harmful to us…

Jacek Masłowski: …it’s still a comfort zone, right? Very often, paradoxically, we say we don't want something, but because it’s what we know, we end up striving to maintain it, even though we don't want it.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Because we know how to navigate it.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, we have algorithms for it; we know what will happen, how to behave in a given situation, how to react, when to put your guard up, how to stay in control, and so on.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And with the new comes uncertainty.

Jacek Masłowski: And with the new comes exploration, yes. It’s like learning about yourself all over again—not just within yourself, but also in relation to everything around you. It’s like changing jobs, but not just the company—changing your entire profession. You’re still Andrzej, but now you’re, I don’t know, a tire technician…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: A podcaster, for example.

Jacek Masłowski: Or a podcaster, right?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Exactly.

Jacek Masłowski: And that is terra incognita for you. You have a sense that it could be cool, but you have to learn things from scratch. You’ll notice that you feel uncomfortable with, I don’t know, having someone do your makeup or something else.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: As a psychotherapist, do you ever have periods of helplessness?

Jacek Masłowski: Of course I do.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: What does it look like? What do you do with it?

Jacek Masłowski: You go to supervision. Yes, definitely. Or to peer supervision. It’s also worth mentioning that therapists who work in teams—and fortunately, I work in a team—also have peer supervision. It consists of...

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Among yourselves.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes. It consists of, you know, having breaks, being in our building, going to the breakroom, and if you feel stuck or something is happening, you say, "Hey guys, I have this situation. How do you see it?"

And that’s a quick, on-the-spot thing. If you have a team that’s great, cohesive, and, you know, supportive, that often helps a lot. But even then, for more intense cases, you go to supervision to check if that helplessness is actually your own, or if it might be...

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: …the client’s.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, which you take on from the client, that this helplessness serves a purpose in the relationship, perhaps to trigger you into feeling anger or wanting to reject such a person. I know that if someone isn't involved in this field, it sounds like "black magic," but that helplessness requires careful observation. Does it stem from the fact that I really don't know, don't have the tools, or don't understand the situation?

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Well, from fear, from fear. Everything is underpinned by fear—fear of what the first session will look like. I book my first session with a psychotherapist, and a whole cascade of images starts in my head. What about an ideal first session with a psychotherapist? You don't have to talk about a universal one, because different people work in different ways, but if we wanted to establish some basic principles, what would need to happen there for us to feel safe, and what can we as clients ask for? How should it look?

Jacek Masłowski: You know, I won't answer that question because, again, depending on the modality, those sessions can simply look different.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Modality, meaning the therapeutic approach.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, the therapeutic approach. You will use different tools, and the flow of the session will be different, but as a rule, it usually starts with, you know—I don't know, again, whether... no, it’s not responsible for me to say, because I don't know all the modalities, and I don't know if, for example, in CBT they also ask you what you're starting with, right? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I don't know. I almost always start with that.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Where do you start?

Jacek Masłowski: By checking in on where the person is at in the session.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Here and now.

Jacek Masłowski: Here and now, yes, but that is also one of the fundamentals in Gestalt, right? Being in the here and now. So, I don't think I can answer that question in any responsible way.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: In that case, I will rely on something else.

Jacek Masłowski: OK.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: With a very universal statement I adopted from Professor Irena Namysłowska, who said that the fundamental substrate for building a therapeutic relationship is interest.

Jacek Masłowski: That's right.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Beautiful.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, definitely.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Regardless of the modality you work in.

Jacek Masłowski: Mutual interest.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Exactly. When a psychotherapist, regardless of their school of thought, asks that first question, it’s rooted in a positive intention of genuine interest: “Welcome, you’re here with me for this meeting—which might not be pleasant, but is certainly difficult for you. So, why are we meeting today? What’s behind this?” That in itself is an expression of interest, because that’s what opens the door to building trust.

Jacek Masłowski: Sorry, it’s such an obvious thing that it didn’t even cross my mind that it’s actually relevant here…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: But we’re here to bust myths, and there’s this common myth that “the psychoanalyst is sleeping behind your back.” You’ve surely heard that one, right?

Jacek Masłowski: Sure.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: The idea that psychoanalysts sit behind the patient, probably dozing off while the client—curled up in a fetal position—talks about their childhood. None of that happens, unless the therapist actually feels sleepy. And then what? They start to wonder, “Why are you trying to put me to sleep?”

Jacek Masłowski: OK…

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: That’s how analysts might approach such a question. It means they start to consider that the feeling of drowsiness might actually be part of the relationship dynamics.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, because that falls under phenomenology—what’s happening in the field, to use the language of my own modality.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Not just conversations.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes. And for example, absolutely… The term has slipped my mind now, kinesthetic. The point is that the therapist's body, certainly in Gestalt, and what happens within it, says a lot about what is happening in the process. I’ve forgotten the term.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: We’ll come back to it in a moment.

Jacek Masłowski: I’ve forgotten the term. In any case, I, for example, work a lot with my body in therapy, in the sense that I pay a great deal of attention to the signals I get from my body during what is happening. For instance, to use jargon, whether I’m being "cut out" in such a way that I start to feel sleepy. And you know, even if you’ve been working, I don’t know, four or five hours that day, that’s not even the point; you notice that it happens more often in this relationship than in another.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Interesting.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly. And you start to explore it. Why is that? It doesn’t stem from the content, that they are talking about things that don’t interest you, because actually, the content in psychotherapy—the things being said—is just a small fragment of the whole process. Phenomenology is quite important here. But you can start to look at what is happening, as it were, with the energy between you. Why does this sleepiness appear? It could be about being stuck, it could be about your resistance, or it could be about your client’s resistance to something. It’s not super obvious, and, again, we come back to intervision or supervision. But you can also explore it. A few times, it has happened that I even brought it into the session, saying: "Listen, you know, I’m feeling something right now, and I’ll name it, that my body is starting to make me sleepy. I don’t know what is happening in our relationship here and now. Would you like to take a look at that?" And sometimes that has actually worked really well.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And what happens then?

Jacek Masłowski: I don’t remember the specific results of that intervention at this moment, but that is exactly… Oh, I know. I’ve just remembered. It was in that specific moment I’m talking about now; it was a situation where the person I was in a process with, in that relationship, was telling me things. A lot was happening in their head, but that story… it was a substitute for being in an encounter with me. It was an escapist story, and when I revealed that feeling, I invited them to come back into the relationship.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: OK.

Jacek Masłowski: And it worked somehow, I don’t remember now.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: But something was triggered then because of that.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, exactly.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: I understand that what we are also talking about, alongside the story of the person who is a psychotherapy consumer—which we build upon by breaking down these myths and presenting a humanized, emotional figure in the here and now—is the psychotherapist themselves. They are also a human being, a "vessel" that is metaphorically empty but, in fact, compassionate. They don't necessarily feel the exact same emotions, but they feel alongside the patient and are, fundamentally, a person.

So, a psychotherapist isn't a mannequin. You know, some people are afraid of who they’ll be sitting across from. I still remember a patient who said he wouldn't go to a psychotherapist—he specifically said "female psychotherapist"—because they wrap themselves in those scarves regardless of the season, tilt their heads, and talk about having some kind of "feeling," and he just couldn't trust them.

That was a pretty strong stereotype. Later, I was in a therapy group in July and noticed that out of a dozen people at the peer supervision session, eight of my female colleagues were wearing scarves. It made me wonder where these things come from. Again, we focus on external things instead of building a real relationship with another human being, even though there is a real person right there.

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, we’ve talked about this too—that precisely because you are the main tool in your work as a therapist, you have to take into account everything that is happening within you. That includes your emotions, your states, your temperament, and whatever the day brought before the session. Sometimes, you know, things happen—you were driving to work, there was an accident, you saw something that stirred you up—and you bring that into the session as well.

And again, in Gestalt, we try to "bracket" ourselves and what’s inside us. But that "try" means we don't always fully succeed. The more aware you are of what you're carrying, the better it is for you, your client, and the process, because you’ll know how what’s happening in the process might influence your reactions. Right here and now.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: I’d like to start psychotherapy, but I don’t know where to begin. Do I have to start with something specific?

Jacek Masłowski: Well, I think you’ve already started, because if you want to, you probably know why you want to.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: So you’re answering the question, "Why do you need this?"

Jacek Masłowski: Yes, what exactly is the issue you want to go to therapy for? Only then is it worth starting to think about who to choose. And in my opinion, choosing someone is a process in itself, because it’s a relationship.

Andrzej Silczuk, PhD, DSc: So, what should guide your choice?

Jacek Masłowski: People usually choose based on a recommendation or some preconceived image they have of a therapist—like, "this person is this way," or "that person is that way," or "this woman is great because a few people told me so." And it’s often true that these people are highly competent, but what’s really important is how we feel in that therapeutic relationship. Even if I go to a world-class specialist with a great reputation, it might turn out that for me, or for them, it just won't click—it simply won't work.

Therapy usually starts with consultations—one, two, or three—before we commit to working together. It’s also important to remember that a therapist has the right not to invite you to work with them. And that’s not because they don’t like you or anything; it’s because they might not feel they can actually provide what you need within that relationship.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: It’s fair.

Jacek Masłowski: Exactly, because these are consultations, and you shouldn't take it as a rejection.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Even though it can be difficult.

Jacek Masłowski: Of course, yes. So, I think it’s worth meeting with a therapist a few times first.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Thank you so much for that. I know that since the beginning of this year, you’ve also become a podcaster.

Jacek Masłowski: That happened, yes.

Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Where can people find your podcast?

Jacek Masłowski: You know, I have a YouTube channel called "Czasem czuły, czasem barbarzyńca" (Sometimes Tender, Sometimes Barbarian). It’s dedicated to broadly defined men's issues and masculinity, but you can't talk about masculinity without touching on relationships with the world of women or relationships in general, so a lot of women watch the channel too.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Thank you very much, Jacek. Sometimes tender, sometimes a barbarian, but above all, a human being. That is the character of the psychotherapist I have brought to you today. He accepted my invitation to join this conversation to help break down some of the myths that we both believe can be a source of often unfounded fear regarding what psychotherapy actually is. It is an encounter, the adventure of meeting another person with whom, on terms of a certain degree of equality, but also transactionality, we can explore interesting areas to make a change. Thank you very much for this conversation, Jacek.

Jacek Masłowski: Thank you, Andrzej.

Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: This was "Well Said" in the Multi.Life space. Take care.

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