 H Y do most individuals go into
psychotherapy? Well, there can be many specific reasons, but there often
is one basic, underlying reason: something was lacking in their childhood
family life, and this lack continues to cause problems even in the
present.
A Remedy for
Family Failure
Now, one very
common lack in contemporary
families is the
failure to treat children with unconditional nurturing guidance and protection.
So instead of learning real love in their families, children—through
all sorts of family manipulation and game-playing, if not outright
abuse—are
essentially taught to
fear love.
And the pain of all this
loneliness, guilt,
and fear will live
on in the unconscious,
in a sort of timeless emotional imprisonment, even as the child grows through
childhood and adolescence to adulthood.
So, suffering
from psychological
pain, people will seek
out psychotherapy. Through healthy and
honest interactions
with a psychotherapist, they can learn to think and act in new, emotionally
honest ways, different from the
psychological defenses
created in childhood, and current
problems and
symptoms can be remedied.
The Psychotherapeutic
Relationship
In psychotherapy, the
client and the psychotherapist work together on the task of facilitating the
client’s psychological healing. In
psychodynamic psychotherapy
(as compared to
behavioral therapy) the
task of healing can be described as the task of bringing to conscious awareness
the emotional pain hidden in the client’s
unconscious, in the hope that
that awareness will bring about a change in the client’s behavior. Although the client
and the psychotherapist work together on this task, it is important that they not
be concerned with each other in terms of mutual acceptance or gratification and
instead keep their attention focused on the client’s unconscious. The “we” of this
process is the “we” of mutual psychotherapeutic discovery, not a “we” of personal
desire.
Nevertheless, in this
profound interaction between the client and the psychotherapist a new problem can
emerge. It’s a problem completely different from the problem that brought the client
into psychotherapy in the first place, and it can take a client—you—completely by
surprise.
Feeling
Special
As you begin
to encounter genuine concern for your well-being, the whole experience of
psychotherapy can feel overwhelming and intoxicating. Once having felt ignored
and misunderstood, and now feeling noticed and understood—and not
rejected—you can start to feel special.
Moreover, you can begin to believe that the psychotherapist is special as
well.
When this occurs,
everything can take on a feeling of erotic “love.”
You see quote marks
around the word love in the last sentence because erotic experiences are really
experiences of desire, not love. “I want to know more about the psychotherapist’s
personal life.” “I want to know what he or she likes.” “I want to be with him or her
outside the psychotherapy sessions.” “I want to believe that he or she feels an
attraction to me.” And so on. That’s desire. It’s desire because it is based in what
“I want,” not in what you or someone else really needs.
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Think for a moment
about the whole purpose of family life and wonder what any infant needs. Well,
an infant, born into the world completely helpless, needs protection and guidance
in order to grow and develop its own abilities, so that, in maturity, he or she
can go out into the world to do good for others. That protection and guidance—which
is an aspect of
real love—isn’t
meant to make you feel “happy”; it’s meant to help you develop your unique talents
and grow into a productive member of the whole human family. |
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Now, real love
does have a function in psychotherapy. Love can be defined as “willing
the good of another,” and this is precisely what the psychotherapist
is ethically bound to do for all clients. The psychotherapist wills the
good of all clients by ensuring that all actions within the psychotherapy
serve the client’s need to overcome the
symptoms that
prevent the client from living a useful and meaningful life.
Flirting with
Emotional Disaster
As unpleasant
as it may be to admit it, erotic “love” is based on infantile needs
to be received, accepted, and satisfied. When someone feels intensely received,
accepted, and satisfied, then he or she is “in love.” But sooner or
later that intensity will be broken when some experience of neglect occurs. The
break doesn’t even have to be the result of malicious neglect; it can simply be
the result of a need to attend to other obligations in the world, and, in the
person feeling neglected, intense jealousy
can flare up.
This explains why
“lovers,” friends, and blog readers, with all their personal needs and desires,
cannot function psychotherapeutically. And it explains philosophically—above and
beyond any laws or professional ethics—why psychotherapists cannot be friends or
“lovers” to their clients. If they try, it will lead to psychological disaster,
for unless the experience of “love” and personal desire can be broken, the
psychotherapy will degenerate into emotional chaos.
Understanding
the Erotic Transference
Erotic “love” within
the psychotherapy—technically called an erotic transference—is not
necessarily a bad thing, though. That is, it’s not a bad thing if it can be
understood as one essential step toward learning real love.
Just as any child who
receives gifts from others must first go through a phase of development characterized
by a “hoarding” or “clinging” mentality—Mine! Mine!—before learning to share with
others, so you, in feeling the enthralling acceptance of your psychotherapist, will
at first want to hoard that feeling and claim it as your own personal possession. But
that feeling can’t stop there, and your psychotherapist’s job is to make sure it
doesn’t stop there. The child part of you really desires love itself, not the person
who gives the love, and your psychotherapist has to help you understand that.
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Sadly, many
psychotherapists are not very competent in dealing with subtle
psychodynamic. In fact,
many psychotherapists feel uncomfortable with a client’s erotic transference. Why?
Well, many psychotherapists are unconsciously caught up in their own erotic
transference with the world around them. And so these incompetent psychotherapists
can make a mess of the whole process. Instead of just admitting, “Sure, you’re an
interesting and attractive person. But that’s not what this work is all about. So,
let’s get on with the real work,” they try to hide behind a forced façade of
neutrality that only leaves the client exasperated and confused. And if the client
tries to speak about his or her feelings, an incompetent psychotherapist will shy
away from really exploring the depth and vast unconscious extent of those feelings.
Or, even worse, an incompetent psychotherapist will, for his or her personal
satisfaction, “fan the flames” of the client’s desire. Yet none of this is
psychotherapy—it’s just more of the same manipulation and game playing that has
brought the client into treatment in the first place. |
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So remember why
someone goes into psychotherapy: to experience a sense of genuine recognition
so as to overcome the lack that disturbs current social functioning. Once
all the manipulation, game-playing, and dishonesty
that characterize your interpersonal relationships are dissolved through
the integrity and honesty of the therapeutic relationship, then you can enter
into an honest
life of real love for others.
The Real Task
of Psychotherapy
Your task in
psychotherapy, then, after you experience that intoxicating feeling of
unconditional recognition, is to recognize in the transference
itself your desire to hoard that feeling. At this point it will be important
to talk openly within the psychotherapy about those desires and explore their deepest
unconscious significance.
Talk about how good it feels to experience recognition and understanding.
And talk about how painful it was as a child to have been unrecognized and
criticized.
Assuming you
have a competent psychotherapist, resist the temptation to
terminate the treatment
so as to run from the embarrassment of honest communication. Work through
the awkwardness of it all until your desires for the psychotherapist are
seen for what they are: an intoxicating attempt to hoard feelings of recognition
and understanding.
Then, having
understood the profound difference between desire and love,
and having worked through the unconscious illusions (i.e., psychological
defenses) behind your intense desire for one person, you can proceed
to offer genuine love to everyone.
Summary
When you are
working to overcome the transference, keep in mind this important
fact:
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You are not
“in love” with your psychotherapist; you are obsessed with the illusion
that another person can give you what has been missing in your life because
of the real love that your parents failed to give you in your
childhood. |
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No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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