16: Susan Johnson - Part 1
Welcome to Part 1 of my epic conversation with SUSAN JOHNSON, inventor of Emotionally Focused Therapy—EFT—which is an evidence-based therapy for couples, one focused on repairing and enhancing the kinds of emotional bonds that we all depend on for our health and well being. The author of numerous scientific articles, Sue has also written a bunch of books—some for practicing psychotherapists and some, notably HOLD ME TIGHT and LOVE SENSE, for the general public. In 2017, Sue was honored by the Canadian Government with membership in the Order of Canada, one of Canada's highest civilian honors, which recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community, and service to the country. Sue is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa, and the founder of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. * * * Music for this episode of Circle of Willis was written and performed by Tom Stauffer of Tucson, Arizona.For information about how to purchase Tom’s music, as well as the music of his band THE NEW DRAKES, visit his Amazon page.
Circle of Willis is Produced by Siva Vaidhyanathan and brought brought to you by VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship. Plus, we're a member of the TEEJ.FM podcast network. Special thanks to VQR Editor Paul Reyes, WTJU FM General Manager Nathan Moore, as well as NPR reporter and co-founder of the very popular podcast Invisibilia, Lulu Miller.
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Jim Coan
From VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship, this is Circle of Willis, a podcast for and about the scientists, authors, journalists, and even a few mystics who make and communicate science for all of us. Hey everyone, it's been a little while since I've been here, in your phones, or on your computers or wherever. However it is that you are listening to this, but here I am! And I've got Susan Johnson with me. Not literally, here right now as I record this, but in the recording I made of a conversation Sue and I had not long ago. Now some of you will know that Sue Johnson is the inventor of Emotionally Focused Therapy or EFT, which is an evidence based therapy for couples. One focused on repairing and enhancing the kinds of emotional bonds that we all depend on for our health and well being. I'm, I'm super lucky to have had this time with Sue. She's what the city folks call a big deal. For example, she's the author of a huge number of peer reviewed scientific articles, including some classics, like her 1986 paper for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy entitled "Bonds or Bargains," which, as they say, changed everything. Since then, she's also written a bunch of books, some for practicing psychotherapists, and some notably, "Hold me Tight," and "Love Sense" for the general public. In 2017, Sue was honored by the Canadian government with induction into the Order of Canada, one of Canada's highest civilian honors, which is designed to recognize outstanding achievement, dedication to the community, and service to the country. She's currently Professor Emeritus of clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa. Ottawa. It's a funny word to say for me. And the founder of the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. And my conversation with Sue was sort of epic. And so I've decided to release it in two separate episodes, parts one and two. Here in part one, Sue and I talk a little bit about how her professional goals have expanded from establishing an effective psychotherapy for couples, to changing the way psychologists think about adult romantic relationships, to really to teaching the whole world about the science of love. But the real content of part one is Sue's life before EFT. It's about the life experiences that sort of predisposed her to think in terms of the emotional dances we all enter into with our romantic partners. It's a fascinating story. And it begins right now.
Jim Coan
So why don't you first, what is this internet thing that you guys are doing these days?
Sue Johnson
Well, the idea was really to take everything we've understood about love and the science of love and how to create love relationships and how to repair love relationships to the public. So I wrote "Hold me Tight," and I wrote "Love Sense."
Jim Coan
Hold me tight was your first, first book-
Sue Johnson
For the public.
Jim Coan
Public book. Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And that did get the word out to people. But we decided that if we really wanted to make those things available to people, and really help them improve their relationships, that we should do an online program. So we've tried to put "Hold me Tight," and the conversations from "Hold me Tight" that come out of all our work from... with Emotionally Focused couples therapy- which we've developed over the last 30 years and research the results of- we've taken the "Hold me Tight" book and the "Hold me Tight" conversations and we've turned it into an online program for couples that people can do in their own home. And the message we're trying to get across to people is we really do have a science of love now. And if you are willing to learn and to discover your how your emotions are- come up in the dance with your partner, and the dance you do with your partner, that we can really show you how to have what human beings have always wanted, which is a loving, lasting relationship. And that as far as I'm concerned is about as revolutionary as you damn well get. Yes, that's to be able to do that is as far as I'm concerned is it's at least as important as having gone to the moon or you know having discovered the, how DNA works, is to say love isn't a mystery anymore. We know how to help people create loving, lasting bonds that can last a lifetime. Love is something we make sense of, love is something that is actually, on one level, exquisitely rational, even though it's filled with emotion.
Jim Coan
Right, right.
Sue Johnson
And it's healthy. And we can study it just like we can study anything else. Just like we can study neurons in the brain, and what you understand, you can shape. We can show you how to shape a loving relationship. And that I think, is pretty important in terms of human health and happiness.
Jim Coan
So your mission has... has your mission expanded? When I think of Sue Johnson in the early days, I think of couples therapy and sort of repairing difficult marriages, or maybe not even just for marriages, but romantic relationships more sort of broadly. But this sounds a little bit like the mission is bigger. What I'm hearing from you is you're trying to teach people how to love.
Sue Johnson
Yeah, I think, well, you know, you see what you can do. And then when you find you can do something, it's kind of like the mission does get bigger, because you say, "oh, maybe," you know, like I dance Argentine Tango, and it's a very difficult dance. And years ago, if you'd said, what's your goal, I would have said, "my goal is to just just be able to do it," you'll just be able to do it and not look like an idiot. Only if you say to me, what's your goal? Now I say, "Oh, my goal is to be able to dance with the best tango dancers anywhere in the world and keep up with them. And be is, for a moment, be able to dance with them, maybe not be as good as they are, but be able to dance with them and feel this amazing joy and connection." So that didn't even feel feasible to me, you know, four years ago. So I guess it has expanded. Like I wanted to, I wanted to really understand relationships and how to help couples. And then I think it expanded to, I want to influence the field of couples therapy. I want this to be available to all couples therapists, I want people to know that there's this way of working with couples that is predictable and explainable and works. You know, it's not just chatting to couples about relationships, couples therapy has become very popular. And at the same time, the training is pretty random in this field.
Jim Coan
Yeah I would say so.
Sue Johnson
So I wanted to change the field of couple therapy. I wanted to show that emotion mattered, and the emotions are the therapist friend, and that you can work with emotion. And that you can help people deal with their emotions differently in a way that pulled them close. And not only pulled them close and help them with their marriage, but created this secure bond.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And attachment science, bonding science has grown. And I guess you're right. My mission now is not just to change the field of couples therapy, I feel like we're doing that in EFT. EFT is taught in all the universities now. You know, it's out there. I feel like if people want it, it's out there. It won't fit for every therapist, but it's there. So now my mission is to tell the general public about it. To tell people "listen, you know, you can learn about love, you can shape your love relationships, it's not going to work every time. You know, it's love relationships are still complicated. It's a complicated dance, you know, to have that kind of level of intimacy with somebody," but to be able to say that we can understand relationships, and we can build good relationships that last seems to me that if we believe that we have no choice, but to take what we know out to the public, because people out there are dying for this information. People out there are lost, they're hurting. They're giving up on relationships. And it's impacting not just individual's health and happiness, it's impacting the kind of society we have.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
So yeah, we... it's more like a responsibility now, rather than just a mission. We have to tell the public about this, people have the right to know this.
Jim Coan
Did you set so you've published a bunch of books, ... or workbooks and books for therapists and stuff like that, but then you have this first sort of popular book "Hold me Tight."
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Jim Coan
And now the more recent book "Love Sense," do you think that the two popular books that you have out reflect this this sort of evolution-
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
-and this broadening of the mission?
Sue Johnson
Yeah, I think something happened to me when I wrote "Hold me Tight." It was probably one of the most difficult things I've done in my life. It was like I had learned ballet all my life. I learned to be an academic and a researcher and a teacher in a university.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And then suddenly, I felt this commitment to turn it into a book that ordinary folks could understand that that would help ordinary folks. And I didn't know what I was committing to. It was like being trained as a ballet dancer and suddenly, somebody says to you, "well forget all that and now learn to dance tango." And you go, "what?" And it forced me to get clearer, it forced me to say things simpler. It forced me to look at what we were doing, and be able to explain it more and more clearly. It forced me to go into all the things I knew about attachment, science, and sift for what really mattered to people and what people really needed to know.
Jim Coan
And people by people, you mean non experts?
Sue Johnson
Public
Jim Coan
People who are living their lives, have ordinary aspirations that all of us would feel-
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
-but don't have access to the detailed knowledge locked in these vaults and universities? And for me, I don't know if you felt this, but I'm interested if you did, I sometimes feel this tension between explaining things accurately.
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
And explaining things in a way that's understandable.
Sue Johnson
Yes, I think there is a tension there. I mean, as an academic, for one thing, you're always taught to sort of qualify everything. And you'll be- well, on the other hand, this and that and something else, you can't get your message out like that. And yet, at the same time, you want to keep your integrity, you want to, you don't want to just, you don't want to make it sort of nonsense or superficial. So I struggled a lot with that book. And it was quite humbling for me, I went and got a professional editor, although part of my brain said, "What are you talking about? I'm a good writer, I'm an academic, I can write books I can write, I don't need." And I actually sat down on the pavement, near my hometown, in my little, my little sort of shopping center street. On a hot day, I sat on the pavement with my back against this concrete block. And my agent said to me, "are you going to hire this really expert editor to help you or not? So you have to decide."
Jim Coan
You have to do this.
Sue Johnson
And I sat there and I thought, "nevermind my ego, do I want people to really get my work? And do I want to make a difference in the lives of ordinary people or not?" And my brain said, "then you damn, well get somebody to help you." And I got my editor, Anastasia. And it was brutal. It was-
Jim Coan
What do you mean it was brutal? How was it brutal?
Sue Johnson
Oh! I'd spend days writing four pages that I felt completely explained some point, with incredible accuracy and clarity. And she would come to the house and look at it and just draw lines through it and say, "that's boring. Nobody cares about that. Start again."
Jim Coan
When I think about- when I think about writing something for the public, that's my wish. I don't know if I'll be able to do it.
Sue Johnson
You know, if I read an academic study these days, there's so much jargon. I mean, I can hardly understand it.
Jim Coan
I know.
Sue Johnson
This is nonsense.
Jim Coan
And I find myself talking like that sometimes. I go home, and I'm talking to my family over Christmas dinner, or something, and my mom starts little beads of sweat on her forehead and she finally just goes "I don't know what- will you stop it. Stop talking like that." My sister makes fun of me. My brother just rolls his eyes.
Sue Johnson
Well you know, there's a movement in law called... there's a movement about plain language for lawyers.
Jim Coan
Yeah, it's a good movement.
Sue Johnson
The law should be something that everyone can understand.
Jim Coan
Yeah, yeah. that-
Sue Johnson
Psychology should be something that everyone can understand.
Jim Coan
Oh forget it. Forget it!
Sue Johnson
And we- we say to clinicians, "you should pay attention to research." And then we use a different language. Why should clinicians pay attention to our stuff?
Jim Coan
Well don't you think-
Sue Johnson
You know?
Jim Coan
Let me just push back a little bit. The problem with a lot of the lay language, it seems to me, is that the words mean a broader array of possible things. So it's harder to be precise. And that's why we have jargon, right?
Sue Johnson
On one level, yes. But I think it's got to, you do have to be precise. But it's- you have to be careful how you use words and what you mean by words. You know? And I think that's part of a scientific discipline. And I think one of the problems in psychotherapy is we use words like exposure, and it means something totally different to all the eight scientists and clinicians that are talking about it. So you don't know actually what you're talking about. A good example of that is mindfulness.
Jim Coan
Oh well, that's even worse, yeah.
Sue Johnson
Mindfulness, and it has 1000 different meanings, right? So you do have to be precise, but I think we've got to the point where we're becoming irrelevant. Where clinical students or clinicians aren't going to look at our research studies. We think they should, but they're not going to because they're filled with jargon and lots of the studies we do are highly artificial lab studies that have nothing to do with the messy lives that these clinicians are helping people deal with out in the world. And we become irrelevant. And then we blame clinicians and we say, "clinicians aren't listening to science." Well, no, they're not. Because we're, we become irrelevant. So what I was- what I've been trying to do is speak in a voice that reaches ordinary people, teaches ordinary people because it seems to me clinical psychology is about helping people live, good, happy, productive lives. And if it's not about that, then it's a waste of time, and it should just pack up and go home. So in particular, in clinical psychology, we should be able to take what we say, and turn it into the language that a bus driver can understand. And I think we have to, if we need help with that, then we need help with that. But I've learned over the years, you know, EFT - Emotionally Focused Couple's Therapy - that I've put the, I put together and have studied for the last 30 years. What I learned that was fascinating was, in the beginning people said to me, "this is a very sophisticated therapy, you're teaching people about their emotions, and how to communicate, and you're teaching them about the dances, they get caught in with each other, this is very abstract. And the only people that are really going to get off on this is very educated women! Men aren't gonna like it, they don't want to know about this stuff. And you want an uneducated people, anyone who doesn't have a, you know, an MA, or at least a university degree isn't going to get this at all." And what we've learned over the 30 years is that's nonsense. Actually-
Jim Coan
Primally...
Sue Johnson
People get it on an emotional level, people get it because it speaks to their loneliness and their pain and their longing. People get it. And what we found was that level of education made no difference to the effectiveness. In fact, if you asked me if I'd prefer to deal with a corporate lawyer in couple's therapy, and help him repair his relationship, or the bus driver down the road, I'd say give me the bus driver. Because, you know, I-
Jim Coan
That's partly you, Sue. I mean, if you don't mind me saying so. I mean, I think that you do, I think you do have a particular skill. I think you have a skill. And I think that a lot of scientists and a lot of clinicians, you know, clinical scientists, people that, that develop therapies and study therapies, for the mind to training. I think a lot of them, a lot of us don't have that skill. And so two things happen, it seems to me. On the one hand, the information just stays locked up in the university.
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Yep.
Jim Coan
And on the other hand, some ways worse, journalists who don't have any idea really what we're doing, take and write a story about it that's not accurate. And get, it gets out of our hands and gets it gets away from us.
Jim Coan
So we're sort of stuck if we don't learn how to speak and interact in both worlds.
Sue Johnson
That's right. I guess I just saw that as my responsibility. You know, I wanted to make a difference to the field, of couple therapy and to help therapists learn how to work with couples. I wanted to be really good at working with couples and understand it myself. And I'm fascinated with attachment and bonding, I wanted to understand these bonds that people create that from my point of view, the field of couple and family therapy completely ignored. It's like talk about missed the boat, you know, they just looked at power. They looked at boundaries, they looked at control-
Jim Coan
Roles.
Sue Johnson
Roles. They looked at all these things. They said, "Oh, these women are enmeshed with their children. That's the problem." Right? Yeah. And they looked at creating boundaries. And nobody looked at nurturing and connection, and kids screaming out for someone to respond to them. Nobody looked at bonding, nobody looked at emotion. So I wanted to bring this stuff into the field. But then there's a certain point where you have to also say, "we have to be able to train therapists, we have to speak in simple language in language that gets them engaged." And we have a responsibility to do that for the public, too.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
That's part of psychology, it seems to me, especially clinical psychology, is public education.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
So I think my mission has changed, actually. You know, I wanted to impact therapists, and-
Jim Coan
And you really want to impact society, it sounds like.
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Well, I grew up in an English pub, which I didn't realize at the time, but it was an amazing community. And I grew up in that. And I-
Jim Coan
Your parents run the pub?
Sue Johnson
Ran the pub.
Jim Coan
And so what- were your parents educated? What kind of what kind of-
Jim Coan
He was in the Navy. During the war?
Sue Johnson
No, my mother was pretty uneducated. I think she was pretty illiterate. My father, I think was a very intelligent man who had a minimal amount of education but who went in the Navy.
Sue Johnson
And he learned- Yeah. And he learned lots of things in the Navy. So we had, I think he actually, my father had a lot of skills and a lot of intelligence, how much actual education he had? He certainly never had a university. He never got to go to university. He got educated by the Navy, you know. But-
Jim Coan
Your mom didn't go to the Navy or anything?
Sue Johnson
My mom-
Jim Coan
She didn't go to university?
Sue Johnson
-ran a pub, and then was a hairdresser.
Jim Coan
She ran a pub.
Jim Coan
And she's getting stuff done. Where was the pub? Where- was it in London?
Sue Johnson
She was an aggressive, down to earth- maybe this is where I get the thing about being down to earth. She was an aggressive, down to earth, feisty, funny, little blonde barmaid, who when the pub fi- when the pub ended and closed, she just went out and bought herself a hairdressing shop and started hairdressing. She didn't know anything about hairdressing. She didn't know. She just did it. Okay, that's my mom.
Sue Johnson
The pub was in Chatham, Kent, just outside the dockyard gates.
Jim Coan
In Kent?
Sue Johnson
In Kent, just south of London. And as a child, it was kind of a bizarre child, place for a child really. There were no other children. There were no children on the street. There were no-
Jim Coan
Why?
Sue Johnson
There just weren't. And then I was sent from my schooling to a hos-
Jim Coan
One of the public schools?
Sue Johnson
No, I was sent by a load of a series of accidents. I was a relatively poor child, who spoke like a Cockney, who was a who is a protestant, from a pub, who suddenly ends up in this upper class, Catholic, private school, where all the girls speak with a different accent where-
Jim Coan
What kind of accent?
Sue Johnson
The girl speak like this. An' I spok' lie tha (and I spoke like this). I said, "'ear! I don' wan' to go to school, okay? (Here! I don't want to go to school, okay?). And I got into a lot of trouble because I didn't know my catechism. The nuns-
Jim Coan
What the hell were you doing there?
Sue Johnson
Well, do you really want to know?
Jim Coan
Yeah!
Sue Johnson
I was there to change my accent.
Jim Coan
You were asked to change your acc-
Sue Johnson
No, my mother told me that I was-
Jim Coan
You had to change your accent.
Sue Johnson
She told me quote, "your, what's all this learning? All this reading stuff? Where's that gonna get you? It ain't no good learning all this reading. books don't matter. Just change your accent. And then you can marry a man with a suit." That was why I was there.
Jim Coan
She was a practical, she was a practical minded lady.
Sue Johnson
And so I did change my accent. And then to her horror, I became obsessed with books. And it was, it was an act of defiance for me to read books. And then when I actually said I was gonna go to university-
Jim Coan
You went to Catholic school pretty young?
Sue Johnson
I went to Catholic Scotland at four and I left at seventeen-
Jim Coan
Holy shit.
Sue Johnson
-with a very narrow but amazingly good education. The irony of my young life is that those Catholic nuns, who saw life through pretty narrow prism-
Jim Coan
Yes.
Sue Johnson
-taught me to think.
Jim Coan
Wow, how about that, huh?
Sue Johnson
So I went out into the world to university and to my amazement, once I got over the narrowness of my education, you know, my, to my amazement, I found that I, they'd given this me this amazing vocabulary, and this amazing ability to think independently and to reason. That's what they gave me. They didn't teach me math. So when I came up against statistics, I was in deep trouble. But so I grew up in a very strange world where, and maybe this is why I've always understood that reality is relative. I grew up in two worlds. I grew up in a very pragmatic English pub, where I saw from a very young age, things that we don't think children should see. I saw adults having what I understood now, understand now were panic attacks from the war. I saw adults have PTSD meltdowns, and my father would knock people out and carry them-
Jim Coan
Wait, woah woah woah.Your father would knock people out?
Sue Johnson
Yes, they'd start to be freaking out and get violent-
Jim Coan
And he would hit them?
Sue Johnson
-and my dad would come and he just KO them. Yeah, he would.
Jim Coan
That's not funny.
Sue Johnson
No, it wasn't, it never alarmed me because I knew my dad-
Jim Coan
It didn't alarm you?
Sue Johnson
No, he came and he basically knocked them out very, he like he just pop them on the chin, and they'd fall down. This is the way I saw it, okay? And he'd pick them up, and he'd take them in the back room, and then I would listen to the door, and they'd be crying.
Jim Coan
You got to be kidding.
Sue Johnson
They'd be crying, and my dad would be talking to them. And I understood that some bad things had happened in the war, and I saw people get violent and I saw people had fights and I saw people pick people up. And I saw all kinds of things. And strangely enough, in many ways, my childhood was amazingly safe because I was a little girl in an English pub. And I felt like everyone in that pub protected me. My father protected me. My granny protected me. I called everyone uncle. I had about 30 uncles. Everyone-
Jim Coan
That's nice.
Sue Johnson
-my favorite auntie-
Jim Coan
Lots of what we call alloparents.
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
Alloparents all over the place.
Sue Johnson
Exactly. My favorite auntie- I found out when I was 18 when I talked to my father. I liked Auntie Nancy, the best of all-
Jim Coan
Auntie Nancy.
Sue Johnson
-and my favorite. And what he told me was because she had bright red lips, and she was always so kind to me. And he said, "Well, Auntie Nancy was actually the pub prostitute sweetheart." And I said, "You're kidding!"
Jim Coan
There was a pub prostitute?
Sue Johnson
Yes, of course! It was a naval pub. So I said, "you're kidding." And he said "No, auntie Nancy was the pub prostitute."
Jim Coan
And she was your favorite aunt?
Sue Johnson
Yes, she was the high class lady of the night. She was she was the one that went with the admirals.
Jim Coan
And this was all above... as far as your dad was concerned?
Sue Johnson
Of course, yes. And the other thing that I- d
Jim Coan
What was the name of the pub?
Sue Johnson
It was called The Royal Marine.
Jim Coan
The Royal Marine?
Sue Johnson
And the other thing I did as a child, and you can see how this morphed into me becoming fascinated with couples therapy, is as a child, a working class child, nobody had ever told my parents that children weren't supposed to work hard. So I was told to stand, I was taught to stand on a stool, and wash glasses and dry them and stack them on the shelves. So I spent a lot of time listening to all these adult conversations.
Jim Coan
Wow.
Sue Johnson
Yeah, and I, so I picked up patterns in conversations when I was five. I can remember standing there and thinking, "Oh, here's, you know, Fred. Fred comes in six every night. And Fred says, the same things every night to my father. And my father says the same things back." So I couldn't have put it into words then, but what I got on some innate level was, this isn't about information.
Jim Coan
No, right.
Sue Johnson
This is about emotional engagement.
Jim Coan
Oh Jesus, you're killing me. You're giving me chills.
Sue Johnson
Fred comes to talk to my dad, and my dad talks to Fred. And this is about this connection. Now, I couldn't have put it into words, but I think the pub had a lot to do with how relatively fast I picked up patterns between people and tuning into conversations in a particular way, and being able to deal with a wide range of emotions. Your emotions didn't freak me out, I'd seen them all!
Jim Coan
You could also see, like two separate axes in the conversation, that one was information exchange-
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
-and one was sort of emotional connection and bonding.
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Because the fact of the matter is, Fred did say the same thing everyday to my father. And my father did say the same thing back.
Jim Coan
Isn't that incredible.
Sue Johnson
So what is this about, this conversation? Well it's not about information. Because they don't, it's none-
Jim Coan
Goddamn. That blows my mind.
Sue Johnson
Right. So then I see- so then I do all I go... I emigrate to Canada. I get a degree-
Jim Coan
Yeah, right. You went to undergraduate school.
Sue Johnson
I went to undergrad in English literature, because that's what my headmistress told me to do.
Jim Coan
English literature. Because she couldn't get you to stop reading books. She thought, well, I'll just throw her all the way into purgatory.
Sue Johnson
"Susan, you will go to university and you will do English literature." And I said, "Yes, sister." I didn't know anything about anything.
Jim Coan
But where did you go?
Sue Johnson
Hull University-
Jim Coan
Hull?
Sue Johnson
-which was right beside the fish docks, and was the only university that would take a 17 year old. Actually, the nun said to me, "Susan, you will take the entrance exams for Oxford." And I didn't realize at the time that I was probably the only girl in the school that was asked to do that. You know, I didn't see myself as particularly intelligent
Jim Coan
So you didn't see yourself... Did you- I mean, that would that's a that's quite a recommendation from the sister.
Sue Johnson
Yes, but I must have had a lot of guts because I said "No sister," because I was desperate to go to university. I said, I want to go next year. And I was only 17. So the she said "Susan, the only university only, red brick universities will take you at 17-"
Jim Coan
Red brick.
Sue Johnson
So I applied to Hull and I got in. And I went and I did English literature. And I didn't see myself-
Jim Coan
All the way through? For your degree?
Sue Johnson
Yes - in drama. Drama.
Jim Coan
I've never- I didn't know this side of you!
Sue Johnson
Oh yeah!
Jim Coan
I want to discuss some English literature.
Sue Johnson
Well listen, you'll learn a whole lot more about-
Jim Coan
Lit-er-a-ture, lit-rat-ture. You see me trying to do it as a British, and I just completely just fell all over myself.
Sue Johnson
Well-
Jim Coan
(Gibberish)
Sue Johnson
Well, you can't do an English accent sweetheart.
Jim Coan
I know. But it's one of my dissapointments.
Sue Johnson
You know, I learned a lot more about people from novels than I think I ever did in, you know, my psychology courses.
Jim Coan
That's what they say, they're empathy machines, almost.
Sue Johnson
Right.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And so I got into that, but of course, that didn't translate into a job. So then I took a year of adult education. And I think both of those things really, really shaped me-
Jim Coan
What's adult education?
Sue Johnson
It's basically, it was a course in teaching adults, instead of teaching little kids. So I learned to be an educator.
Jim Coan
Nice.
Sue Johnson
And then I taught a little College in Oxford for a year, and then I emigrated to Canada. Which was a huge thing to do in retrospect.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
But in way back then it felt like the only path.
Jim Coan
And did your parents still own the pub at that point?
Sue Johnson
No, no, the pub was long gone. And my mother was hairdressing. And my mother said, "it will be a tragedy, if you don't take over my hairdressing you shop in Strood, High Street, Susan." And all I remember thinking is, "I'll die. I'll die if I'm doing hair in Strood High Street, I'm gonna die," right? An alcoholic would be a good outcome.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
So I thought "No, Mum, I'm going to university and then I'm going to so something."
Jim Coan
Yeah. Why Canada?
Sue Johnson
Because they spoke English, and I could get there.
Jim Coan
They speak English in England.
Sue Johnson
Well, no, I didn't want to say in England. You're really saying to me, why didn't I want to stay in England? Because I was working class.
Jim Coan
So working class, when we talk about, I tell people that I come from a working class background. But that's American working class, American working class can mean 100 different things. But in a place like England, working class is, working class. I mean, the class system in England is serious business, right?
Sue Johnson
It's totally serious business. And I don't think you can understand it unless you've lived it. And people say, "How come you had to leave England?" I said "I had to get out." And when I mean that, I mean, the way you have to get out of a burning building.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Okay? I had to get out because I was female, and working class.
Jim Coan
Two strikes against.
Sue Johnson
And I felt that my life was narrow. Narrow, narrow. And I was becoming angrier and angrier. And I just felt that there had to be a bigger world. So I said I was going to try and go to Canada and bless his heart, my father supported it.
Jim Coan
Your mom didn't?
Sue Johnson
No. My mom said it's a tragedy that you're not coming back and being a hairdresser.
Jim Coan
Hairdresser! Oh my God, the hairdresser shop is gonna close down what are they gonna do?
Sue Johnson
Right! But you know, bless his heart. My dad said, "of course, you must go dear." Bless his heart. I don't know what it must have cost him.
Jim Coan
How did he know that-?
Sue Johnson
Because he'd gone- he, when he was 16, he ran away to the Navy, and lied about his age and the Navy had educated him and taken him all over the world. And I think he wanted that for me.
Jim Coan
He wanted a little bit of that for his daughter. Were you were you an only child?
Sue Johnson
Yes. And my main attachment figure was my dad. And he taught me to trust myself and believe in myself and be independent in a way that I think was completely revolutionary for his time, for a working class man.
Jim Coan
Well, how did you feel about leaving? I mean, you wanted to get out of the burning building, but still, you know, your attachment figure is your dad leaving.
Sue Johnson
Leaving him was hard, but leaving England was easy. I felt that it was a trap for me. And when I came to Canada, I ended up in Vancouver and I felt like I died and gone to heaven.
Jim Coan
It's the most- I think it's the most beautiful city in North America.
Sue Johnson
Well, nevermind beautiful. At the time I went there, which was hippy time-
Jim Coan
Oh, yeah. It was also free love.
Sue Johnson
Everybody was like, "open groovy man." Whatever, like, you know, Oh, wow. You want to sleep on the beach under the stars? Wow. You know, like, like, everything. I'd only been there a couple of weeks.
Jim Coan
That sounds pretty nice to me.
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Jim Coan
That sounds good.
Sue Johnson
I went, I had to become a graduate student in English literature to get into Canada. And by which time I wasn't interested in English literature.
Jim Coan
You got into graduate school in English literature.
Sue Johnson
Yes, in Canada, at UBC.
Jim Coan
At UBC. Love that campus.
Sue Johnson
But I was into acting at that point, so I helped create an acting company which is-
Jim Coan
And what time is- when is this? It's like...
Sue Johnson
I'm 22.
Jim Coan
So but what year is this roughly?
Sue Johnson
Oh God, I get confused. It's the 70s. Yes, early 70s. And I'm, I'm in this new place. And I feel like I've died and gone to heaven and I'm, I'm acting and I'm studying literature, which I'm not really interested in. And I join all these hippies- I don't even know what a hippie is.
Jim Coan
You're finding out!
Sue Johnson
They said, "We're hippies!" And I thought, well, I don't know what that is, but you look nice, so it's alright. So I end up in this basement room for 10 bucks a month. And after I'd been there about two weeks, somebody says to me, have you ever been to a gestalt group? And I said-
Jim Coan
A gestalt group?
Sue Johnson
No, I don't know what a gestalt group is. They said, "oh, it's where people grow." Because, because, because everyone in Canada is into growing. And I said, "Really? Everyone in England into surviving like this is..." Growing. Okay.
Jim Coan
Therapy in the 70s!
Jim Coan
So I went to this Gestalt group-
Jim Coan
There it is, right there.
Sue Johnson
-and there in the middle of the room, is this guy. Fantastic looking guy. It looks a bit like Robert Redford only better.
Sue Johnson
Better?
Sue Johnson
Screaming his head off and banging a pillow with a racket. So to cut a long story short, I married that guy. He was a lot more entertaining. He was a lot more interesting than most of the English men that I'd gone out with.
Jim Coan
Sounds like it!
Sue Johnson
Yes. So I married him.
Jim Coan
He's banging on pillows with rackets.
Sue Johnson
Yeah. And he was a wonderful guy. He was a really, it was a really lovely guy. And, you know, we lived in Vancouver, and I got fed up with English literature and looked around for a job. And there was this amazing place called the Maples. And it was a revolutionary treatment center for adolescents, started by a radical Scottish psychiatrist whose name I can't even remember. And it was very revolutionary. And kids would come there, all kinds of kids, kids who'd murdered people, kids who'd had breakdowns, drug addict kids. It was the last ditch place for kids. Kids would come there and they lived there for a year, and we tried to help them. And I started getting fascinated by these kids and their families. And I became a counselor. And I started doing things like going into family sessions and watching families and running groups for these kids in the morning. And I started taking courses at the University in counseling. And then I was put in charge of the school. And so I started doing special ed, teaching these kids to read. And more and more and more, I just got more into the sort of counseling psychology frame. I started taking more and more courses. And after I'd worked at the maples for about, I don't know, good eight years anyway. I just said I want to go back and do a doctorate in, in psychology. And I went to, I went to one of the famous psychologists at University-
Jim Coan
At UBC?
Sue Johnson
Yes. And I done all these courses in the evenings and everything.
Jim Coan
And you were taking night classes?
Sue Johnson
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, I want to, and I'd done an MA-
Jim Coan
An MA? Along the way.
Sue Johnson
Yeah, in adult education or something.
Jim Coan
At UBC?
Sue Johnson
Yes, in the evenings, right. So I was pretty busy.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Little bee.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And so I went to this famous psychologist, and he said, "Well, what do you want to study?" "Well, I want to study people's emotions and how they deal with them and how they communicate relationships, and how relationships change people. And I want to study how people change" and, and he looked to me like I was a worm or something, and said, "we don't do any of that." I said, "Well, what do you do?" And he said, "we do assessment and personality testing." And it was, he gave me this long list of the things he did. And I said, "Well, I'm not interested in any of that."
Jim Coan
So how did you get interested in relationships and ch-? I mean, it seems like you're going this way, and then you WOOSH just suddenly interested in relationships from a therapy perspective?
Sue Johnson
No, I think my whole life was about relationships. And I saw relationships in novels and, and I got it from knowing in my gut, how powerful emotion was, and how things happened in conversations with other people that mattered, that changed people, that changed realities. I knew that in my bones, and I'd started in literature. And then I went to the maples. And I'd worked with these incredible kids that had had lives that were just hell, and I'd see them change. And in some times, I was their primary counselor.
Jim Coan
And did you start developing theories of change for yourself? Watching this happen?
Sue Johnson
Well I'm not sure I developed theories of change, but I knew what didn't work.
Sue Johnson
And what was that?
Sue Johnson
Well almost everything. I knew that when the psychiatrist said to me, sat and said... When the psychiatrist turned and gave this mother all this insight into how she was bad mother, and that she was enmeshed with her kid, I knew that wasn't helpful.
Jim Coan
Right.
Sue Johnson
I knew it didn't help the kid. And I knew the mother felt worse afterwards.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And I knew that when I sat down and listened to the mother, the way I saw my father listening in the pub-
Jim Coan
Ah!
Sue Johnson
When I sat down and listened to the mother, and empathized with how hard it must be, to have a child who was suicidal, and empathized with how she felt responsible, that then I would turn and look at the child and the child would have tears in his eyes. Whereas all he done for six weeks was telling me to F off and threaten anyone who went near him. But now his mother's talking about how hard it is for her to be a mom and how she loves her son. And his- her son is sitting there in tears. So this, these, those kids, educated me. You see I couldn't find any of that in the literature. I couldn't, I could find Carl Rogers.
Jim Coan
Well, right.
Sue Johnson
I could find Carl Rogers.
Jim Coan
And he was- and he was talking about unconditional positive regard.
Sue Johnson
Exactly.
Jim Coan
And empathy.
Sue Johnson
Exactly. So I got fascinated. And I went off and did. I went to the counseling department at UBC. And they said, "What are you interested in?" And I told them and they didn't freak out. They didn't say, "Oh, yes, we have a whole bunch of that," but they didn't say "go away, you're weird." So I, so I went and did a doctorate in counseling. And when I looked at it, I was nuts.
Jim Coan
Okay, folks, that's it for part one. Thanks to Sue Johnson for her candor and good humor. And stay tuned for part two, where we discuss the development of EFT as well as where things stand now for Sue's ongoing work. Sue will also be sharing her view of how we should all be spending our time in this one life any of us is ever going to have. In part two, the candor and good humor continue, and the science is brought into sharper focus.
Jim Coan
Folks, music for this episode of Circle of Willis was written and performed by Tom Stauffer of Tucson, Arizona. For information about how to purchase Tom's music as well as the music of his band, The New Drake's check the about page at circleofwillispodcast.com Circle of Willis is produced by Siva Vaidhyanathan and brought to you by VQR in the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. And, and Circle of Willis is a member of the TEEJ.FM Podcast Network. Find out more about that at Teej.fm (now wtju.net). Special thanks to VQR Editor Paul Reyes, WTJU FM General Manager Nathan Moore, as well as NPR reporter and co founder of the very popular podcast invisibilia, Lulu Miller. If you liked this podcast, how about giving us a little review at iTunes and letting us know how we're doing? It's super easy, and we like it. Or go the more direct route by sending us an email at circleofwillispod@gmail.com. That's circleofwillispod@gmail.com. You can also contact us by visiting circleofwillis podcast.com and clicking on the Contact tab. All right. Now as I've already said, our next episode will feature part two of my epic conversation with Sue Johnson. Don't miss it. Until then, bye bye.