I am
training to become a psychologist and wish to understand
my own frustrations of feeling remorse that I had failed a patient I was working
with; he didn’t want any treatment, yet he wanted a cure for his illness which
I could not give him. I found myself wanting to “rescue”
him.
This is a good question because it raises an issue that
speaks not just to psychotherapists but also to all
clients.
Years ago, when
I was a student, a reading for one of my clinical psychology classes raised
the question of whether or not a
“borderline”
client could be treated with
psychoanalysis.
Since I was in Lacanian psychoanalysis myself at the time, I asked my analyst
for his opinion about that issue. Predictably, he didn’t answer right then.
This was real psychoanalysis, and psychoanalysts don’t just answer any questions
that the analysand happens to ask in the moment. Nevertheless, in one of
our private seminars on
Lacan a few
weeks later, he gave his answer to the whole group: anyone who asks for
psychoanalysis can be treated.
Of course, you
have to pay attention to the carefully chosen wording of the answer. Anyone
who asks does not mean “anyone who asks casually” but “anyone
who seeks treatment by committing to do the work of it and is willing to
pay for it.”
Now, this is
a fair answer because it doesn’t rule out anyone for stereotypical reasons.
Nevertheless, it does rule out many persons because only a few are willing
to do the hard and rigorous work of psychoanalysis. And, by extension, this
same principle rules out many persons from any form of
psychotherapy
in general. Only those who are willing to take responsibility for their own
lives, and who are willing to work through the pain and
darkness of their
troubled psyches, can benefit from treatment. Or, as I say
elsewhere on this
website, when you want psychotherapy as much as you want to breathe, then
you shall have it.
Therefore, those
who ask for a cure but refuse treatment—that is, those who are unwilling
to take responsibility for their own lives and who are unwilling to work through the
pain and darkness of their troubled psyches—simply cannot be helped by
traditional psychotherapy.
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Still, consider
Jay Haley’s book called Uncommon Therapy; it’s about the
non-traditional hypnotic treatment provided by
Milton Erickson.
Erickson’s work demonstrates that, in some cases, even resistant clients
can be helped in spite of their fear of treatment. Therefore, it could help all
psychotherapists-in-training to be familiar with this work and to appreciate
it. |
Similarly, though,
psychotherapists who are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives and
who are unwilling to work through the pain and darkness of their own troubled psyches
will not be able to help their clients; instead, they will experience an overwhelming
urge to rescue their clients. Why? Because, in trying to rescue their clients, those
psychotherapists will be
unconsciously trying
to rescue themselves from the pain and vulnerability they don’t want
to see in themselves. And so they will bungle the psychotherapy.
Thus, that leaves you
with the task of using your own psychotherapy to get to the root of your desire for
the glamor of being a rescuer instead of accepting the slow and laborious work of a
healer.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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If
this website has helped you, then