As a former psychiatric nurse, I am here to tell you in utter seriousness that OUR ENTIRE DAMN JOB is to listen carefully enough to you that we can feed you the lines that will get you to this place: where you HEAR the thing that just actually fell out of your face while you were so busy trying to hold your act in place that you couldn't keep it from doing that.
The human mind—that exquisitely complex thing—is ALL about maintaining its current smooth operational status. EVEN when that status is wildly dysfunctional and/or destructive. I mean, the brain says, hardly ever hearing its own desperation, everything's working pretty well right now, isn't it? And it can't hear the (internal laugh track) audience's painful response.
Our job is to startle you into hearing the internal laugh track: and yeah, the pain. There is no other way to get out of the pain than to acknowledge that you're in it, and at least to begin acknowledging the sources of it.
...All those light bulb jokes? About really having to want to change? They're bullshit. Believe me when I tell you that no one really wants to change. The one thing everyone I ever worked with in therapy wanted was to to stay just the way they were... just (somehow, magically) less uncomfortable. And surprise!—that's not how getting better works.
Meanwhile: this is one reason I'm lucky as a writer... because having helped actual human beings walk through this process is one of the best possible forms of preparation for walking fictional characters through it.
And if having done it with real people sometimes makes it come across in the fiction as perilously close to comedy in the timing of how it unfolds? Well, sometimes it comes across that way with the real people too. And the laughter associated with your client realizing who the joke's been on may sometimes be painful, but (when it's genuine) has a uniquely joyous sound through the pain that can't be matched by any other human experience. It's a privilege to be part of that when it happens.
All you can do is keep feeding the person you're working the straight lines they've been telling you they need... and then wait for them to give up and bite.
