HF
Hank Fay
@hankfay
Joined about 4 years agoPhD psychologist, in practice for 25 years. Software developer for 25 years, still at it. Looking back, discovered my "difference" at age 6, in 1950.
@hankfay
Joined about 4 years agoPhD psychologist, in practice for 25 years. Software developer for 25 years, still at it. Looking back, discovered my "difference" at age 6, in 1950.
As a PhD Psychologist, and it seems about 95% aphantasic, I had a huge advantage in working with patients over my 25 years of clinical practice. It took me about 10 years to get fully beyond the theoretical approaches I had learned: client-centered therapy, behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, family therapy, and some gestalt therapy. With those as "ground" rather than "figure" I learned to fully connect to the patient's present experience and allow myself to be led to what would work for that person, in the here-and-now. I was not distracted by the "details" of what I knew: that was the secret sauce. Most often my patients who had been in therapy previously (about half) would remark: "Hank, talking to you is like talking to a regular person!" I would joke "well?" as I smiled, they would say "Oh, you know that I mean!" and then we would have a good laugh -- and go on. The proof was in the pudding. The average number of visits decreased by 15 to 30 at the start of my career to 4 to 6 visits. They, not I, determined whether they now saw themselves as being "past" the matters that brought them in. In a very real sense, I took the "heart" of each approach. That would have been much more difficult, I am thinking, if I had not been aphantasic.