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 have committed a crime repeatedly.
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. I feel awful having to talk about
that. Do you think it’s 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, or your children.
In a similar way, trying
to get rid of problems with psychotherapy is a “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
psychological task is to realize what a huge mistake your crimes have been, and to
realize how you have used them unconsciously to mask deep psychological pain and
despair from your childhood. When you can talk about your past crimes 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 in individual psychotherapy.
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