Psychotherapy: A Place To "Dump"?

So is this beneficial to me?, she asked, after a long session of sharing her life and work. I'm not inside you, I said, I can't say. What do you think? Yes, she said, it has been beneficial. It's helpful to have a place to "dump".

I confess: A part of me cringes when I hear this. Is that what psychotherapy is about? A place for people to "dump" their "stuff" (or more graphically, their "shit"), as in, turn it over to me so that they imagine that they are now free of it? Well, I know how I answer this question: of course not. And yet...............

there is clearly some benefit for people, initially at least, in realizing that they can talk candidly and in some depth about their lives, about what they struggle with, about, for example, being sometimes morally compromised on the job, and that they will not be judged or criticized for this. For new clients especially, this experience is often unique and perhaps unprecedented in their lives. As an early step then, it has benefit, and this benefit is palpable. Also, it helps to set the stage for a pattern of exploration that will no doubt go deeper
as the therapeutic process proceeds, and can provide (almost) immediate feedback about the potential inherent in this process.

I suppose I can relax some about the implications, to me in any case, of "dumping".
My fear is that a client will imagine or assume that this dumping is all there is to it, and that by doing this, they have actually done meaningful therapeutic work, when, in my view, they have only introduced themselves to a possibility. Really though, when there is sufficient motivation to continue, the nature of therapy will become more and more clear, and the necessity to participate in other, perhaps more challenging ways will become so also.

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A New Look At The Role Of Psychotherapy In Society

OK. I'll go out on a limb. I'll say that "mental health", in its deepest sense, cannot exist without an active psycho-spiritual orientation toward the welfare of others.

This would then logically extend to an active political and social orientation in this direction; and to an active "environmental" orientation of this kind as well.

Mental health in this deep and broad sense cannot exist in a psycho-spiritual, socio-political, environmental vacuum. Is it mental health for a species - in this case humans - to actively and knowingly destroy its own habitat, its own means of pro-generation, and the possibility of its own continuation? I'd say it is not, and in fact that it is a form of insanity.

Now, in light of the way I am defining mental (psycho-spiritual/emotional) health, what then is the role of psychotherapy? What is its legitimate scope? What are its legitimate questions and concerns as regarding the individual, the couple, the family, the species?

If you suffer from anxiety, for example, and you do not see yourself as a small manifest extension of a much larger and much greater system of existence, a system which has direct and inevitable effects on you, the small individual, it will be more difficult, I suggest, to 1) understand your anxiety, and to 2) do anything genuinely healing/remedial about it. If you suffer from depression, and have not been able to achieve relief through bio-chemical treatments alone, and also do not understand your depression in a cultural/experiential context, it will be more difficult (impossible?), I suggest, to 1) understand your depression, and to 2) do anything genuinely healing/remedial about it.

If your marriage is strained and struggling because you and your spouse don't seem to be able to talk to each other without slipping into another self defeating argument, and you lead your lives dedicated to a system of values and beliefs that by its nature opposes collaborative relationship, how will you be able to remedy this dysfunction?

The idea of systems in psychotherapy is nothing new. I think we have not taken this idea far enough, nor understood its implications thoroughly enough.

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Who Are Your Heroes?

Of course we are motivated and inspired by those we admire most. Who are the inspirations in your life? And what is it about them that inspires you? Who are your real heroes? Who do you aspire to emulate?

The prospect of mental health, happiness, or wisdom is more or less likely depending upon the kinds of people we truly look to as models for our own lives. Some models will serve us well in this quest, and some will not. It may be obvious that having, say, the Son Of Sam, or Hitler, or Lindsay Lohan as a role model will not lead to mental health. It may be less obvious that having, say, some of our parents, our civic/political leaders, our religious leaders, or our business leaders will also not lead to mental health. Indeed, it may be shocking to consider that having some of the most respected and revered members of society as our models might contribute to mental illness, foolishness or even insanity, rather than to health.

Without looking for perfection, we might still be on solid ground in looking for some sustainable commitment to integrity, to compassion, to tolerance and to genuine caring about others and about the world at large, in our healthier heroes.
We might do well to look for heroes who have the capacity to make sacrifices in the service of humanity. We might look for heroes who even make service to humanity a real priority in their lives. When I say service to humanity, I don't mean service to a privileged few - that ever touted but highly suspect value of "enlightened self interest". I mean something more along the lines of a real consideration of what some Native American peoples are said to call the well being of the next seven generations. All of humanity, not merely me and mine.

It is my opinion, professionally and personally, that the latter possibility is much more likely to lead in the direction of health, happiness, wisdom and well being than is the former.

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Psychotherapy And Values, Part Two

1) Mental health, in the way I wish to explore it, is not something that is defined by a majority vote; that is, consensus does not define health, it only defines agreement (and the emperor may still, indeed, have no clothes on, regardless of his kowtowing subjects agreement to the contrary).

2) Mental health may not be a given in any set of cultural or social circumstances.

3) Mental health may exist only relative to what is True, regardless of opinion.

4) If this is so, then it becomes necessary to search for and to discover what is True, and then to align oneself with this Truth in order to become mentally healthy.

5) Since what is True is not variable from culture to culture, mental health takes on a larger meaning than previously thought.

6) It is therefore possible to be situated well within cultural norms and expectations, and at the same time to not meet criteria for mental health. Hence the state of the world.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", said Mahatma Gandhi. This is a succinct expression of the difference between consensus and health; and of the foolishness - we might even say of the insanity - of merely following the crowd, or the cultural norm, or the prevailing value, when these are contrary to Truth.

The thing about the Truth is that, while it is the same everywhere, it becomes confused with relative, local, specific cultural forms of expression, and then these forms of expression are mistaken for the Truth, defended to the death, and imposed upon others. Confusion, rather than Truth, prevails.

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Psychotherapy And Values

How do you combine/reconcile spirituality with psychotherapy, I was recently asked.
What's the problem, I wanted to know. To me, they seem to be moving in the same direction; asking the same, or similar questions; aiming at the same, or similar conditions. Why would they be exclusive of each other? Where is the conflict?

Of course, this presupposes a rather broad and somewhat universal understanding of spirituality. I don't mean religion, or religiosity. I don't mean a dogmatic belief system. I don't mean particular rituals or ceremonies or styles of worship, or attendance at this or that house of worship. None of these things are of any particular interest in distilling the essence of what constitutes personal spirituality or mental health, happiness and well being. If you are engaged in something along these lines, and you want to continue to be engaged, go right ahead. Only be willing to notice where and when any of them might be leading you into distress, rather than toward health and freedom.

You must believe that Jesus of Nazareth is GOD, the only GOD, that he died on the cross and rose from the dead, and was immaculately conceived, etc., etc., etc. OR ELSE!!!

Nonsense. And equal nonsense with any other set of beliefs from any other religion.
What possible difference can it make, when you get right down to it, whether you believe this or that, while you are unhappy, unhealthy, behave badly, abuse yourself and others, go to war with anyone who believes differently from you, take advantage of those "weaker" than you, steal, kill, lie, and live an inner life of hatred, jealousy, rage, greed and self indulgence?

Give me an honest thief any day over a conniving, pin striped, neatly shaved and coiffed, self centered, power addicted public pillar of society. Woe unto you, hypocrites!
Etc.

And so we have health, and we have sickness. And sometimes one has to choose. And sometimes one has to make sacrifices for the former. So would you rather be healthy and happy and genuine and living a life of integrity, and relatively "poor" financially; or would you prefer to be one of the wealthy rapers of natural resources and pillagers of people throughout the world? For example.

Is the good life the American model of ever expanding affluence for the very few and now, ever expanding hardship for the many? Is it the ownership of government by mega multinational corporations and increased power and privilege for the wealthiest one percent? Or is it something different perhaps? A more equal distribution of resources; health care for all; education for all who want it; basic decent housing for all; care for all citizens?

This is, ultimately, about fundamental values of course. So, does psychotherapy limit itself to helping people adjust better to a profoundly dis-functional social and economic system, or does it dare to concern itself with the basic values of the life well lived? Hmmm.

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Living Sanely In An Insane World

Let's start with a premise: the world as we know it macro-cosmically is pretty messed up.

By this I mean that so called civilized humans throughout known history have not behaved much better, or at all better, than we do now. Greed, hatred, genocide, unspeakable violence, have been the rule, and not the exception. Wars are "normal" and constant throughout the world, and throughout history. Politicians are almost universally corrupt and duplicitous ("diplomatic"). Business (empire) leaders are universally corrupt and duplicitous ("self interest"). The so called strong take lethal advantage of the so called weak. None of this is new, or uncommon, or "abnormal" or aberrant. The fact that we are surprised by these things is astounding, given their virtually universal repetition throughout time and place.

So, it is perhaps not surprising then that people draw the conclusion that it is human nature that makes it impossible for things to be any different. So it would seem. I'll propose a different view: it is not human nature that leads to the repetition of all of this madness. It is in fact the shared delusion that we are in line with human nature that causes it. Human nature, if it be known, would give us the opposite of what we typically see. It would give us kindness, love, generosity, compassion, kinship, collaboration and cooperation, tolerance and appreciation.

The question then becomes: How can we live sanely, in genuine alignment with our real human nature, in an insane world? The world at large is insane. Leaders are insane with power and greed and control and avarice. Ordinary people buy into this insanity and conduct their lives as though they were models of health and goodness.
The real madness continues and spreads.

Doing something different then will not be an easy task, or a lightly assumed responsibility. Who will rise to the occasion?

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What Do People Want From Psychotherapy?

Why seek out a psychotherapist? What do people want and expect from such a thing? Here's what I think are the two reasons people seek therapy:

1) Relief of distressing emotional, behavioral or psychological symptoms; 2) help getting troubled relationships on track toward happiness and fulfillment.

That's about it. If there are no distressing symptoms (difficult/challenging/painful/confusing feelings; problematic/destructive/dangerous/self defeating behaviors; or some kind of serious and frightening distortion in one's thinking or perceptual processes), and if relationships are happy ones, people do not seek therapy. Why would they? It would be analogous to going to the doctor for treatment of a healthy body with no symptoms of illness.

In the broad field of psychotherapy generally, we like to use words like "distress", or "difficulty", or "self-defeating", rather than always saying "mental illness". This is pretty easy to understand, isn't it? People don't like to be identified as mentally ill. There's way too much stigma attached to this condition. Of course, sometimes it may be an appropriate term. I tend to think it should be reserved for extremely serious conditions. Otherwise, there is no need to overly pathologize people, or their states of being.

It is possible to expand the scope and meaning of psychotherapy to include explorations of distress from a more philosophical perspective. That is, something more analogous to wholistic healing, as distinct from conventional, symptom/crisis oriented allopathic medicine, which generally fails to consider the "whole person", and can thereby potentially create as many problems as it appears to resolve.

A more wholistic approach to psychotherapy would want to look at underlying psycho-spiritual causes of distress, as well as attempting to temporarily relieve symptoms
with partial remedies.

For example, is a person experiencing depression because of a chemical imbalance only, or might there be other important factors involved, like their world view, or unacknowledged, unrecognized, and unaddressed trauma or grief? One could take anti-depressants alone, and may or may not experience real relief, either temporarily or perhaps even more long term. Usually, however, anti-depressants alone won't do the trick. The combination of drugs and therapy has been shown in numerous research studies to provide the best outcomes.

But then we run into the problem that many people, maybe most people, want that all mighty Quick Fix, and then the prospect of self reflection, of self inquiry, of self knowledge elicits anything but enthusiasm. Oh what to do?

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"Start Where You Are"

One Buddhist(American) teacher, Pema Chodron, has a book called Start Where You Are.
This title says quite a lot about the nature of a psycho-spiritual approach to well being and wisdom that is in some fundamental way radically different - and I would say much healthier - from our more familiar way of experiencing the world and ourselves.

In this Buddhist view, the implication is that we can well afford to stop and look closely at ourselves, and that if we do this, we will probably not find something essentially evil or corrupt or bad. This is very different from our Western/Christian view of ourselves, which often is precisely the opposite; that is, that if we stop and look closely at ourselves, we will indeed find something evil and corrupt and bad. In the Buddhist view, we are essentially good, though ignorance and mis-guidedness can make things appear differently. In the Christian view, often, we are essentially corrupt, evil, "fallen", and our very existence is an affront to God.

It may not be too difficult to grasp the different psycho/spiritual/emotional implications of each of these world views. I have routinely seen the devastating results of the Western view in my work. Imagine the difference inherent in a more positive view of man, or get to know someone who's world view includes a more positive view of man, and a new world of psychic possibilities opens up. It might be appropriate to actually relate lovingly toward yourself, for example, instead of being burdened with a bottom line experience of self hatred.

What would change in your world if you were worthy, and felt that you were worthy, of love? What would change in your world if you were absolutely worthy and deserving of, and felt that you were worthy and deserving of nothing less than respect and consideration?

We like to think that our psychological and emotional makeup is difficult to understand. In fact, it is rather easy to understand. A follows B, so to speak. The implications of being treated this way or that way, of internalizing these messages or those about ourselves, of believing this or that about the world and about ourselves, are very clear. If you believe that you are most fundamentally bad, cosmically bad, bad in the eyes of God, you will feel and behave in certain fairly predictable ways, and these ways will not be conducive to your health and well being or to the health and well being of anyone or anything else.

Start where you are, even if where you are is pretty awful. The implication is that you can, ultimately, trust that because you are in fact good, good will come from your humble, confused, terrified starting place.

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Allies Along The Way

If you are a very sensitive person, and experience yourself as fragile at times, ie., easily affected by circumstances and by people, anxious, off balance, take heart. When first you can accept that you are indeed sensitive, it then becomes possible to employ allies in your efforts to regain a more balanced and easeful stance. At this moment I'm thinking of the use of flower essences or remedies as potentially very strong allies. Of course there are pharmaceuticals, and at times these are necessary and can be welcomed also as allies. I'm also thinking about meditation practice, yoga, regular exercise, and nurturing self care that is a regular part of your daily life.

Part of what can make implementing any of these aids more difficult is the resistance to accepting oneself as a "sensitive" or (perhaps more difficult) as a "fragile" person. These can be experienced as discouraging or demeaning terms. That's unfortunate, because that makes it more unlikely that you will take the next steps to help ameliorate these circumstances.

Think in terms of the idea of suspending judgment about yourself. If you can experiment with doing this, even a little, you will then be able to take a step forward toward self care. Don't expect an all-at-once solution. This is all on the order of step-by-step, over time. This of course implies the necessity of some discipline, some perseverance. Again we run into the effects of the industry of quick-fix propaganda, and the resistance to commitment.

But try, at least. Experiment. Have support for your efforts. Love yourself.

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The Necessary Grounds For Happiness

Self inquiry. Self awareness. Self knowledge. Let's not confuse these endeavors with simple self indulgence, or with narcissism. The former are inescapable if we hope to have any depth of happiness or inner freedom. The latter are forms of escape from the Self, and so lead to, or compound ones' confusion and despair and entrapment by the insatiable demands of one's personality or ego. Liberation from these demands, to any degree, furthers one's well being and one's experience of contentment and peace.

What do you think freedom consists of? Is it the freedom to choose from 117 different kinds of bread in the supermarket? Is it the freedom to amass wealth beyond anything you or your descendants will ever be able to spend, at the inevitable expense of numberless other people, and the environment? Or is it the freedom to "express" yourself completely, even when to do so would be harmful either to yourself or to others?

In (north) America, we like to take certain kinds of freedom for granted, like the freedom to not be a slave. Or the freedom to vote for "the candidate of your choice" in what now amount to bought and paid for elections/illusions. Or the freedom to experience financial ruin because of a health related crisis. Or the freedom to choose the person we will marry (unless we happen to be gay, of course).
Naturally, these sorts of freedoms, what we might call political or social freedoms, are important and valuable, and yet we see all too clearly - don't you? - that they do not, in themselves, in any way at all guarantee, or create the grounds for, happiness.

So there must be something else involved. (Back to paragraph one). Without self knowledge, only the illusion of happiness is possible. Yes, it may be a luxurious illusion, with all the trappings of "success", of (physical)comfort, of pleasure.
And yet, again, we see repeatedly - this may be the greatest gift of the information age; the ability to see over and over again how material affluence alone fails to deliver the promise it makes - how these things don't deliver what we believe they will.

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