Pam: I am Pam Torraco, this is Paul Shultz. As we were thinking about how we would talk about the issue of co-therapy, I was just remembering how long we've know each other.

Paul: A long time.

Pam: We've known each other for what, like thirty years?

Paul: Something like that.

Pam: We've worked together a lot over the years. Nobody starts out with thirty years experience, but getting to know each other well is very important. We've learned a lot together.

Paul: We learn from each other. And from watching each other work in the groups, there are some things that you are better at than me, some things that you hear, some things that you see that I can't put my finger on. You can.

Pam: And vice versa.

Paul: And vice versa.

Pam: An important thing that I learned from you when I was green and felt that I was supposed to be able to do everything. And then I finally realized that I have a co-therapist, not only because it's better for the patients to have two of us to work with, but it's also helpful to me. And sometimes I can sit back, and while you are working with a patient, I can be looking at what's happening with other people in the group, and pick up on important things there. Or sometimes help a patient if I see them getting kind of stuck with you, I can ask them how they feel, how they react to you, and it might be easier for them to tell me than it would be for them to tell you directly.

Paul: I remember the first few times that I had a co-therapist come into the group with me. This would have been Ron Hook, whom I knew for many years. We understood each other. We knew our strengths and weaknesses. From the very first session, my individual patients began to talk about things that they hadn't talked about in the year or two they knew me. Because they felt safer knowing there was another therapist there to turn to, somebody who would help them say what was on their mind. Not that they were hiding it.

Pam: So something just didn't occur to them. It doesn't occur to people to say these things when they're not so comfortable. And yet, there's this long-standing assumption in therapy that if we just give people a place, they will just talk about everything that matters to them. It doesn't happen that way.

Paul: No. It certainly doesn't.

Pam: In the group more things get stimulated anyway because there are so many relationships each person has to deal with: the one with me, the one with you, and with their fellow patients. And if we are there, sharp and working well together, we can make room for a lot of things that just wouldn't come up otherwise.

Paul: We help people say things to one another they otherwise would be afraid to say. You might help one person speak, and I might help another person speak to each other in ways that they otherwise wouldn't speak.

Pam: And ways they sometimes wouldn't speak to their husband, to their wife, or their sister, or brother.

Paul: And of course one of the things that I think is so special is being able to consult as often as we do. Before and after the groups. Many times between the groups.

Pam: Essential really.

Paul: Essential. I might have an individual session with somebody that we work together with in the group, and consult with you about what just happened in the individual session, to give ourselves better bearings on what we do with that person when we get together in the group.

Pam: Right. Even though we wouldn't, without permission, reveal something that happened in the individual session, usually it has to do with a theme that's ongoing in the patient anyway. I've had the opportunity, really the privilege, of working with a number of co-therapists over the years, and I've learned so much from each one, and each one has really been very helpful to me as well as to the patients. So it's really invaluable. I would not have come as far in developing myself as a therapist if I worked always by myself, I think.