Freudian sausages
"because sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", Sigmund Freud.
Our unconscious unexpectedly bubbling into our everyday speech, unedited, seemingly so out of place. I guess this is the basis of what is known as Freudian slips.
The problem with slipping or tripping though.... Surely you have done this too... Walking along, the feet catch and we are titled forward in a lil trip, you quickly turn that into a funny walk, dance move or just try to style it out? That feeling of what (awkwardness, out of place, prefer to smooth this over so no-one comments)? Often when we trip our mind moves to threat oriented reactions and tries to look for the fastest, neatest, most effective exit.
All well and good when you are trying to keep your cool. But therapy is not about keeping your cool, it's about examining the uncool.
So when someone cognitively or emotionally slips, often their first reaction is to try to move away from the slip, the smudge (for ethical smudges go read Slavoj Zizek).
The door to the threat mind is often the widest. Alternatively the therapists job is to nudge the door to curiosity. This is not about being right. This is not about having an insight. Rather this is about Columbo (the shabby detective tv series from the 80's) style bringing two aspects of experience together and inviting the client to consider why they happened together in this moment.
Some therapists are alert to the cognitive slip (out of place words or phrases), others the emotional slip (felt sense of something else happening while tears are pouring out), others the behavioural slip (arms folding, touching the face), others the physical slip (tightening of the vocal chords).
