Review of ‘Change Your Mind, Change Your Life’
Through ‘Change Your Mind, Change Your Life’, real-life couple Matt and Emma Willis seek to show what therapy is like and what it can do. This programme shows eight people step into the uncertain and unfamiliar situation of therapy and be welcomed with the warmth, professionalism, and care you should expect from any therapist. It highlights how conversations with a therapist are different from the support available from family and friends (which is highly valuable in its own way). Here you see therapists putting themselves in the client’s shoes (empathising), exploring the meaning of thoughts, feelings and actions (interpreting), keeping the focus on them (promoting autonomy), explaining how the mind works (psycho-educating), helping to make links (hypothesising), and unafraid of distress (holding and containing).
In each episode two clients at a time agree the focus of the work, share key moments in sessions, articulate lessons they will take away, and – later – reflect on their experience. Each journey reflects a different combination of demographics, life circumstances, histories, personalities, relationship dynamics, goals, and everything else that makes us unique. This accurately reflects how there is no ‘type’ of person that comes to therapy, although there are more barriers to some than others. It also shows how well we can conceal how we’re feeling. As one client says: “I might smile all the time, but I feel on the edge of a cliff.” Hopefully the bravery of participants helps to normalise and encourage others to seek mental health support.
The programme illustrates the breadth of reasons people come to therapy. Sometimes this is a traumatic event, like a sudden loss or life changing injury, but sometimes it can be something less defined, like recurring low mood or dissatisfaction. This helpfully demonstrates how you don’t need to know what the problem is in therapy. In fact, the ‘presenting problem’ (what brings you to sessions), is often an expression of an underlying issue. One participant, who attended to tackle a phobia of driving realised it was rooted in a fear of being rejected: “In the first session it dawned on me why I was there.” What makes this process of realisation possible is a therapist providing a combination of curiosity, safety, and insight.
This series includes several ‘ah-ha’ moments, where participants experience something make sense in a new way. This demonstrates how therapy can provide explanations for confusing or unexpected thoughts, emotions and behaviours. It also shows how realisations cane come from being asked the right questions. For example, one participant recognises they’ve been supressing their pain and sorrow when asked what they do with the grieving part of themselves. We also see moments where long held feelings of distress becomes unlocked and released, for example where someone remembers the last moments with their mother while ‘reprogramming’ their response through bilateral stimulation (in this case tapping their chest). However, these moments of change and understanding are often a beginning rather than and end of the process.
Further viewing
‘Change Your Mind, Change Your Life’ is a BBC/Open University co-production available to view on BBC iPlayer. Other tv programmes that look at what goes on within the therapy room include ‘Couples Therapy’, where Dr Orna Guralnik treats couples wanting to save their relationships.
