I’ve
taken part at group psychotherapy for six months. There is an issue I think
might be essential about me and I’d like to talk about, but I feel extremely
shy, 1st) because I can’t be totally comfortable with other people 2nd)
because I live in a country where abortion is crime (I’ve had an abortion
performed in a very traumatic way and then for about ten years I got pregnant
nine more times and I just stopped that when I decided to carry on my last
pregnancy). I wouldn’t want to have problems with police (I trust my
psychotherapist but not the other members of the group), besides that I think
they (the other members of the group) might be judgmental or even indiscreet
about that. There’s great prejudice about abortion here in Brazil. I
feel awful having to talk about that, do you think its really important to
tell that to my psychotherapist.
You have no reason to talk about anything in psychotherapy
unless you are open to change. But, even more than that, you have no reason
to be in psychotherapy unless you are willing to submit
everything about your life to examination and are willing for every unhealthy
psychological defense in
your life to change.
This means that
it is important to face all your mistakes with
honest scrutiny
and that it is a grave psychological error to try to “get rid of” any
problem that seems too unpleasant or too inconvenient for you—whether it be a
psychological defense, part
of your personality, your parents, your friends, your children—or a child
in the womb.
The fact is,
abortion is a hate crime against humanity, for
it reduces a human child to a piece of garbage. And that cold process of reduction
results in profound trauma
that most medical and psychological organizations prefer to ignore. As
Mother Teresa said, “We must not be surprised
when we hear of murders, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own
child, what is left but for us to kill each other?” Is it any wonder, then,
that with a psychological attitude of “getting rid of problems” our world
today is drowning in hatred
and revenge and plagued with the constant threat of
terrorism and war?
In a similar way, trying to
get rid of problems with psychotherapy is a hate crime against the
unconscious. Psychological problems
need to be treated with compassion and understanding so that you
can get to the real cause of your emotional pain.
Therefore, your real psycholgical
task is to realize what a huge mistake your abortions have been, and to realize how you have
used abortion unconsciously to mask deep psychological pain and despair from your childhood.
When you can talk about your past abortions from a place of
sorrow, that sorrow can be a
profound motive for scrutiny and psychological change in other areas
of your life.
Group psychotherapy,
however, as you point out, poses a real problem with
confidentiality.
The whole point of a psychotherapy group is to engage in honest interactions
with others so that you can recognize defensive patterns of social interaction
as they occur in the moment, right in the group, and change those patterns
as necessary. If you believe that confidentially cannot be guaranteed,
then you cannot interact with others honestly, and in that case it would be best
if you continued your treatment individually.
Just remember that if you speak
about your past mistakes with sorrow the other members of a group would treat you with compassion,
not judgment, and you wouldn’t feel like an outcast they were trying to get rid of. So be
careful that you don’t use this issue with group psychotherapy as an excuse to get rid of
the full potential of your treatment altogether.
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