There's a phenomenon during therapy where the patient would spend majority of the time talking about other things and mentioning what they really wanted to talk about at the last minute before conclusion for the session.
I've always thought this was a funny phenomenon until it happens to me during conversations. Doesn't stop me from laughing at memes about the phenomenon.
You just had to not talk about what concerns you and dropping things like that when we're about to part ways?
Now we have to extend the time or just end things as a cliff hanger. I know being upfront about what people wanted to talk about in therapy is a challenge in itself and even normal people struggle to be direct so they resort to small talk. But this stuff annoys me.
Maybe because I like to be efficient with my time and prefer people to get right on the meat of the problem. But I do understand the hesitation. Sometimes patients would raise some balloons as a signal just to see your reaction just cause.
I've encountered patients who love to sport about going into the dark web and watching gore, smut and taboo videos wearing it like some edgy kool kid. Then get shutdown when I just become poker faced at the attempt. It's not that I don't find the revelation unremarkable, it's just that I've seen worse and know worse so I ended up asking the questions to size up their edgy, have they killed someone? how far have they gone deep in terms of committing felony? did this interfere with their work? relationships? and etc.
I've interviewed murderers, people with psychosis committing murders, and etc. There's a difference between someone who lived to do the deed versus someone that just sits back and fantasizes it. The latter are just edge lords.
Anyway, back to the phenomenon, I don't think there's a term for it but it happens and it's called the "Doorknob Phenomenon"
Thanks for your time.
