‘Reading Between the Lines’: The Power of Psychotherapy
The demand for counseling is at an all-time high. Both teletherapy and in-person therapy rely on deep communication between client and therapist—often reading between the lines.
“Reading between the lines”— looking for a hidden message that may not be obvious – has always been an important practice. The expression originates as far back as the 1800s, when coded messages were written in invisible ink between the lines of printed text. This invisible ink carried important information – as does the “invisible ink” hidden within our lives. The work of psychotherapy is immersing ourselves in the stories of the psyche with its suffering, weakness, and strength to discover this information. Therapist and client look back together to events and narratives that developed years ago in a search for meaning that will illuminate the “invisible ink,” revealing what is hidden between the lines and allowing the client to transform their lives.
At one particularly stressful point in my life, I relaxed by binge-reading murder mysteries. I read nearly every book by every British author that wrote in the genre. What kept me so engaged and turning pages was the puzzle. I loved looking for the connections between characters and being alert to foreshadowing, motive, and the complex relationships to place and person.
It was not long before I realized that reading detective fiction was like doing psychotherapy. Each person who comes to therapy is a mystery. And they are often being killed slowly from the inside -- and sometimes from the outside. Piecing together the clues is a cooperative process. Clients share and therapists look at the surface of what they bring to each session but are also simultaneously reading between the lines.
Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s detective, likens solving murders to putting together a jigsaw puzzle, and it is much the same with psychotherapy. We bring order to disorder. “The unlikely piece here, the improbable piece there, the oh-so-rational piece that is not what it seems; all of these have their appointed place, and once they are fitted in, eh bien! All is clear” says Poirot.
Of course, in psychotherapy, all is not always clear, and sometimes we bring disorder into seemingly order. There is, however, always a hidden pattern that emerges in the course of the work, and it is oh-so-satisfying. How the patterns emerge has a lot to do with providing a container for the unconscious to be made conscious. My job is to facilitate it in such a way as to not overpower or threaten that process.
When I am in a therapy session, I am fundamentally present and connected to the person I am seeing. It is intellectually and emotionally stimulating to witness my own process as well as the patient’s psychic unfolding. There have been many poignant moments when I have sat in reverence, watching a client discover a feeling, memory, or idea that had not occurred to them before -- something hidden had suddenly become visible.
In therapy, our minds speak to one another beyond words and in silence. We rely on impressions and extend our feelers to seize the secret messages that go from one unconscious to another, and in doing this – in reading between the lines – we discover something that was hidden behind the words and the sentences. Both client and therapist learn to recognize the almost imperceptible, hidden language and be ready to bring it to light. It is then that healing begins.
Related Posts on Psychotherapy:
Psychotherapy: A safe and sheltered space
The No Surprises Act of 2022: What it means for psychologists and their clients
Psychotherapy: Love and healing
Psychotherapy in the Virtual Space: How teletherapy has changed the way we give and get care.