Sacrifice In Healthy Relationship

I keep being reminded, or is it confirmed in my conviction that, in order for an intimate relationship to be successful and for it to last - you can call this "marriage" if you're so inclined, or "partnership", or whatever other designation seems meaningful to you - the two parties involved will need to come to understand the nature of commitment. And then, having developed a new understanding of commitment, they will need to be motivated to learn how to provide for the "care and feeding" of the relationship as a living, vital, vulnerable organism which has needs and requirements that at times will be different from those of either of the individuals involved in its care. Understanding this concept leads quite naturally to the idea that a sustainable and healthy committed intimate relationship requires sacrifice. For some, perhaps nowadays for many, this will be the kiss of death.

 There. I said it. The "S" word. If we think of sacrifice at all, perhaps we think of it in terms of service to country. Of course there's a lot of emotion connected with the sacrifices that members of the armed services make. They are, in our national rhetoric, "heroes". Their sacrifices are matters of public record and laudability. They epitomize the very nature of sacrifice. Then there are the religious figures who make sacrifices in terms of poverty, chastity, celibacy and service to others, and again, we tend to be able to recognize these, and to respect them, or even to be awed by them. While both of these examples clearly represent qualities of sacrifice, they may also seem removed from our every day lives. They may seem remote or extreme.

 The sacrifices that I'm referring to in terms of intimate relationships consist of a range of behavioral and emotional responses and interactions that might not automatically occur. They might not automatically occur because we tend to become positional when there is conflict; because we feel strongly the need to be right; because we aren't able to defer our own immediate gratification in the service of the larger picture; because we are all conditioned, and this conditioning very often works counter to healthy relationship rather than in its service.

 Example: This couple likes to drink. They have always done so, and often they drink to excess. When this occurs they not uncharacteristically devolve into meanness, saying things that they later recognize as destructive and hurtful, and that they regret. This pattern is long standing, and much damage has been done to the relationship. They are presented with the idea that they cannot continue this pattern and also expect any improvement or repair in the relationship. The idea of a new commitment arises: they are both clear that they will not give up drinking, but they are both willing, for the first time, to articulate a commitment to drinking moderately when they are with each other in social situations, which is where the destructive behaviors occur. An agreement to try this "experiment" for two months is made. The good news is that they both recognize that when they do not drink to excess, they are much better able, routinely, to communicate well, to nurture the relationship, and to experience the benefits of these behaviors. This new agreement can be said to constitute a sacrifice on both of their parts, in that they will need to give up something - excessive drinking - that they like to do, in the service of the health and welfare of the relationship, which is coming to be seen as a higher priority than it has previously been.

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Occupy Wall Street - The Revolution Is Love

Here's a video that you might want to see. It articulates, in a brief clip, the connections between the social/economic disaster that our culture has permitted, and the psychological/spiritual foundations of a sane society. Have a look.




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Trauma 101, Part Three

So we have some context. Nothing happens in a vacuum, does it. No one is immune from the effects of his/her culture, even though many people believe that they are. And this applies whether that culture is one's country, one's religion, one's family, one's social network, one's vocation, one's friends, one's economic class.

But let's take these in turn, or the whole thing can become a bit overwhelming. People are used to thinking in terms of family when they think of psychotherapy, and this is for some good reasons, of course. We are born, most immediately, into a family context (defining "family" rather loosely), and it is this immediate and original context that will have some of the most influential effects on us. Some of the most personal effects. Even though the family is a carrier of the culture(s) within which one operates, a microcosm of the macrocosm of larger culture, the relationships between family members is the most intimate and effectual, right from the start. We are fed, cleaned, warmed, protected - or we are not - by some person or persons who constitute our original "family". We are completely dependent, incapable of survival without this connection.

Child rearing practices vary. Relationship dynamics vary. Mother/child and father/child norms vary. Expectations vary. Values vary. Ideas about what constitutes health and propriety and right and wrong vary. A look at some of the historically normal treatments of children in Western culture might suggest that children - like women - have been considered possessions,
liabilities or assets, depending on what work they could or could not be put to, just another mouth to feed, sent out to fend for themselves or to contribute to the family's survival as soon as possible. This sort of thing has multiple and often damaging implications.

We are accustomed to giving great lip service to the value and care of children, but the realities seem to tell the true story of our basic values. We dump our children into industrialized pre and public schools even before they can sit up on their own. We chronically under fund our public educational system and under pay our children's teachers. We squirm at the thought of providing basic, decent housing, health care, food or higher education to our children. Etc., etc., etc. Just look at where the money in our society goes, and where it does not go, and the value system we operate by becomes pretty clear.

All of this has profound implications for families, and thereby for children, and thereby for you and for me. I'm calling the value system that we operate by a system of inherent trauma. A value system that inherently traumatizes. A value system that undermines the fundamental psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of all of us. And we are all effected deeply, and negatively, by this.

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Trauma 101, Part Two

This is by way of pointing to the unidentified, every day traumas that we routinely experience as an integral aspect of the culture in which we live. I was once asked what I thought the most common unidentified trauma in American society was. I didn't have a ready answer, but the questioner suggested that it was medical trauma. You know, those routine and not-so-routine medical and dental procedures that we've all experienced throughout our lives. Those assaults to the body-mind that we're not supposed to be bothered by. (The one that comes immediately to my mind as one of the most disturbing medical traumas that I've experienced in the last few years is a prostate biopsy. When I asked the urologist who would perform the procedure if it would be painful, he said no, it wouldn't be any worse than a rubber band snapped on your wrist. Why then was I unable to sit up on the table when the chipper nurse assistant said "You can get up now"?. My reply was "No, I can't").

Having a tooth pulled or a cavity filled. Any surgery. Pokings and proddings of one kind or another. "Screenings" of various kinds. Of course, there are any number of other, non-medical every day traumas that we live with. I might suggest that even the very pace of life in the modern industrialized/digitized/cyberized world is itself traumatic. Have you ever stopped to think about the effects on your body-mind-spirit of driving your box of metal on the high speed freeways? We simply assume that this is somehow "healthy". But what kinds of psychic, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual adaptations are required in order to be able to do this regularly? And is it possible that at least some of these adaptations can be understood as traumatic? I would say yes.

This doesn't get close to the nature of intimate family relations, for example, which, given our cultural values and priorities, tend strongly, in my opinion, toward being abusive, neglectful, injurious, and, yes, traumatic. Yet we take this all for granted. We assume that our cultural mores are healthy. After all, isn't this the land of the free and the home of the brave? Isn't America (for example; the kinds of things I'm talking about seem to be at least somewhat universal) the best country on the planet? Isn't it the land of opportunity; the destination of the planet's disenfranchised, poverty stricken, sick, rejected and oppressed? And as the entire world has become Americanized, as our culture has become the model of desirability for the rest of the world ("The American way of life MUST be preserved!", we were told by our illustrious Secretary of Defense upon the impending invasion of Iraq), as the levels of industrial and consumer waste and environmental destruction have grown exponentially around the world, as the levels of air, water, and atmospheric pollution have risen to planet-obliterating proportions, are we still willing to assume that our "norms" are healthy?


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Trauma 101, Part One

Well, it's been a long while since I've posted anything. It now seems like there's something about getting "back to basics" that's important in making a new blog entry. The basic theme that I refer to is that of trauma and its effects, as well as the virtually ubiquitous nature of emotional, physical, and spiritual trauma in our culture. I see it as the elephant in the living room that doesn't get mentioned. Or, perhaps it's more like the unnoticed object which is hidden in plain sight. It's so "normal" that we don't identify it for what it is. Rather, we surround it with priorities, values, expectations and accepted norms so that it disappears from view. If it effects nearly everyone, it goes unnoticed as anything other than what's ordinary. We lose any reference point which would allow it to stand out from the background. The emperor is stark naked indeed, while we all insist that he is wearing the most stunning new set of clothes.

Boys don't cry. Girls are emotional. Families keep their private business to themselves. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Don't be so sensitive. Everything you need to know is in a literal interpretation of the authoritarian version of the Bible. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Patriotism means my country right or wrong, before all else. National geographic boundaries and borders are to be taken very seriously. Police are here to protect us. What's good for business is good for America. Right and wrong are obvious and simple, and something we can all agree upon. Etc.

A friend of mine who is a retired journalist, and with whom I frequently disagree about the importance of following the latest news reports, replied with "that's not considered news" when I pointed out that all we seem to get from the media is negative information, while there of course are other things going on in the world - positive, inspiring things. These other things are "not considered news" by our illustrious media, and are therefore not reported. Just take a moment to consider the implications of this "norm". It isn't difficult to see what a constant barrage of horror, war, violence, greed, corruption, crime, brutality, scandal, and other forms of power grabbing and self indulgence might produce. Did I say "might"? Sorry. I mean to say
"will".

This alone is a form of psychic trauma that we live with every day, simply by keeping up on the news. Do we call it that? Of course not. Do we recognize it for what it is? No. Do we take steps to protect ourselves from it? Mostly, we do not. Culturally we do not. In fact we do the opposite. Like my friend, we believe it is important to continue to abuse ourselves with this important information. We need to "know". We need to be informed. It's our civic duty. And so who in their right mind would suggest that we are being repeatedly traumatized by reading/watching/listening to the important news of the day? Nonsense.





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Proper Limitations of Talk Therapy, Part 2

Not everyone is suited, in my opinion, for success in talk therapy. One of the essential elements of successful talk therapy, perhaps the single most essential element and the single most important factor in determining therapeutic success, is the establishment of a strong therapeutic relationship. This is something that the therapist is responsible for fostering, and it is also something that the client must be capable of entering into. If a client is not so capable, or is capable only in significantly limited ways, the likelihood of successful therapy is reduced.

If a client is not especially capable of developing insight, or reflective self awareness, the likelihood of success is reduced. If a client is not particularly given to introspection; is deeply and powerfully invested in a particular world view; is committed to having to be right; or only wants to be told what to do, the success of talk therapy, at least as I practice it, is less likely.

Perhaps such people would be better served in seeking help through another of the modalities available, such as the ones mentioned in Part 1 of this post. Nothing wrong with that. And it might save disappointment if the best suited modality is entered into, instead of believing that only talk therapy can help.






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Proper Limitations of Talk Therapy, Part 1

It seems to me that over the last 25 years or so, with the onslaught of the managed care invasion of psychotherapy, one of the results has been a widening expectation of what talk therapy can do for people. It has come to be seen as a remedy for everything from front line crisis intervention aimed at perhaps saving people's lives (or preventing them from taking their lives), to rehabilitating people from the destructive effects of chemical addiction, sexual addiction, process addictions, work addiction and more, to providing solace and skills for dealing with grief, to healing the effects of trauma, to re-educating people who have problems controlling their anger, to providing a cure for domestic violence, to managing any number of socially frowned upon "aberrant" behaviors, to
teaching couples how to be in relationship in mutually satisfying ways, to keeping people with very serious mental illnesses from completely ruining their lives. Etc.

This is surely not an exhaustive list, but one that I hope helps to give an idea of the breadth of the expectations that have grown up around talk therapy.

Other kinds of therapies have grown out of talk therapy, because some of the inherent limitations of talk therapy have been recognized. We have the somatic (body inclusive/body centered) therapies which are aimed, often, at helping people resolve the effects of trauma; we have shamanic "therapies"; we have group therapies and psycho-educational "therapies"; we have movement and music and art therapies; we have "intuitive" therapies; we have the energy psychologies; we have all manner of body-mind therapies, including hypnotherapy, EFT, EMDR, and others.
Then there is always pastoral counseling; or talking to a priest; or making confession; or visiting a curandera.

I'd like to make an argument for the proper limitations of talk therapy as a healing modality. I don't think it's suited to the treatment of every kind of personal or relational distress, even though there seems to be at least something of this expectation now in the culture at large. For example, it's not at all uncommon - it is in fact the norm - for mental health agencies, and even for private treatment centers, to load up therapists with impossibly brutal case loads, expecting that somehow, some magic will occur that will allow these therapists to properly "treat" inordinate numbers of clients, presumably based on the assumption that talk therapy is a magical process whereby people are readily, easily, and probably painlessly "cured" of what ails them. The public, largely I believe because of the obscenely profit driven agendas of the gargantuan insurance monopolies, has come to believe this nonsense too.


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My Ideal Client

When you first are about to finish your masters program, the one that will lay the foundation for you to practice counseling, or therapy, I think there is a tendency to think that you can help everyone and anyone. There is, naturally, a combination of enthusiasm, hope, naivete, and maybe even confidence that conspire to support this illusion. I was fortunate enough at that time to have a supervisor who told me straight out that that would not be the case. Even so, it took some years of experience in the trenches, and of personal development, for me to understand really what he meant. I think I have a pretty good idea now.

One hopefully learns more about one's own limitations, one's real skills, one's personal preferences and needs; about the real nature of a variety of dysfunctional behaviors and conditions, about the importance of client motivation in making any meaningful changes at all - and let's remember always, that psychotherapy is about making meaningful changes, and not about maintaining a status quo.

My professional experience suggests that making changes isn't something that most people look forward to, or embrace enthusiastically, or even understand the need for. If I could tell clients that I could and would help them to remain exactly the same as they are, and still experience whatever benefits they think they're after, I'd have the busiest practice on the planet. A waiting list years long. People ready and willing to pay any fee I cared to charge. You see the point.

Of course (I say "of course", but I don't actually believe it's obvious, or readily understandable), this is never the case. I underline "never". So the older I get,
and the more experience I have, the more I sometimes feel that I perhaps ought to publish a list of criteria, of pre-requisites, or qualities that my ideal client will be able to meet, or will possess. This will avoid encouraging people who really don't want to make any personal changes, people who want someone else to change but not themselves, people who seemingly lack even the most basic insights or understandings about themselves or about their circumstances, from looking to therapy for help. Why encourage what is extremely unlikely? Why offer promise where there is virtually none?

So here's a list; a work in progress. I'm writing this as much to see what I'll come up with as to be of service to others. I admit my selfishness and my simple curiosity. Here goes:

A certain degree of humilty
A certain degree of willingness to explore
A certain curiosity about oneself, about people, about life
A certain recognition, even if vague, of the possibility of healing
Something less than a phobic avoidance of the likelihood of having to change
An ability to see oneself, even if only partially, as no better than anyone else
A certain awareness, perhaps, of the essential structural reality of relationship
A value system that includes concern for people beyond oneself and beyond one's
narrow circle
Ideally, at least a sense of the possibility of a Reality, a Truth, a Meaning, beyond one's small self serving agenda in life
At least a budding awareness of the importance of including one's feelings in one's life, as well as one's ideas
Some degree of capacity for and disposition toward the truth

This is enough for a start, I think. And of course, this is only my bias. Give me a call if you can relate.



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It's ALL About Relationship

In the end, at the end of the day, in terms of the bottom line (can you think of any other cliches along these lines?), it's all about relationship, and it is the force of something that might well be called love that holds the universe together. This is basic physics now, and maybe basic biology, ecology, sociology, psychology, medicine, neuroscience, and on and on. Of course it has always been basic spirituality, but not many have cared to hear this, and perhaps still not many care to hear. When I say "hear", I mean "structure their lives according to these fundamental truths".

More usually, or so it seems judging from the condition of the world, people are busy being ideologues, or chasing wealth, or accumulating stuff, or building the machinery of power over others, or showing off, or imposing rules and regulations, or missing the most essential points of what a genuine life consists of in any number of similar ways.

Relationship. Of course there's relationship well and truly done, and then there's all the rest; the "norm", or relationship conducted cluelessly, self-servingly, manipulatively, dishonestly, selfishly (in the worst, not the best sense of that word).

Cooperative relationship. Collaborative relationship. Interdependent relationship. Mutually successful and supportive relationship. Win-Win relationship.

If these concepts are confusing, or totally foreign, or amusing, or ridiculous, or dismissable, or embarrassing, or in any other ways out of reach to you, I'm not sure what benefit you might derive from therapy with me.

I'm not talking about just being nice. This has value, of course. And it is far from enough to capture the meaning of the fundamental nature of the essential universal structure of relationship.

"Love" is a summary and an essential truth of life. It's not sappy, or sentimental, or mushy, or stupid or weak. It's the glue of all of existence. Including human and non-human existence. Including of psychological and emotional and spiritual and physical well being. Including of happiness. Everyone ought to be setting themselves the task of learning everything they possibly can about love, and most importantly how to implement it in their lives.

Loving relationship. With others. With self. The "stuff" of existence. Make it the center of your life.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dragomirnet86#p/a/u/0/Vw4KVoEVcr0




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I AM, The Movie

I recently saw the documentary movie I AM, written and directed by Tom Shadyac. This film explores questions about the neurobiology - the hard wiring - of the human brain and nervous system as it relates to violence, competition, cooperation and compassion, how the natural world functions regarding these qualities, as well as other questions pertaining to the development of human culture, economy, values, the good life, happiness, spirituality, and the state of the world. If this all sounds ponderous, I suppose it is, and yet the film manages to do all of this in very human terms, and with very personal and accessible meaning.

One of the interviewees in the film is Thom Hartman, a radio talk show host, former psychotherapist, progressive political thinker and author. Given my biases, I was especially able to relate to Thom's perception and language in identifying the view, among indigenous peoples, that behaviors such as the accumulation of more than one needs are a form of "mental illness". In the context of the film, and its examination of the rabid consumerism of contemporary developed society along with its implications and its consequences, this characterization makes a lot of sense.

Shadyac himself has become a reformed insane consumer, selling off his gargantuan accumulations - he had been an enormously successful director of mainstream box office smash hit comedy films - giving away much of his fortune, and pairing down his global and social footprint to include such things as moving into a mobile home park, and riding his bike to work. Here's a guy who is walking his talk.

So, we learn in the film that we are indeed hard wired for compassion and cooperation, and not, as we have all been taught to believe, for violence and greed and narrow self aggrandizement, and that Nature functions primarily according to these principles as well.

Oh, see the movie, and get a good idea of what mental and spiritual health consists of. Then do what you can to make the necessary changes in your life

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An Original Life In The Making

There is something deeply inspiring when a client realizes that she is on a course that will break fundamentally from some of the basics of what she has been taught and conditioned to, and that in spite of the difficulties that this presents, is committed to the journey at hand. Imagine, coming up against your history, your training, what is familiar to you, what you have seen and felt and heard modeled to you all of your life, and understanding that these norms cannot work for you if you are to be healthy and true to yourself, if you are to be able to experience the kinds of intimate and meaningful relationships you know you want.

At this point you are an artist of the highest order, engaged in creating your life in a form that is entirely new, unique and original. As with any deeply original creative process, there will be challenges, obstacles, and setbacks along the way. This is not a fantasy of some brilliantly easy and spontaneous creative inspiration, but something more along the lines of Thomas Edison's declaration that genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. You're going to have to work at it.

And play at it, if I might add. Not to give the impression that this wonderful creative enterprise is a grueling, relentless exercise of gargantuan effort alone.
The ability to laugh, to play, to tend the fledgling creation gently is of paramount importance as well. And, of course, it may well be to your benefit to have the proper guidance on the way.

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Grief, Vulnerability And Love In Marriage

She had just learned that an old friend, with whom she had had no contact for many years, had died 16 months ago. She was in shock. Why had no one told her, or her family, with whom this woman had also been close, that she had died? She was dis-oriented, vulnerable, confused, and, of course, sad. How could this great opening be a catalyst for the expression of love and support in a very troubled marriage? Or could it be?

If you've ever been present at a birth, or a death, you will know that these experiences and these times are portals into the realm of the sacred. What did I mean by that, he wanted to know? What did I mean by "sacred" in this context? An opening so raw and so deep that it brings you to the depths of your very being. A whisper's breath from God. Yes, he said. That was something that made sense to him. That was something he could feel in this experience of his wife's having been torn open.

How then could this shared experience be honored as an opportunity to provide some element of healing in this troubled marriage? How could it be embraced as a moment, and as a process in which to express the truth of the sacred in the form of the love these two people acknowledge that they have for one another? It would require the exercise of extra care and tenderness between two highly defended people who have a long history of violating one another's trust and boundaries, and of emotionally injuring one another.

I will try to be present for you, to be patient with you, and to not lash out in anger, he said. And I will try to ask for what I need, she offered. The empathic connection was there in session. Could they sustain it outside? Could the power of the sacred, and the power of love supercede the habits of defense and of anger that have dominated the relationship between these two sensitive people, even for a while? That is my prayer.

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Happy 2011

I'd like to offer my wishes to you that 2011 might be one of the best years you've ever had. Along with these good wishes I offer my prayers for an ever deepening awareness of the inescapable inter-connectedness of all life, of the universality of pain and distress, and of the most sane response to these awarenesses - compassion, for self and for all others. Also, may these awarenesses engender a broader and deeper
realization and practice of justice in an apparently unjust world. May we come to see and to experience ourselves more fully as responsible not only for what we each say and do individually, but as having a certain human responsibility for the welfare of all, as well.

It's ironic, and sad really, even deeply troubling, that people often believe that they can achieve happiness by focusing exclusively on their own well being, thinking that this focus need have nothing to do with anyone else in the world. In my work I see people who are in distress of one kind or another, and these people naturally want relief from their distress. It may or may not surprise you to know that whatever the nature of the distress you, or someone else might be experiencing, their is (almost?) always a common element. That element is about relationship. This is true to such an extent that some people go to the extremes of total, or nearly total avoidance of other people in order to try to diminish or eliminate their distress. Others of course go to the other extreme of seemingly limitless and indiscriminate interactions with so many people that a true sense of order is impossible, this also in an attempt to control and/or avoid their own distress.

What both groups of people, and many people in the middle zones as well, fail to see or to understand or to value, is the inescapability of relationship, even if it is "only" the relationship one has with oneself. In the colloquial formula, wherever you go, there you are.

For 2011, may we all come to see, to understand, and to value, the incomparable richness of, and the inevitably present nature of relationship, and may we all come to understand that the only sane, rewarding, viable, sustainable, life affirming, happiness promoting approach to all relationship is one of love and compassion, in the strongest and most liberating meanings of these words.

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