As revealed in my private practice, one of the most trepidatious acts for people seems quite simple: To begin.
We can take a “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” approach. I frankly believe there’s a time and place for that type of intervention from the therapist, but it must be earned. It should occur only after achieving careful understanding of the issues at play.
And what are the issues? What keeps a person not from reaching their potential but merely reaching toward their potential? And what helps begin this process?
Our pile of repression
Inside us is a voice that likes to say many things. Many strange things. In fact pretty much every one of us would be terrified to let another person know all the things that go on inside of us.[1]One of the profoundly liberating goals of psychoanalysis is to help the patient “say everything.”
The best stand-up comedy works in no small measure because it says these very things—and then gets us to laugh at them.[2]This act of converting our drives and longings into something palatable by way of the arts is called sublimation.
Our codes of morality seem largely designed to manage these absurd parts of ourselves. This conditioning starts very young and makes sense on a societal level. But on a personal level it can be harmful.
We recede more and more into a state of isolation, burdened by the shame of our thoughts and feelings, increasingly convinced that the world will reject these hidden, unspoken parts of ourselves.
Sexual fantasy, including so-called perversion, past deeds, aggressive impulses, forms of prejudice, sensitivity to and obsession over “stupid shit” (like the opinions of others), a fear of humiliation, mounds of guilt, self loathing, a sense of incompetence.
All of this then lurks inside us, an unreleased and ever-accumulating pile of repression. This is what holds us back.
Psychotherapy and beginning
One of the greatest gifts of psychoanalysis is its ability to have a dialogue around all these topics and issues. Whether you agree with the Oedipus Complex or not, at least Freud helped make it possible to consider we might want to fuck our mothers and harm our fathers.[3]Freud is by no means the be-all end-all of the field he helped establish. Psychoanalysis has a long history of robust debate and evolution of theory, including on matters such as sexual and … Continue reading
By sharing the deepest, darkest and scariest parts of ourselves with another person who’s trained to handle the material the patient is relieved of this burden.
It is not confession. It is not predicated upon the belief that what one is saying is sinful. One is merely talking, and relating.
This tolerance from the therapist allows the patient to also cultivate a tolerance around self. From here one is now able to live again within one’s own skin and to move freely through the world.
This includes beginning. In fact, the act of beginning has already occurred—repeatedly by way of the therapy. Each act of talking authentically about the self has itself been a beginning of the most profound sort.
From here one may begin again, in all the ways one chooses.
Notes, etc.
| ↑1 | One of the profoundly liberating goals of psychoanalysis is to help the patient “say everything.” |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | This act of converting our drives and longings into something palatable by way of the arts is called sublimation. |
| ↑3 | Freud is by no means the be-all end-all of the field he helped establish. Psychoanalysis has a long history of robust debate and evolution of theory, including on matters such as sexual and aggressive impulse. |