By noon the dragon filled the house
it's head hung over the front door
it's tail hung over the back door
and the rest of the rooms in the house that didn't have
some part of the dragon in it
[hmmm]
I bet that there is a house like that on
some of you live, you know
where there's a lot of houses
some of you live in appartments
doesn't really matter but I bet you if you live in a house
on a block of houses
there's at least one house
on that street where the tail of the dragon
has started to come out of the house
and you know what that's like ey because it's
the house that you don't really want to look at when you walk by
you know? and maybe, I dunno,
it needs a new roof and like the door is a little bit crooked
'nd the lawn isn't cut 'nd you know there's some rusty things
laying around there 'nd like, it's just not taken care of!
and you know!
and maybe you know from the gossip in the neighborhood too
that there's something going on in that house
that is just not good
and it's got to the pont where it's SO not good
that it's starting to spread itself out beyond
the domestic confines of the house, so
you know you ru, you run into people like that
now and then too you'll notice this so
you know sometimes, I don't know if this has happened
to any of you but, it might've,
It's happened to you in some ways
you know that there are those people who can't not
tell you everything about what's going on in their life
even if you've hardly even met them
if ya, if you see someone who's REALLY in trouble
you know, you'll sit on the bus 'nd
somebody who's
clearly
on the road to being thoroughly deranged
will sit down beside you and they'll start
telling you about the problems of their life
's like you know that the dragon that they're dealing with
is so big that they can't even contain it.
they're so desperate
to have it DEALT with that they
CAN'T not talk about it.
you know, and there's lots of people like that
they're the ones, what is... that... stupid little phrase?
TMI right? too much information? 's like, yeah!
well, w-why does that happen?
it's because people are dealing with anomalies
'n unexpected occurrences 'n tragedies
and they cannot articulate a solution
and most people
think by talking
which is also part of the reason that therapy works
well do you think?
I doubt it
you might!
but very few people think!
you know, so if you wanna solve a problem you wanna
talk it over with a friend.
And so, you know you might just think that you're talking about
the problem, so that you know what the problem is
but you're talking about it so you don't
when you talk about it
you articulate the problem space.
You start to generate potential hypothesis
about solutions, but
more than that, if you're talking to someone
you can watch them, just like the little kid with the mouse
would watch the mother, 'ts like well,
here's what I think the problem is
'n if you go
you know you're listening 'n you go
like that
you roll your eyes
you know, it's a hint! to the person
that maybe that's not the most appropriate way to formulate the problem
now maybe you don't roll your eyes but
you don't encourage them
or maybe they tell you what the problem is
'n you're really actively engaged
and you're nodding
well then they know that maybe they formulated it
the way that someone half sane
and tolerable would formulate it
and then they can walk through the solution.
So...
so, when you sit down beside someone
and theyhave to tell you everything
one of the things that you know is that
they don't have anyone to listen to them
and
part of what happens in therapy
a huge part of it is that you just listen.
I have one client,
that's all I ever do with her!
She comes in once every two weeks
and I just sit their and listen to her
for an hour
and
now I can maybe have a bit of a discussion with her
for the last ten minutes.
But if I try to say anything
for the first 50 minutes
she just, looks kinda irritated 'n
you know, it's like I've
interrupted the flow of the
of the interaction
and she's alone.
She doesn't have anybody to talk to.
so
you know
she wants to listen to herself think!
and she can't do that by herself
she has to have someone to do it with
and so
you know
people think by talking
'n some people have no one to talk to
'n so
their problems start to spill out
'n you know by that time you can't even help them
usually, because
if you listen for three years
it wouldn't be enough listening
you'd just listen forever
n you'd never get to the bottom of it.