Stream of Consciousness Talking Approach

I'm sure most of you have heard of stream of consciousness writing. The idea, I guess, is that when we put pen to paper, or keyboard strokes to device, and just jot down any thought that comes to mind, that we'll uncover or unleash hidden and deeper parts of ourselves.

So, I'm wondering if such a technique would also work with speech. What if I went into session and just talked quickly with little thought and see what comes up?

Usually I ponder and think and contemplate and examine and try to articulate clearly and introspect, etc. etc.

What if I threw all that away, that attentive approach, and just started blabbering away? Has anyone ever done that? Did it work? Or is this just some stupid idea that has come up for me in my constant quest to uncover deeper parts of myself?

I don't think it's a bad idea to try to find something that works for you. I think it's worth a shot, however, I'd be sure to warn your therapist of this new approach before you do it. If they interpret this as a change from your usual demeanor without any idea of why, they might misinterpret it as something more serious going wrong, or a change of personality due to medical reasons. Just give them the heads-up of what you're doing before you do it, just so there's no misunderstandings. Good luck

I'm pretty much always stream of consciousness.

I think this is what is done in psychoanalysis. The client just talks about whatever pops into his head so as to uncover concerns and unconscious connections?

That's how I am in therapy 100% of the time.

I'm not a big fan of stream-of-consciousness as a writing style, and I'm not that way in therapy either. While I don't go in with a plan or anything, my session are more of a conversation between my T and I. Lots of give and take; lots of discussion and feedback. If T just sat there and had me talk randomly for an hour that would NOT work for me at all.

It depends on your therapy and therapist; if it's hard for the other person to understand, which your stream of consciousness would be (the other person isn't inside your head so can't see where thoughts/feelings are coming from), then they can't very well comment and help you with the process. My therapist wanted me to "loosen" up some and do more stream of consciousness talking but when I did, she was lost within three sentences and we went back to plodding through, together.

It's an interesting idea though; why not discuss it with your therapist?

I guess my idea did not preclude the T from making comments or offering guidance within the session. Like maybe she could stop my ramblings when she thought we had hit 'gold'. I guess I'm wondering if it would be like a spotlight search and all the words are the spotlight and the search would have been successful when an emotion was struck, hence the 'gold'.

I acyually tried it in a court session against my son's father, i couldn't even tell what i said but it was so bad living with his dad that a bunch of negative thoughts towards him must have come out as the court ordered in my favor

That's pretty much what I do - start blabbering one place and end up another. I've learned to trust that it happens and it productive. I ask questions along the way like "Why did I say that". My therapist is very good at this apporach and asks good questions too.

I don't plan sessions at all - unless something really big happens.

I wonder if it such an approach would be useful for me because I am interested in so many things in life - culture, communication, history, poetry, world news, language, and of course, the brain/mind/psychology and on and on that I might just find myself chatting about everything EXCEPT my inner world. I read a massive amount of stuff each week and just clog up my brain with all kinds of useless knowledge. (Magazines: Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Psychology Today, Time, National Geographic, Atlantic, Economist, Poets & Writers, etc. Books: Kindle on ipad was my death knell)

I don't know if this is in the neighborhood of stream of consciousness talking, but I've noticed lately that I allow T greater access to my inner world during T.

So I would describe therapy for me something like the following:

I say something, T says something back, I spend a lot of time in my head considering whether to say A or B or C that is evoked by what T said, or not, then I decide to say B, T says something back, etc etc etc.

Now I am more likely to tell T, "I am thinking about A and B and C. What I think about A is . . . . "

I have not done this with a T, but in posting a reply in the games section of the forum, something came out that would be therapeutic to talk about. The point is, I was routinely posting replies and that ?uncovered something to work on. And I don' t remember posting it, but it had to be me that wrote it.

I do that sometimes although not really intentionally. I'll just start babbling lol and my t has come to expect it. Now that we're doing phone sessions since she moved, it's funny it seems to happen more often. I assume that's because we're not together in the professional setting of an office anymore, and I sorta 'forget' who I'm talking to. lol

I tend to plan out and make notes of what I want to talk about in therapy. But I think i want to control what we talk about. Last session, the most beneficial things for me were questions from my PDOC, but they arose from my list. So, I am contemplating which way to go in the future.

But my favorite authors utilize SOC: Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf. Those three, along with Proust, are the greatest writers of the 20th century, IMO.

I have babbled and talked some total **** in therapy. Not really on purpose.

Sometimes my T will say 'penny for them?' and therefore lets herself in for whatever random thing is in my head. Other times I get carried away ranting about something. Other times I've gotten a little giddy somehow and have just jabbered on and on whilst she's sat there looking somewhat amused, smiling, eyebrows raised...

Better out than in?!

What seems to trouble my T is when I DON'T say what's on my mind. Whatever that is.

I tend to go in with some sort of plan but usually as soon as she says "how have you been?" I launch into a monologue of what has been been happening since I last saw her and how I think it ties into other things in my life/my head. About 5 mins into that she will start directing the conversation and we will end up at a point where some major issue has suddenly been revealed, and we generally then decide to work on that.

It's interesting because usually I go into T with an idea of what I want to talk about but it usually changes as the words start flowing and I end up discovering something else about myself that I wasn't quite aware of. So I think for me, thinking about and writing down issues (SOC style) pre session helps me get into "the zone", and then the first few mins of session when I am talking SOC at least on some level, helps enormously in terms sf revealing things both to T and to myself.

That was the original idea in psychoanalysis (and it still may be). It is what my first therapy was like. It was very hard, because I had to talk about things that were embarrassing to me. But after a number of months, it began to bear fruit. Then my psychiatrist got frightened (my evaluation) by what I produced, and started judging what I was saying, and telling me I was dishonest, and sick. Led after a time to a massive breakdown for me -- so I think it is a technique that has to be done with the greatest care and skill. It engenders, or did for me, a considerable transference, and that can be handled well, or not, by the therapist.

I used to make lists and prepare myself for therapy. That was with my former Ts. Since my current T deals with the "now" and doesn't even like me to refer to the emails I send her, I have no choice but to be in the present and not plan.

When I first come in, I often talk non-stop about my week because I aways have a lot to tell her. When I slow down, sometimes things come up and then she asks if I want to do SE about it. Or, she asks what I'm feeling in my body or what I'm looking at or something like that. So my sessions are not exactly stream of consciousness, but they aren't planned and I never know what's going to happen!

It occurs to me that "free association" is a technique, which can help promote the relaxation of internal censorship of thoughts and feelings -- but it is not The Answer To Everything that, I think, it became in certain psychoanalytic circles.

I'm an Agatha Christie fan, and one day I went to see T and said that in the title I was currently reading, Poirot told someone that his great secret (besides the little grey cells of course) lay in getting people to talk. About anything. Keep them talking, because in time the truth will come out of them.

I said, suddenly it occurred to me that just maybe, that's what 'talk therapy' is all about ... yes?
and T smiled her wise, enigmatic T smile and nodded.


ETA: I doubt that I could try stream of consciousness talking with T... I don't think I could conquer the overriding thought of freudian slips.
besides, how could a T keep up, without recording it and playing back? Thoughts just keep coming like from a fire hose. No time for T to grab one comment and say, whoa, what's this one all about?