The Look of Love

There was a photo that looked just like Sadie the Wonder Dog on Facebook with the caption as though the dog was talking to another dog: “Consistency is key. Doesn’t matter if they say no 100 times. One of them, is weak. You just must find out who.”

Vicki is like steel. She will not feed Sadie when she approaches her for something wonderful that Vicki is eating. You guessed it. I am the weak one, sad but true. Sadie comes right up to me with her eyes firmly fixed on me and sits there in a game of who is going to blink first. I look into those brown eyes and release my grip on a piece of popcorn, pretzel or yogurt carton that she wants to finish off.

Recently I found myself talking to her as she sat before me struggling to breathe. She has developed laryngeal paralysis and will have the surgery that will improve her breathing very soon. I found myself talking to her as I would a person in need of counseling sitting across from me. I did the talking and she deed the staring. It’s those eyes that lock me in.

Recently I read an article about oxytocin, a hormone that has a great deal to do with ethical behavior specifically the eye-to-eye contact. Oxytocin is called the love ingredient and research demonstrates it is released during eye-to-eye contact. This occurs not only in dogs but in humans during eye contact.

The whole issue of the love ingredient plays an important role in counseling around the concept of bonding. When you are trying to make an emotional connection with someone usually there is eye to eye contact. You can tell a lot about a person if they don’t make eye contact when seeking help. Lack of eye contact can be due to a few things such as discomfort or embarrassment in dealing with emotional issues.

Usually, people seeking help don’t want to feel judged so it is important to clear that fear from the relationship as quickly as possible, otherwise progress will not be made. Richard Chessick, an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern, makes the point in his book, How Psychotherapy Heals, that progression in counseling occurs when there is unconditional positive regard and empathy which produces bonding. This results in the person seeking help to see the therapist as trustworthy. We call it by the clinical term, transference.

The days of a person lying on a therapist’s couch with the therapist behind him or her are gone due to important advances. My orientation to helping others couldn’t be further from that old school approach. If I thought it would work, I would do it. The fix it drive in me has made me very flexible. I will do whatever it takes from the various counseling theories if it institutes change for the better for the person who wants help.

But let me come back to one thing that does work. You help another person by using something more important than words. It is being present. I would call it the look of love.

I have always said in difficult exchanges with others I want the person in the room with me to make that connection, the connection like what a person experiences by looking deep into the eyes of his dog. In seeking therapy patients want a therapeutic experience where the therapist learns what they fear the most and gives them the opposite. In religion and ethics, it is called grace. The result is that the person seeking help shares in the human condition of the therapist and the person who is seeking help. It is expressed by the thought and feeling that “there but for the grace of God go I.” 

Zoom meetings don’t do the same thing as they are missing body language. If a person comes to me and their greatest fear is judgement, I give them acceptance. The key to positive change in another is transference where the person asking for a therapeutic relationship is to experience the emotion of what it is like to have someone accept them in their totality. Getting to the fear or insecurity is the first step.

Sheldon Kopp, a psychotherapist and author, in Washington, D.C. said it best in his book, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him, on the nature of relationships that heal. The title means to shock people out of conventional ways of thinking of what heals the psyche and soul. Paraphrasing his words, he wrote: It is like a card game. When the client enters the room and sits across from you, they hold their cards close to the vest. The therapist during therapy lays all his cards on the table face up. It is a safe place. It is the bonding that makes the difference.

One of the words for love in the Greek is called Philia that means the kind of love described as friend to friend. It raises the self-esteem and sense of belonging of the other, the two essential trails to wholeness. Paradoxically that’s what all of us can do if we are aware of all the above as we seek to help a friend. It’s not a secret! It’s called the look of love. If Sadie the Wonder dog can do it, so can you. That is the hard responsibility of being a human being. Are we our brothers and sisters keeping? Religion and ethics declare, “Yes, we are!”

If you want to see a perfect example of the power of oxytocin, rent the movie, The Friend starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. It is R rated for language.  If you watch it, you will get the essential ingredient in therapy or simply helping another. As a Bonus, I think that you will enjoy it.