Freeing Speech

Talking Therapy with The Graham Norton Show

Outside of our awareness so much of our time and energy is spent routinely editing and censoring ourselves.

For example, how often have we heard someone say, I don’t wish to criticise you, but…?

We may well wonder why did they bother raising the matter only to deny it.

Their denial seems to tell us something about them, that they are not entirely in agreement with what they are saying – are of two minds, so to speak.

In therapy what we deny can be telling

Of course, despite routine censorship our speech sometimes frees itself anyway, although it often goes unnoticed or appears as nonsense.

For example, in the video clip below Orlando Bloom lets slip something about his father.

He then immediately edits himself only for Tamsin Greig to draw our attention to what he originally said.

Bloom then engages in a comic exaggeration, one of the effects of which is to minimise or distract from what he had said.

 

 

Of course the comment about his father that slipped out may not necessarily be true, it may not tell things as they are.

We do not know since what Orlando Bloom said was only half-said.

 
Closer Encounters

While talking about unfulfilled ambitions in the clip below, film-maker Steven Spielberg denies he is criticising his parents only to then acknowledge that he is.

His speech suddenly becomes disjointed and fragmentary after having been the model of clarity and simplicity. It’s as though he’s compressing or concertinaing parts of sentences into one another.

Are we able to decide, for example, whether the unfulfilled ambition he is talking about is unfulfilled or fulfilled?

 

 

Therapy can enable you to hear what is particular to you, to complete what’s only ever been half-said in your life.

Therapy can also help you to bear the consequences and to resolve them as best you can.

… to complete what’s only been half-said in your life

Therapy begins with your first appointment. Contact our therapist today…

paul.melia@therapyinmanchester.co.uk

07592 340 211