I am
SO mad right now at my therapist. . . . I don’t FEEL
supported. I feel alone and vulnerable. . . . How can a person
be expected to share . . . when it seems as if all . . .
has been trivialized? Maybe not so much trivialized as ignored or not responded
to at all. . . . I really do feel like an
infant. . . . When I would need a hug, I bet I wouldn’t
get that. If I needed a friend, I wouldn’t get that. If I needed someone
to actually care for me, I wouldn’t get that either. . . .
I want my psychotherapist to tell me what things mean because it is so hard for
me to see them.
So why does the psychotherapist not give hugs,
not be a friend, not reveal personal feelings,
not give explicit direction? Well, it’s not to be mean; instead, it’s
to bring out deep
unconscious meaning.
In your case, it’s to help you realize that you’re desperate to get a hug,
desperate for a friend, desperate to know personal feelings, and
desperate for explicit direction.
And why would you be so
desperate? Well, most likely, if you had grown up with healthy, ordinary family experiences
you would have experienced all of these things—hugs, friendship, personal feelings,
guidance and direction—in your own family.
So I can surmise that your
desperation reveals that you didn’t get these things in your family. When you
say, “I really do feel like an infant,” it means that your mother and father
failed you even when you were an infant. When you say, “I don’t FEEL supported.
I feel alone and vulnerable,” it means that your father was somehow lacking, perhaps
as an alcoholic so lost in his alcohol that he couldn’t support you, or perhaps so
preoccupied with his work that he didn’t take time to understand you. When you say,
“How can a person be expected to share . . . when it seems as if
all . . . has been trivialized? Maybe not so much trivialized as
ignored or not responded to at all, ” it means that you can’t be expected to
have learned how to share anything with anyone when your own family ignored you because
everyone was too preoccupied with hiding their own emotional pain and psychological failures
to respond to you.
Hence you say,
“I want my psychotherapist to tell me what things mean because it is so hard for me
to see them.” Well, that’s what you wanted from your father, for example,
isn’t it? There’s a lot of pain and tears in that sentence. But
the fact is, a psychotherapist can’t just “tell” you anything unless you
first express yourself. Psychotherapy is not simply an intellectual process. It’s
necessary for you to feel the pain. It’s necessary for you to feel that pain deep
and raw right in your heart. Then it’s necessary for you to express that
pain right in the psychotherapy itself. You couldn’t feel the pain in your family
because no one would listen to you and help you deal with it, and so, not knowing what
to do with the pain, you didn’t feel safe to express it. So, if it’s going
to be real and emotional, it’s now necessary for you to feel the pain with your
psychotherapist. That’s why psychotherapy involves more than just talking about
the details and facts; you must experience the facts. You must enter into the process.
You can hide details, but you can’t hide process. Like it or not, the process
of the unconscious leaks out through all your behavior. It will seem that your
psychotherapist is being mean to you—that is, doing to you what your father or
mother did to you all your life—when really your psychotherapist is bringing out
the truth about your family.
Furthermore, when you
recognize that truth about your family, and feel it in your heart—not
to blame anyone, but to be emotionally
honest so that
you can eventually
forgive
everyone—then you will stop blaming yourself in an unconscious attempt to earn
your family’s acceptance.
In the mean time,
go ahead and let your anger out at your psychotherapist, because then you will find
that you want to blame your
psychchotherapist as part of the false belief that, in
order to alleviate your emtional hurt, you must change the behavior of those who hurt
you. But blaming others only poisons your own heart. So, instead of falling into blame
because of what you’re feeling, seek to understand the meaning of your
feelings. Speak about them in the psychotherapy itself so your psychotherapist can help
you recognize and understand the unconscious origns of the deep emotional pain behind
your anger. Then, when
your anger has been resolved, you will able to live honestly, without blaming
anyone.
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advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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