In an earlier post I discussed the pros and cons of lying and truth-telling. Briefly, lies serve the purpose of momentarily stabilizing interpersonal relationships as well as our image of ourselves. Lies create more controllable and predictable outcomes; the truth leads to unpredictability and the potential for more change.
The task of psychotherapy is to promote change. Consequently it is important to tell the truth in order for change to occur. Why does it seem so difficult to tell the truth, even to a therapist? My experience is that people grow accustomed to comfortable self-deceptions and outright lies because they are better able to pretend to be the person they want to be. We “put our best foot forward”. We “clean up our act”. We “try to make a good impression”, not realizing that all these dishonesties keep us trapped in our distorted view of ourselves. While we may not know what the “truth” about us actually is, we usually know when we are not telling it.
The task of psychotherapy is to promote change. Consequently it is important to tell the truth in order for change to occur. Why does it seem so difficult to tell the truth, even to a therapist? My experience is that people grow accustomed to comfortable self-deceptions and outright lies because they are better able to pretend to be the person they want to be. We “put our best foot forward”. We “clean up our act”. We “try to make a good impression”, not realizing that all these dishonesties keep us trapped in our distorted view of ourselves. While we may not know what the “truth” about us actually is, we usually know when we are not telling it.
It seems to me much easier to define “lies” than to define “truth”. What are lies? Lies can be in two forms, lies of commission and lies of omission. The former is fairly easy to define: to lie is to make a statement of fact that you know to be untrue. Examples are abundant. The lie of omission is a little more difficult to define, as any attorney can tell you. Leaving out all or part of the truth is harder to define. When our former President said "I did not have sex with that woman" he was. at the least, telling a lie of omission. But even if you allow him the liberty of defining words any way he wants, his intent was clear: it was that of lying to conceal the truth. Leaving out a part of the truth that would materially affect the person(s) with whom we are communicating is an important lie.
So the intent to deceive is part of the definition of lying.Clinton Clinton
The rightness or wrongness of lying is a moral issue. The effectiveness of a lie has to be judged within its context. Stabilization of a relationship is not a bad or wicked thing to do. However, lying minimizes the likelihood of change at that time, which can be either a good or bad thing, depending on what the relationship is judged to need. Change is not always a good thing or a practical thing at a given time; its value depends on the situation and context.
Helmuth Kaiser, in his book Effective Psychotherapy, concluded that therapy occurs when one of two (or more) people in a room is saying what he/she means and meaning what he/she says. In my opinion, this is the most profound and powerful statement about human relationships ever made. I have been thinking about this idea for more than 40 years, and its value has been proven to me time and time again.
"Saying what you mean and meaning what you say" is a good definition of telling the truth and avoiding even lies of omission. When truth-telling occurs in a relationship of ANY kind, change can happen. The situation/relationship becomes inherently unpredictable because it is open to change at that time. In a marriage change is growth, which itself may be either useful or harmful to the stability of the relationship at that time. Marriages and friendships can grow and improve or grow and end when the whole truth is told.
In a psychotherapeutic relationship this kind of truth-telling, ‘saying what you mean and meaning what you say’ promotes change. However, the contract between therapist and client precludes (or hopes to preclude) abandonment of the relationship when such change occurs. So both parties agree to remain in a truthful relationship with one another and to deal with change and instability that results in some kind of positive way. This procedure makes change inevitable in a therapeutic relationship.
When the topic of conversation is about facts, the definitions of truth and lies given above is fairly clear-cut. I can say where I have been and what I have been doing. I can say where the money was spent and what I had for lunch. I can even talk about what I thought about last night or whether I like your new shirt. When the topic of conversation is about the relationship itself, the definitions are more difficult. What is the "truth" about a relationship? How would one go about telling a lie, either of omission or commission, in a relationship? While I don’t have a general answer to this latter question, I can suggest some specific ones: I can lie about how I feel or how I react to something that happens. I can lie about what I meant when I said something. I can lie by not telling you what I really thought or felt at a given time.
As we talk in a therapeutic relationship, sometimes the topic of the conversation may be about ourselves, our values, or our history. There is something different about this sort of talk. I have noticed many times that when I try to think about my values and beliefs by myself, I have no way of determining whether I'm telling the truth or lying. There is no one to listen, and that makes all the difference.
These same statements made in the presence of another person sound differently; telling lies makes me uncomfortable when someone is listening in a way lying does not when I'm alone. Suppose, for example, I'm trying to explain to myself some behavior that seems to express a different value than I might want. I recall as a child taking a toy from the counter of a store. I knew that this was a bad thing, but I told myself that the store had a lot of toys and they wouldn't miss one. Within a few minutes I had myself convinced this explanation was the "truth". However, later my father asked me where I had gotten the toy, and the explanation I had prepared was unconvincing and clearly false, and I knew that it was false the moment I began the explanation. It wasn't whether my father could tell I was lying. At that moment I could tell that I was lying, and that was a surprise.
I don't know how to account for this peculiar quality of perception, the fact that we hear things with different ears when someone is listening. However, this factor is one of the things that helps a close relationship (therapeutic or not) grow and change. When you're talking about important issues for you, you can tell whether you are lying. Forcing yourself to be ever more truthful opens the possibility of destabilizing an unhealthy adaptation and beginning the change process.
Lying about myself serves a number of purposes. As in all lies, when I lie about myself I stabilize my perceptions about myself. As a young therapist I was required by a supervisor to write verbatim the contents of a therapy session with an individual client, and I was to do so immediately after the session. As you might expect, this was a time-consuming task, usually taking several hours. When the task was completed, the supervisor would sit with me and the transcript, and listen to the tape made of the session. Of course the transcript was neater and more compact, without all the stammering and fragmented thoughts characteristic of a normal conversation. But beyond this "normal" editing, there were major changes, rephrasing of comments, omissions of entire topics, misstatements and alterations. And all of them served the purpose of making the therapy look better, making the therapist look better, and fitting what was said more neatly into the theories I had been taught. Nothing I ever did so convinced me of the nearly infinite capacity for self-deception we all have, and how difficult it is even under the best of conditions to tell the entire truth.
A competent and truthful therapist (or friend or mate) can frequently hear the evasions and discomfort associated with telling a lie, and bringing the lie to the attention of the speaker makes it easier for the speaker to tell the truth. In the next blog I intend to post some dialogues between me and clients in which the dishonesty of the client was fairly easy to spot, but at the least illustrates the point.
So the intent to deceive is part of the definition of lying.
The rightness or wrongness of lying is a moral issue. The effectiveness of a lie has to be judged within its context. Stabilization of a relationship is not a bad or wicked thing to do. However, lying minimizes the likelihood of change at that time, which can be either a good or bad thing, depending on what the relationship is judged to need. Change is not always a good thing or a practical thing at a given time; its value depends on the situation and context.
Helmuth Kaiser, in his book Effective Psychotherapy, concluded that therapy occurs when one of two (or more) people in a room is saying what he/she means and meaning what he/she says. In my opinion, this is the most profound and powerful statement about human relationships ever made. I have been thinking about this idea for more than 40 years, and its value has been proven to me time and time again.
"Saying what you mean and meaning what you say" is a good definition of telling the truth and avoiding even lies of omission. When truth-telling occurs in a relationship of ANY kind, change can happen. The situation/relationship becomes inherently unpredictable because it is open to change at that time. In a marriage change is growth, which itself may be either useful or harmful to the stability of the relationship at that time. Marriages and friendships can grow and improve or grow and end when the whole truth is told.
In a psychotherapeutic relationship this kind of truth-telling, ‘saying what you mean and meaning what you say’ promotes change. However, the contract between therapist and client precludes (or hopes to preclude) abandonment of the relationship when such change occurs. So both parties agree to remain in a truthful relationship with one another and to deal with change and instability that results in some kind of positive way. This procedure makes change inevitable in a therapeutic relationship.
When the topic of conversation is about facts, the definitions of truth and lies given above is fairly clear-cut. I can say where I have been and what I have been doing. I can say where the money was spent and what I had for lunch. I can even talk about what I thought about last night or whether I like your new shirt. When the topic of conversation is about the relationship itself, the definitions are more difficult. What is the "truth" about a relationship? How would one go about telling a lie, either of omission or commission, in a relationship? While I don’t have a general answer to this latter question, I can suggest some specific ones: I can lie about how I feel or how I react to something that happens. I can lie about what I meant when I said something. I can lie by not telling you what I really thought or felt at a given time.
As we talk in a therapeutic relationship, sometimes the topic of the conversation may be about ourselves, our values, or our history. There is something different about this sort of talk. I have noticed many times that when I try to think about my values and beliefs by myself, I have no way of determining whether I'm telling the truth or lying. There is no one to listen, and that makes all the difference.
These same statements made in the presence of another person sound differently; telling lies makes me uncomfortable when someone is listening in a way lying does not when I'm alone. Suppose, for example, I'm trying to explain to myself some behavior that seems to express a different value than I might want. I recall as a child taking a toy from the counter of a store. I knew that this was a bad thing, but I told myself that the store had a lot of toys and they wouldn't miss one. Within a few minutes I had myself convinced this explanation was the "truth". However, later my father asked me where I had gotten the toy, and the explanation I had prepared was unconvincing and clearly false, and I knew that it was false the moment I began the explanation. It wasn't whether my father could tell I was lying. At that moment I could tell that I was lying, and that was a surprise.
I don't know how to account for this peculiar quality of perception, the fact that we hear things with different ears when someone is listening. However, this factor is one of the things that helps a close relationship (therapeutic or not) grow and change. When you're talking about important issues for you, you can tell whether you are lying. Forcing yourself to be ever more truthful opens the possibility of destabilizing an unhealthy adaptation and beginning the change process.
Lying about myself serves a number of purposes. As in all lies, when I lie about myself I stabilize my perceptions about myself. As a young therapist I was required by a supervisor to write verbatim the contents of a therapy session with an individual client, and I was to do so immediately after the session. As you might expect, this was a time-consuming task, usually taking several hours. When the task was completed, the supervisor would sit with me and the transcript, and listen to the tape made of the session. Of course the transcript was neater and more compact, without all the stammering and fragmented thoughts characteristic of a normal conversation. But beyond this "normal" editing, there were major changes, rephrasing of comments, omissions of entire topics, misstatements and alterations. And all of them served the purpose of making the therapy look better, making the therapist look better, and fitting what was said more neatly into the theories I had been taught. Nothing I ever did so convinced me of the nearly infinite capacity for self-deception we all have, and how difficult it is even under the best of conditions to tell the entire truth.
A competent and truthful therapist (or friend or mate) can frequently hear the evasions and discomfort associated with telling a lie, and bringing the lie to the attention of the speaker makes it easier for the speaker to tell the truth. In the next blog I intend to post some dialogues between me and clients in which the dishonesty of the client was fairly easy to spot, but at the least illustrates the point.
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