Alex is a tall, thin, 86-year-old former psychotherapist now living in a nursing home, and walking with a walker. He experiences mild anxiety and depression associated with adjustment to his advanced stage of life development, and he experiences mild cognitive issues. I meet with him for life review therapy.

The Importance of Everyday Objects

Alex loves music and theater, and he wrote and performed in plays, in addition to practicing and teaching psychotherapy. He had studied in a Catholic Seminary yet decided against becoming a priest.

He has a teddy bear named TJ in his room with a scarf around its neck knitted by his daughter. Alex was given TJ many years earlier, and for 30 years TJ served as his co-therapist.

“I gave presentations at maybe 75 conferences with at least 75 participants each time, and I always brought TJ with me,” Alex said. “I would approach the podium and introduce myself. The audience members were probably wondering what was going on with this guy holding a teddy bear. ‘This is my partner TJ. He doesn’t have a lot to say, but he would be glad to meet some of you while I am speaking.’ Always, someone would raise their hand and ask to hold TJ.

“While I was speaking, I would notice one person tap the shoulder of the one holding TJ, and pretty soon he would be handed along, person to person. When I was wrapping up and asking if there were any questions, one or more hands would shoot up, and someone would say, ‘We haven’t had a chance yet to hold TJ.’ The experience of TJ being at the meeting would create a warm sense of camaraderie, and people always spoke to me afterwards to remark on the special experience it had been for them,” Alex said.

In his private practice, Alex had TJ placed in a chair next to his in the office. “Clients would walk in and say, ‘What’s up with the bear?’ ‘Oh, this is TJ. He just likes to listen; he doesn’t say too much; you can hold him if you’d like to get to know him better.’ Some who scoffed at TJ the first time, might return the next time and just pick him up and hold him without saying anything. “TJ was like a doorway to feelings and thoughts that clients might not get to for a long while if I had only used language. It was always remarkable to me the things that people remembered and talked about because they were holding TJ,” said Alex.

He added; “With my students or clients, they look at me, and they see their projection on me. But when they look at TJ, they see into themselves; a part of their self they have not been in touch with, or for a long time, and they sometimes don’t know what to do with it.”

“TJ helped me have a tangible connection to the child in me, and helped me evoke that in others,” Alex said. He added, “TJ represents innocence, and there are not so many ways in therapy, or in society, for an adult to access their innocence — and I don’t only mean childhood innocence, but a sort of opening to wonder and mystery and spirit — because if those things aren’t present in therapy, what are we doing,” Alex asked?

***

Teddy bear therapy has been around for many decades, yet mostly used in work with children. Alex found clever and effective ways to incorporate TJ into his teaching and therapy practice. At a time when he feels saddened by the need to adapt to a slower and less productive period, life review therapy validates Alex’s notable accomplishments and restores his positive sense of self-worth and makes room for his mischievous and warm-hearted sense of fun, which is where TJ comes into play.  

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

What are your personal and professional impressions of the author’s work with this patient?

How might you have addressed the patient’s relationship with TJ's similarly? Differently?

How have you made use of inanimate objects in your clinical work?  


File under: The Art of Psychotherapy, Musings and Reflections