So, what do you do? The Social Nightmare

It was the week before Christmas and I was at my third festive ‘get-together’. I have learnt the art of acquiring a drink and positioning myself within staggering distance of the buffet. All was going well, and I found myself being introduced to a couple who the hostess of the party had insisted I should meet. After pleasantries, I braced myself for the inevitable question. Like a train rumbling towards a damsel in distress, I knew there was no escaping it.

“So, what do you do?” 

Police Officers, Teachers and those that work in I.T, will know all too well the awkwardness that can be created by that simple question; and being a therapist is no exception. On occasion, I have fantasied about making something up.

“I’m involved in international espionage…” I imagine saying, “…I could tell you more but then I would have to kill you.” 

They would laugh nervously and I would legitimately be able to avoid the question. 

Back in the real world… I told them the truth: I’m a Hypnotherapist. There is usually the comments about whether I would make them behave like a chicken, or they tell me about someone they knew who stopped smoking using Hypnosis. This is not a problem, but it is the association with human psychology that creates the awkwardness in some people. 

This particular couple were no exceptions: “Oh, I bet you analyse everyone, don’t you.” It was a statement rather than a question. I just smiled and said, “It would be difficult not too.”

It’s not that I’m ashamed of being a therapist, given the chance I would bore anyone on the subject, but in my experience, it can make people behave in funny ways when they know that I earn a living in that particular field. 

Most people have an increasing interest in things related to psychology. We enjoy being an armchair psychologist and analysing people and events. It serves a dual purpose: on the one hand, we learn more about the people in our world, but also to confirm the beliefs we have about our behaviour.  

We have a view of ourselves and an explanation we have decided on as to the motives of our behaviour, and perhaps the awkwardness we feel when we meet someone who appears to know something about psychology we wonder if the explanation we have decided on for ourselves is about to be proved wrong. 

Psychology interests us because it is about us directly.

We feel we have a vested interest in it, and I think that’s why it’s certainly one of the areas of science which the layperson feels able to comment on without hesitation. It is unlikely that you would be in the pub and hear a conversation where someone says: ‘You know that Theory of Relativity? I think it’s all wrong. I’ve got a much better explanation’. In matters relating to human behaviour, we wade in with our theories. Psychology (the scientific study of human behaviour) is about all of us and we feel we are in on the conversation in a way we perhaps don’t feel with other subjects.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this discussion. Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920) was arguably a fore-runner in the systematic study of psychology and who’s principal method was introspection; asking the participants he was studying what they were thinking and feeling, which he used to make his conclusions. The discussion you might hear over a pint in the pub is not too far away from the same thing. 

So why does it sometimes make people awkward? It pushes a button in people, where they feel that some secret of there’s might somehow be exposed or judgement may be made about them. Perhaps on some level, there is fear that we might be marked out as different to everyone else, and this triggers an evolutionary fear of being ostracised from our group? 

Maybe it is because our thoughts and inner motivations are private and we choose how to express them as well as what we will share. We are in control of how much other’s know about us, the result being that we can attempt to shape how they perceive us. Standing in front of the psychologist or therapist we wonder: ‘Do they know something about me I don’t?’

The awkwardness sometimes shows it’s self as an all-consuming interest in the subject, asking more and more and questions, while other times it can lead to people behaving in an off-hand or rude manner. Whichever we witness, they are both effective defence mechanisms to the unconscious button that has been pressed. 

It was with great relief that the couple at this party were enthusiastic and interested, which is always more preferable to the person who feels they want to go to enormous lengths to ‘prove you wrong’. They were delightful, modest and funny people, so my previous concerns were unfounded.

Had I been unfair? Perhaps I’ve spent too long study psychological theories and I was seeing odd behaviour where there was none? This might well have been the case… 

“So you’re the magic mind man, are you?” The grinning man brought me out of my day-dream. ‘I bet you couldn’t hypnotise me. I don’t have that kind of mind.’ I just smiled raised my drink in agreement: ‘That sounds like a challenge.’