My friend Kate recommended I watch ‘Stutz’ on Netflicks and now I’m telling all my friends who are interested in personal development to do the same.
The film is a candid conversation with actor Jonah Hill and his psychiatrist Phil Stutz and so much more than that. When it starts you think you know where this is going and settle down for an interesting discussion. However, like any good film, it has a touch of the unexpected and a bit of jeopardy.
Not to give you any spoilers.
I’ve often thought I should get a qualification in a ‘proper’ therapeutic modality. Not that what I do isn’t ‘proper’. I’d like a ‘Dr’ bla de bla before my name.
One thing has always stopped me. I believe in advice!
Stutz makes the point that therapists listen and that your friends who are idiots (Jonah Hills words) give advice. Hill says you want it to be the other way around, your therapist gives advice and your friends listen.
Giving people actions or a set of tools is fundamental to personal change happening. I think this is why, even with my title of ‘coach’ over the years I have had psychotherapists come to be for ‘therapy’.
We know therapy heals wounds because of the bond between the therapist and the client. As Brene Brown says we are hard-wired for connection. If you’re not careful, that connection between therapist and clients then bonds the two for a lifetime of sessions, as it can become a dependent need.
Building those connections in your real life with people you aren’t paying to like you is fundamental to your healing and self-esteem.
I felt relief when I heard Stutz talk about the tools he gives clients. There has always been a little part of me who wondered if I was getting it wrong and doing clients a disservice by giving advice. I mean if my advice was terrible then that might be the case! After 23 years one thing I know is that I can trust my clients to ‘take it or leave it’. It often acts as the perfect tool for them to hear what they already know and knew all along.
If you’re not a Netflicks person, find Phil Stutz book ‘The tools’ in ‘all good’ and not so good but still hanging in there, book shops.
