30 second therapy
“We were just talking about the Edinburgh trams …”
“Seriously? Well I guess it’s either that or independence …”
The barista at the kiosk smiles and draws me into the conversation …
“Oh no, it’s my German friend here, she’s heading to the airport to meet her boyfriend and I was telling her how to get there. I wasn’t complaining about the ‘tram fiasco’ really, but I could if you let me.”
She smiles again and leans forward, her elbows on the counter.
I often feel anxious around strangers but here I am feeling strangely at ease.
A young man steps up and orders an ‘Americano’; he smiles, hands in pockets.
A middle-aged American woman walks into our circle,
“…like, are there any toilets up here?”
“Sorry none up here” says the barista as amidst the chat she delivers me a perfect Flat White, “I get asked that so many times” she says, “I wish I could put up a sign, but I’m not sure how welcoming that would be”.
We talk some more; politics, travel and then I smile, nod and move on to walk around the hill.
The German girl waves goodbye. We will most likely never meet again.
The American woman stops me and points with enthusiasm to the view across the city,
“so that’s where it is, that’s the view I see in all the famous photos”.
The young man from earlier is now sat alone at the single cafe table, he smiles and raises his hand ever so slightly, a wave, not too high, not too friendly, and I smile and nod back, swallowing my social anxiety, just enough to make a connection … we are connected, we are all connected.
All of this happens within the space of 30 seconds. I leave the hill feeling affirmed, acknowledged, warm inside on a caffeine rush; I have what I need. I wonder if maybe Edinburgh City Council could just fund someone to wander about up there, someone with good eye contact, a smile and affirming chat - they could probably save a bucket on Counselling services, if only for the tourists.
A friend recently asked me whether there is such a thing as collective art therapy. In response I talk about studio sessions, large groups where I work with each client for a short time, but it’s clear he’s talking about something less organised, with no therapist, but a gathering of people involved in creative activity that might intuitively have some therapeutic benefit for all. We talk about group dynamics. It reminds me of Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’, the collective mind figuring out and arranging the gathered people by type based on our primordial experience and then we navigate our paths in and around one another accordingly.
During Art Therapy sessions I pay attention to my body and my passing thoughts as a way into paying greater attention to the client with whom I sit; essentially ‘mindfulness’. I then notice what is different about them, what has changed, what has shifted, however subtle. By paying attention to one another we are opening up and practicing an ability to think about one another’s interior thoughts, motivations and desires. It’s a process many of us take for granted, but some of our most vulnerable citizens have grown up without the secure attachment to enable this, and their response to other people and themselves can seem abrupt and violent.
In a recent interview I heard with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt a questioner asked if we could resolve international conflict with mass mindfulness meditation. Haidt’s work in morality suggests that there is an essential dynamic for civic society when both conservative and liberal mindsets engage, mindfully. His response is that research suggests that mass mindfulness could work, but it’s unlikely that you would be able to get the people you really need to be mindful into the same room. Clearly we need a bigger coffee kiosk.
As I sit here writing on the train I look about me … I smile at the woman across from me but she looks away appearing tearful; the young guy with headphones shuts his eyes and bobs his head. There are a crowd of young girls shouting, clearly upsetting a couple sat nearby who appear experts in angry looks with few words. I feel quite invisible. Then a small boy comes running up the aisle. He seems to have run the whole length of the train with his bedraggled parent walking on behind. He stops at my table and hits the hard surface with his open hand looking at me in the eyes, he does it again and laughs and then runs off. I smile at his audacious entrance. The parent apologises, yet for the first time today I have been acknowledged, however briefly; I have what I need.
