Lying on the Couch

By Sonia Neale

There are lies, damn lies and then there’s therapy.

While it would appear counter-productive to lie to your therapist it happens all the time for various reasons. Sometimes the lies are blatantly obvious, sometimes they are steeped in the unconscious and sometimes the lying is more by omission than sheer deceit.

I can’t lie to save my life. Face to face people know instantly the moment I’m not telling the truth. My English heritage gives the game away. I’m paler than a ghost and I glow in the dark. So when I lie, my face turns red. My children are the product of me and my red-headed husband so they really didn’t stand a chance when it came to telling porky pies (lies). I catch them out all the time when their face flushes a delicate shade of beetroot.

Even when I wear foundation, my neck flares up like the 4th of July and it’s so blatantly obvious there’s no point denying it – but I do. My facial expressions reflect what I’m saying (or not saying); I shift uncomfortably in my seat and feel a desperate need to scratch the back of my neck. Body language and spoken word are not in synchronicity with each other and it takes a brave client to connect the two and verbalize it without fear.

If I tell a lie over the phone my voice breaks and I swallow. This is why I try to tell the truth all the time. It makes my life easier when I don’t weave a tangled web to deceive.

I can’t even fib in an email, at least not to my very intuitive and shrewd therapist. She knows me so well she can spot an untruth 30 miles away – literally. But I still feel the need to twist the truth occasionally with her, until I’m ready to come clean. She’s also bright enough to recognize my need to protect myself and doesn’t out me till I confess, even when my face gets so hot it could light up a barbecue.

So if the truth is somewhat hidden behind the couch, the elephant in the room is trumpeting loudly. The amorphous pachyderm fills up every nook and cranny in the hermetically-sealed environment and presses heavily against my chest, sucking all the oxygen from the room. We can both feel the elephant, run our fingers over its rough, wrinkly skin and smell the nature of the beast, but acknowledging the obvious is just not on the agenda. It’s not quite lying but……

I recently outed the elephant and revealed myself in all my inglorious glory to both my therapist and my husband. It wasn’t easy or pleasant; but truth shall set you free. The elephant in the room finally spoke. I have to deal with this now but with the non-judgmental help of two great people who I should have trusted ages ago.

Why do we lie to our therapist? Because the truth is so terrifying, admitting it would make it real and something we would have to face head-on and deal with. Keeping it below the surface, bubbling and simmering gives us time to work it out unconsciously until we feel safe enough and are ready to bring it out into the open.

Sonia Neale started therapy writing for post-natal-depression and anxiety. Thirteen years later she is the author of two books, The Bad Mother’s Revenge and Death by Teenager, both published by ABC Books. She lives in Western Australia, is married with three teenagers, has a certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and is studying for a psychology degree. Her website address is www.sonianeale.com.

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6 Comments to
“Lying on the Couch”

Naru at 9:00 am on July 8th, 2009

I went to a counsellor once to help me with procrastination. As she was asking me questions, I found myself bending the truth. Because I am a psychology student, I knew that she wasn’t judging me, but still. I was putting less emphasis on the important things than I should have. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because asking for help is a scary thing, and we tend to try and reduce the risk of opening up to the helper.

Unfortunately I got very little out of that session, except from a little insight into what therapy includes.

anon at 12:17 pm on July 8th, 2009

I had a psychiatric assessment and downplayed everything i was asked. feel quite guilty now.

Shadowx5470 at 11:15 pm on July 9th, 2009

I’ve knowingly lied to my therapist on a near constant basis. I wanted to tell her the truth (or actually talk about my issue) but I just found myself unable to put the words out there… So, now I’m searching for a new therapist

-Shadow

Sonia at 7:20 am on July 10th, 2009

Sometimes it is very difficult to talk about what ails us. It is so personal and tied up in who we think we are it is impossible to verbalize our issues and problems. If you find another therapist you may find yourself in the same situation – simply unable to tell them the truth as well. My advice would be that if you have a trusting rapport with your current therapist, stick to him/her. If you don’t and feel another therapist would be much more helpful, then look elsewhere. Is this about your ability to disclose or their ability to put forward a trustworthy stance?

Either way, perhaps you could write down what you really want to say, warts and all, and give it to your therapist to read in session. That greatly lessens the emotional impact and embarrassment of having to say out loud what the issues are that you have been not telling the truth about. This is what my trustworthy and non-judgmental therapist recommended to me and it worked.

Your therapist is not there to moralize or preach. By disclosing distressing personal information it is more than likely you will deepen the therapeutic relationship in an enriching, connecting capacity. A therapist is there to get to know you, to “get” you, to understand and validate you and your problems in an empathic manner. I’ve lied to my therapist, but when I confessed and told the truth I felt a vast relief in knowing that she still cared about me in the same way as before.

Chris Newsome at 8:51 am on July 10th, 2009

The problem I have always noticed with therapy is that the therapist always wants you to open up and share your deepest, darkest secrets, but they don’t want to share anything with you. I know it is their job and everything, but when you are trying to build a relationship of trust, and the other person is not telling you anything about themselves, it just doesn’t seem balanced. Again, I know that is not what therapy is about, but maybe it would help some people open up, even if the therapist just shared some mundane anecdotes about their life, it might ease the tension.

john at 12:04 pm on July 12th, 2009

Are you kidding me?
Patients lie to their therapist because they lie to themselves. The patient’s lie is the heart of all treatment of psychoneurosis. The art of analytic psychotherapy examines the motivations of these lies that inform one’s personal (often pathological) experiences of the world and shapes one’s expectations of self and others. A therapist is not there to affirm your problematic worry but to help you consider just how the affirmation of certain others have come to so concern you.