On Solutions and Feelings

 

We could easily say our modern world is rife with problems. And we could just as easily say we’re obsessed with fixing those problems.

This shows up in therapy. After all, the patient and therapist meet to solve a problem (or more), typically presented in the opening moments of the first session.^[1]There are of course exceptions, and it should be noted the so-called “presenting problem” is dynamic, evolving as the patient makes new discoveries.

The therapist—often instantly and implicitly—is cast as an expert, endowed with a presumed ability to say or do something to move the person toward a long-desired solution, and a method for fixing their problems and therefore somehow them and their life.^[2]The therapist can often be complicit in this unconscious and delusional relational dynamic, which too often gets neglected.

This focus on solving problems is baked into the therapy experience.

And while arriving at solutions should be a focus of any good treatment, viewing things through a solution-oriented lens can also constrict the treatment.

Bypassing feelings

Many patients have a rapid-fire impulse toward fixing problems. Some will even directly refer to themselves as “a fixer.”

A fixer often acknowledges her ability with a mix of pride and discomfort. Pride that she possesses helpful tendencies and is able to act on them; discomfort that deep down she suspects this approach is fraught.

So what makes this tendency persist?

Solutions provide relief, a sense that something agitating, painful and anxiety-inducing has been put to rest. But this is temporary. New problems emerge and the pattern repeats.

Acting on an impulse to fix things^[3]This involves solving ones own problems, but more commonly it shows up in relationships where one partner becomes obsessed with solving the problems of the other. This is an essential element of … Continue reading serves another function. It helps in the avoidance of feelings.

A move toward feeling

Feelings are often frightening, so much so that they’re often felt as “too much.” When that’s the case repression occurs.

This provides relief but the constant act of denying, deflecting and re-directing feelings—an inherently biological and psychological aspect of ourselves—is exhausting. It also leaves us detached from ourselves.

That’s because feelings are our access point to our sense of reality. Without them a sense of self is lost, along with what one desires and needs. It’s virtually impossible to navigate the world this way.

So the work of the therapy often centers around regaining a relationship to the patient’s feelings.

The therapist is not an expert on this; the patient is. The therapist merely helps open a space so this process of exploration and reconnection may occur.

What’s discovered, often for the first time, is the patient’s inner world. This is a sacred and profoundly transformative process.

Once this occurs the patient is given fresh agency, the ability to discern which problems are truly theirs for the fixing, and which ones can and should be let go.

A performative self recedes and an authentic self emerges. Imagine for a moment how that feels.