(For the sole purpose of amusing myself, I gave my website a title.)

The unexamined life is not worth living.
—Socrates

Get over yourself.
—Thousands of people who aren’t Socrates

Because my wife keeps asking me to define recursion, which is tricky because it’s originally a mathematical concept, then borrowed by computer programmers, and eventually, by scientists.

Recursion is a different way of looking at the feedback loop. An abundance of carbon monoxide is feedback that the body needs to take a fresh breath. A recursive explanation considers that the whole body has been updated to its present state that includes the abundance of carbon monoxide in the lungs. The effect is the same but it’s a description of how the whole body updates rather than just looking at a change in a part of the body. A focus on a single change ignores the changes that are conditioned on taking that breath, in this case the other bodily functions and changes in the consequences that are dependent on oxygen (such as remaining alive). Change in a living being is not a single change while the rest remains exactly as before.

Below, I describe each change in the client as the whole of the client being the feedback for the therapist. The following is a caricature, that is, not based on a particular client and I attempt to give only the flavor of sessions. Think of the collection as an interview with all the “ums” and “you knows" deleted.

T: What brings you here?
C: I’m afraid to go outside.
T: How did you get to my office?
C: I drove.
T: You have a garage where you have your car, and can enter your car without going outside?
C: No, my car is at the curb.
T: So you walked to your car on the street and got in and drove?
C: Yes.
T: So you do go outside on occasion.
C: I guess so.
T: On what other recent occasions have you gone outside?
C: I needed groceries, so I went to the store.
T: There’s no one at home to get the groceries?
C: I live alone.
T: So you go outside when you absolutely have to?
C: I guess so.
T: On what other recent occasions have you had to go outside?
C: I work. I have to go to an office.
T: Like five days a week?
C: Yeah.
T: So, you’re afraid to go outside, but you do go outside?
C: I guess so.
T: You go outside regularly, in fact.
C: Yeah.
T: So you’re afraid, but you face your fears by necessity.
C: Yeah.

The client entered the office as someone who identified as afraid to go outside, but now identifies as afraid to go outside but does so when necessary. He is a slightly different person than when he entered.

T: You live alone. Do you have friends or family who visit you?
C: I don’t have friends. I have a sister who visits about once a month and brings her toddler.
T: You work in an office as what?
C: I’m an accountant.
T: How many people work in your office?
C: Maybe 20 or so. Six CPAs, the rest support staff.
T: Half are men, half are women or…?
C: Umm… probably about right; I don’t count them, offhand.
T: I assume you talk to your fellow workers, as needed.
C: Of course.
T: How about, besides as needed? Like, in the break room where you might say, “Did you watch that comedy about accountants?”
C: Not much [shrug].
T: Because you’re shy?
C: Yeah.

[Quiet for a couple of minutes…]

T: Do you have neighbors?
C: Yeah.
T: You talk to them ever?
C: We nod.
T: They’re shy too, or not friendly?
C: No they’re friendly. Guess they gave up.
T: Trying to strike up a conversation?
C: [shrug]
T: When you say you’re afraid of going outside, is it outside or worried about running into people?
C: Little of both, I guess.

The client now identifies as someone who is afraid of running into other people, perhaps more than being afraid of going outside. He is a slightly different person than when he entered.

T: You say you don’t have friends. Did you have friends when you were younger? In college? Or before that, in school?
C: I had one friend. He moved away when I was eleven.
T: How long was he your friend?
C: About five years.
T: And no friends since. What was it about him that you could be friends with and no one since?
C: Well, I guess we met before being cool was a thing and just liked doing stuff together.
T: Such as?
C: At first, just playing with toys together; mostly just hanging out at each other’s house, having snacks, and playing video games.
T: Before being cool; you didn’t have to pretend to be different from how you felt.
C: Yeah.

Session 2:

T: Anything different for you this week?
C: I waved to my neighbor.
T: Did the neighbor respond?
C: Yeah; took him a few seconds, then he waved back.
C: {laughs} Guess he was surprised.
T: Could be. That’s cool; anything else different this week?
C: I sat in the break room for a few minutes while drinking my coffee.
T: Did anyone come in?
C: Yeah, a couple of people. They said, “Hey.” I said, “Hey.”

Unlike, many therapists I don’t respond to these answers with, “How did that make you feel?” My bent is not to make explicit commentary on feelings because it reinforces focus on oneself, which shy people have more than a sufficient supply. An abundance of focus on oneself is a remnant of adolescence and its accompanying anxiety. Developing a habit of outward focus, curiosity about others, is a better strategy for shy people (and for most people).

Yet, again, the client is a slightly different person from who he was when he first came to see me and after the initial session. He’s no longer someone who’s afraid to go outside. He’s now someone who is experimenting with social interaction.

Session 3:

T: Anything different for you this week?
C: I walked around the block, as you suggested .
T: [waiting]
C: I waived at someone mowing the lawn.
T: [waiting]
C: He just looked at me, then went back to his mowing.
T: [waiting]
C: I felt like an idiot.
T: You have a theory about why he didn’t respond to your wave?
C: Only idiots wave to a stranger.
T: Your one theory was he thought you were an idiot for waving at him? Did you have any other theories?
C: What do you mean?
T: Did you have any other theories why he might not have returned your wave with a wave or some such?
C: No.
T: Can you think of any now?
C: Um…
T: Can you think of any theories why he might not have returned your wave with a wave or some such that had nothing to do with you?
C: Oh…um… argument with his wife?
T: Or?
C: Guess there can be a lot of reasons…
T: …that had nothing to do with you.
C: Yeah.

The client entered the office as someone who identified as afraid to go outside, then identified as afraid to go outside but does so when necessary. He entered the latest session, miffed that my suggestion that he walk around the block resulted in him feeling like an idiot when his greeting gesture was ignored. (When you have few interactions with others, each interaction takes on great significance.) However, he’s now a person who is slightly less self conscious. He is a slightly different person than when he entered the first, second, and third sessions. This presentation of a slightly different person is recursive feedback for the therapist.

Session 4:

T: Anything different for you this last week?
C: You always ask me the same thing.
T: I guess I do.
T: [waiting]
T: Is there something you’d like me to ask you instead?
C: I dunno, seems you could be more creative.
T: Maybe I’m not that creative, but I’m open to suggestions.
C: I’ll think about it and let you know.
T: Ok. Does that mean you don’t want to answer my question—“Anything different for you this last week?"—today?
C: Maybe I’m just in a bad mood.

T: Care to explain, or rather not?
C: I don’t want to, at least, not now.

I don’t know why the client wasn’t in the mood to answer my regular opening gambit. Anything I can come up with is an inference that has less of a chance of being accurate and more of a chance of creating something that wasn’t there until I suggested it into existence.

Session 5:

T: [I’m quiet.]
C: [Snickers] You’re not going to ask me what you always ask me? Did I hurt your feelings?
T: [I chuckle] Maybe a little. Mostly, I’m just trying something different.

I think it’s good he knows he can affect me, that he knows he can affect anyone at all. It’s the opposite of realizing the guy who was mowing his lawn was not personally snubbing the client; that the mower has his own life and is not a character in the client’s life. The client is learning he can affect other people, including me.

Session 6:

C: I thought of something different you could ask me.
T: Cool. [waiting]
C: You could ask me whether I did anything new this week.
T: I see, more specific. Did you do anything new this week?
C: I talked to three people in the break room.
T: How was that for you?
C: It was ok.
T: Anything in particular that was ok?
C: Not really, I guess because nothing bad happened.
T: Nothing that made you regret it like with the guy in the yard.
C: Yeah.

Since my early years as a therapist, I’ve had a theory that the client will nudge the therapist in some way, as needed, in the same spirit that the therapist nudges the client. This is mutual recursion. The therapist is also changing in relationship to the client over the sessions. In other words, the relationship between the therapist and client is the same as any other. The one difference is it’s the therapist’s role to be the change agent. Except, because of the mutually recursive feedback, they become each other’s change agent. The client’s change is specific in that he’s becoming someone who can change the therapist to change him.

Session 7:

T: Did you do anything new this week?
C: [Chuckles] You learn fast.
T: I know, right?
C: Not really, new, I would say. More talking to people in the break room.
T: Anyone in particular?
C: Just whoever came in.
T: Tell me about someone who came into the break room who you talked to. What is the person like?
C: [Puzzled] I dunno know. She’s ok, I guess.
T: Is there anyone who you talked to that you know more about? Are they with someone? Have kids, maybe? Do they like music; any particular kind of music? Or sports? Or whatever? Good dressers or causal?
C: Not really; I don’t know those things.

I’m putting out a couple of suggestions: (1) the way to overcome shyness is to show interest in others (as opposed to focus on oneself), and tips how to specifically show interest in others.

I liked that he had the confidence to tease me at the top of the session. We’re not friends; I get paid to talk to him, to help him in how he wants to be helped. However, a relationship is a relationship. It’s not as different from other relationships as many therapists believe. Yes, there’s “projection” in that a therapist may remind you of a significant figure in your life, for example, a mother, father, sibling, etc., and respond at some level as if you were that figure, but that’s true in all relationships. Therapists needn’t make a big fucking deal out of it by bringing up transference.

To reiterate: unless the therapist lacks the behavioral repertoire to respond to the behavior of another, we are mutually responding to each other. Therapy is recursive in that we are constant changing each other and those changes are feedback to each other.

Session 8:

T: Did you do anything new this week?
C: I learned a couple of things about a co-worker.
T: Did you ask a co-worker questions?
C: No; I just listened to when the person was talking to someone else in the break room.
T: Another way of learning about others. You can observe them.
C: Yeah.

Two ways the client is a different person from when he started therapy: he realized he could learn about others without feeling invasive, and he is less attentive to himself and more attentive to others.