“Clichés are the royal road to healing,” said Dr. Andrew Dobo. What a powerful, powerful statement.
The very definition of a cliché is “an unoriginal phrase.” Yet, we understand each other when we use them. So many things come up during reprocessing sessions, and if you hear a cliché, you should definitely go with that!
I recently listened to a podcast where Ruth Reichl, an author and food writer, was being interviewed. She spoke about her process of writing about food:
“[Food] gives me endless joy. And I have always wanted other people to understand that here is this simple pleasure, you know, it’s there. It’s available to all of us, all of the time.”
— Ruth Reichl, Wiser Than Me Podcast (7:48)
Reichl wants people to be aware of their experience of food and to describe the intangible, because we don’t really know if we all taste the same, it’s such a personal experience.
“I always tried to write about food in ways that transcended flavor.”
— Wiser Than Me Podcast (9:28)
She gave an example: if something tastes like lemon, but lemon tastes different to different people, or if you hate lemon, or think it has no real taste, then that description doesn’t help. It reminded me of how some people love cilantro while others describe it as tasting soapy.
Personally, her words resonated with me because growing up, my parents were baffled that I couldn’t stand mashed or baked potatoes, but loved French fries.
“It’s the same thing!” they’d say, exasperated.
But it wasn’t to me. For the longest time, I thought something was wrong with my taste buds. Maybe it was my sense of smell, or maybe a texture thing, or maybe food prepared differently simply tasted differently to me. To my parents, all potatoes were the same. To me, they weren’t.
Meanwhile, back to lemons and Ruth Reichl’s explanation:
“If you say, when I have fresh lemonade, it feels to me like walking in the rain beneath the lilac bush, or it’s as good as that shower you take when you come in from a run… then you’re telling people what the experience of it is rather than the flavor.
What is it like on the first day it snows and you go outside after a year? What is it like to catch a snowflake on your tongue? That’s a useful way of describing eating a soufflé, the way it just evaporates.”
— Wiser Than Me Podcast (9:50–11:07)
With EMDR therapy, the client doesn’t just talk about an experience, they have one. How can EMDR be described when it’s such an individualized process? And how can a clinician guide something so personal?
Clichés can transcend language, culture, and socioeconomic status. They capture highly relatable truths.
If my client says, “I don’t like to rock the boat,” or “That’s not my hot potato to catch,” or “The rug was pulled out from under me,” you can probably recall your own life moments when those phrases applied. When clients “go with the cliché,” it links all the times that phrase has carried meaning for them, and those experiences can be reprocessed.
It’s wild how these so-called “unoriginal phrases” can connect humanity and help us heal together.