Do I Need Therapy? - Charlotte Fox Weber - #132

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to Modern Wisdom. Today, I'm talking to Charlotte Fox Weber, who is the head of psychotherapy at The School Of Life down in London. You may know The School Of Life from their YouTube channel, 500 million plus views. But today, we're not talking about online content, we're talking about therapy, psychotherapy specifically. We're learning about what it is, why it was created, what it consists of, and we're trying to break apart why there's so much baggage attached to the term. I'm currently quite fascinated with these sorts of topics, sobriety being one of them. Why is that we think only people who have an alcohol dependency can go sober or should go sober, and why the trappings are attached to that. And then the same for therapy as well. Why is it that we only believe people who are on the verge of some breakdown can use therapy? If you want to find out even more about my personal views on this, then I did a video on the Modern Wisdom YouTube channel, which you can go and check out, called Starting Therapy. You might be able to find some more illuminating ideas in there. But for now, please welcome the wise and wonderful Charlotte Fox Weber. I'm joined by Charlotte Fox Weber, Head of Psychotherapy at The School Of Life. Charlotte, welcome to Modern Wisdom.

**Charlotte Fox Weber** (1:34)
Hello, great to be here.

**Chris Williamson** (1:36)
It's fantastic to have you on. So I actually came down to see you in London a couple of months ago to the listeners. Sort of did a prelude to us having this sit down, and we had a really cool discussion about therapy and what it is, why there's a stigma surrounding it, and the process that some therapists have to go through before they get qualified. And I just thought it was really eye-opening as a subject that very few people have been exposed to, I think, at least without all of the trappings of stigma and kind of rumour and mythology that surrounds stuff like therapy. So I thought this would be a really valuable podcast for people to listen to. And obviously you got great accent, so.

**Charlotte Fox Weber** (2:28)
Thank you.

**Chris Williamson** (2:30)
So, first off, tell us what therapy is. How do you define therapy?

**Charlotte Fox Weber** (2:35)
Good question. Therapy is a particular kind of conversation between two people. It can be between more than two people as well. But for one-on-one therapy, it's a particular conversation in a safe, confidential space and it's really about providing a safe space where you can have this unusual encounter with another person and confront aspects of yourself and get insights about yourself and get feedback and have a deeper understanding of whatever issues you're bringing up.

**Chris Williamson** (3:12)
What's unique about that versus me just having a good conversation with someone who is knowledgeable about how the human mind works.

**Charlotte Fox Weber** (3:21)
I think the asymmetry is a big part of what makes therapy a different setup than anything else. It's very much about the client and therapists at the School Of Life particularly work very relationally, so they will bring themselves into it, but it's still only ever going to be in your best interest. It's not, okay, enough about you, now let's talk about me. It's not a quid pro quo, and I think it's that lopsidedness that makes it unusual and entirely effective.

**Chris Williamson** (3:52)
Yeah, we were talking previously when I was spending time with you about the fact that a lot of conversations are kind of like a game of tennis, right? It's like you finish, now it's my turn, now I'll do my thing, and then I finish, and then it's your turn again.

**Charlotte Fox Weber** (4:09)
Yeah, he went and did your joke.

**Chris Williamson** (4:10)
Yeah, yeah. And all of the trappings and trimmings that come along with that, to the people who are listening who haven't seen it already, I did a starting therapy video which will be linked in the show notes below. And as a part of that, one of the things that I realized whilst I was reflecting on both Alain from The School Of Life's new book, An Emotional Education, plus My Conversation With Yourself, one of the things that I'd realized was just how few conversations you have which aren't just posturing or signaling or like, throughout pretty much every conversation, I think it's really difficult for people to realize just how much what you're saying is meant to have some sort of an impact on the other person. Like, what does me saying this thing say about me? What does it say to them? What's their response? Or they laughed, they didn't laugh or they smile, they didn't smile, they're this, they're this. And it fully takes you out of yourself, right? It's not about...