A Ramble Into Change Making

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd visit and see where an aimless ramble might lead; or as one client calls it, "babbling". In reality, this "babbling" always leads to something meaningful, and unforeseen. Maybe that will be the case now.

The theme of how change might be effectively facilitated is an interesting one, and there seem to be at least two very divergent views on this. One being what I'll call the more common view, that change is best facilitated by some kind of active "assault", or effort in the direction of the desired outcome. If you want to feel less anxious, for example, you set about to reason with yourself, and even argue yourself out of the irrational ideas that you harbor that actually create and cause your anxiety. When once you've seen the light of this reason, and have managed to actively and even aggressively replace your misguided thoughts with more realistic ones - one's that accurately reflect a set of circumstances and conditions which would not lend themselves to distressing levels of anxiety - you will, naturally and automatically, so to say, feel less anxious. This strategy does indeed work, for some people, in some situations. I like it, and I use it, when appropriate.

Then there is the much less known or understood method which says that it is possible to take a more "passive", or, more accurately, a more contemplative or reflective approach to the situation, in which one learns, through practice, and through the development of the capacity for a heightened tolerance of distress, to be more accepting of oneself in all of one's moods and qualities, allowing the inevitable process of organic change to take place without too much interference.
There are some keys to the successful implementation of this approach, and they include the aforementioned capacity to tolerate distress, to "sit with" -as in sitting meditation, for example - one's experience, while learning how to let go of judgments about it and about oneself, and to relate with oneself and with one's experience more tolerantly, more forgivingly, more compassionately.

This method or approach makes certain working assumptions, of course, among them being the one that says that desirable change will occur in a context, in an internal environment, of kindness and gentleness with oneself, perhaps more easily, but certainly more gracefully than under aggressive terms. You could say then that this approach gives a higher value to this context/environment than the former one does. I like this too, in that the metaphor is closer to something like organic gardening than to field maneuvers. Let's pay attention to the soil in which we are planning to grow something wholesome and delicious. Let's cultivate it, prepare it with the proper healthy supplements, tend it and it's produce. Like raising healthy children. This will significantly increase the likelihood of a desirable outcome.
This method, it seems to me, is much more in accord with the urgently needed concepts of sustainability and conservation.

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Paradox: Beauty And Liberation

These days I seem to be more keenly aware of the necessity to be able to appreciate the reality of paradox, not only in life, but, of course, in therapy. Just yesterday, for example, I found myself talking to a couple about the fruitfulness of being able to recognize and somehow truly get the gist of this experience in their relationship. I'm not talking about an abstract conceptual understanding only, but an experiential understanding of what it feels like - liberating, if truly "grocked" - to embody the reality of paradox. A simple, yet, I think, powerful example: the necessity to be able to accept oneself (and one's partner for that matter) in a deep and loving way, with all of one's foibles and imperfections, while fully embodying the willingness, and even the necessity to make (healthy) changes. (Dr. Marsha Linehan has articulated this paradoxical imperative perhaps most formally in her Dialectical Behavior Therapy).

To me, this "truth" has a philosophical, ontological ring to it. It speaks somehow to the way things are in the universe, including how they are in relationships and intra-psychically. So, coming to appreciate this view of the way things are has important psychological, relational, and therapeutic implications, and might be used very effectively in these contexts. This relates to the notion that the truth actually does set one free, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, if it is fully integrated and experienced.

How different it feels, how freeing, to deeply understand that apparently contradictory elements in one's life, elements which normally create a psychological tension and distress, do not need to be "reconciled" or eliminated, but that they are in fact true simultaneously, and may both be allowed to be. A mundane, yet sometimes critical example of this in relationships: it is possible to love and relate harmoniously with a partner who has attributes and behaviors that one does not like, without feeling that one must insist that these attributes or behaviors disappear, and feeling perpetually frustrated when they do not. (There are, of course, limits. If the attributes or behaviors that one does not like happen to be something like abusive actions, or destructive addictions for example, then it may indeed be appropriate to insist that these change or "disappear").














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Existential Terror and Safety

There is a felt terror that underlies many common efforts to avoid contact with the deeper dimensions of the self. This can be called the existential terror surrounding death - or, more descriptively, I think, the sense that one will disappear, and cease to exist - or the terror which attends early experiences of neglect or abandonment by primary caregivers (which is, after all, the reflection of the very real possibility, known by the body in its wisdom, of its own demise). However one wishes to name it, this terror is a primal experience which requires a certain direct attention, and even some significant degree of conscious surrender or acceptance, on the way to re-establishing the total commitment to and reconnection to oneself that will be the basis for psychological integrity.

It is terrifying to approach this core, and the prospect is often associated with a belief that one will be swallowed up by the immensity of the experience. This fear is an exaggeration. One does not disappear, but one is transformed, which may be tantamount to the same thing in one sense at least. Who one has experienced oneself to be may indeed change very significantly.

In other words, with the proper understanding and the proper commitment, and, I will add, with the proper guidance and support, it is possible to approach this terror safely, and to not only survive this approach, but to learn to experience a depth of psychological freedom and wholeness that perhaps no other process will offer.

And yes, this does enter into the realm of the "spiritual", but let's not be too quick to define that realm in simple terms.











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How Is Change More Likely To Be Made?

The structures of personality are strongly built. They do not tend to be very flexible, or subject to easy change. Instead, they provide a concentrated base upon which a life can be established, developed, grown and understood. This is not to say that these structures are altogether desirable, or altogether admirable. They have their purpose.

When it is determined that these structures are not serving one as happily as one might wish, questions arise as to how they might best be approached, worked with, influenced, transformed or shifted. A typical response that one sees in therapy is the expectation, the hope, the desire, that they will be amenable to being discarded, and that this strategy will be, or ought to be, relatively easy, if only it is conceptualized properly, and the right intention is set into motion. This response is not usually explicit, or even conscious. It can be surmised though without too much difficulty, and brought into awareness so that it can itself be examined and reassessed for its relationship to reality.

Here's how that reality tends to look: in line with the first paragraph, the typical response, with its attendant expectations and hopes and desires, will need to be abandoned, and in its place what will be needed is a set of more appropriate and realistic expectations. Central to this new set of expectations will be the willingness to cultivate and develop a new kind of relationship with the offending personality structures. This new relationship will be one of friendliness and acceptance, forgiveness and humility, with regard to all of one's imperfections and flaws, all of those aspects of oneself that one instinctively wishes to discard out of hand.

This new relationship is actually motivated by very pragmatic considerations in the therapeutic context. It embodies the wonderful paradox that the kinds of changes one might wish to make will in fact be facilitated by an attitude of acceptance, rather than by hostility and aggression toward oneself. Indeed, the very act of acceptance and forgiveness loosens the inflexible structures of personality and renders them more amenable to the kinds of reshaping one might desire, while a strategy of aggressive self criticism elicits an internal and rather automatic response of defensiveness and tightness, thereby further strengthening the very structures one wishes to alter.

This is a surprisingly radical concept at first, and so is not as easily undertaken as you might imagine it would be.














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A Bit Of Reclamation

I had a client recently talk to me about how he is re-claiming an essential aspect of who he is, an aspect that he has been ashamed of, and that he has tried, for many years, to bury, or deny, or cover up with an assumed persona. The shame he has felt regarding this foundational dimension of his personality is in part the result of a rather abusive fundamentalist religious upbringing, the hell fire and brimstone variety, which although he could never truly accept it, still it had a profoundly formative effect on his relationship with himself. He has felt, all of his life, in some inescapable and horrifying way, BAD, or perhaps even evil - the orthodox terminology is, of course, sinful. Hopelessly sinful.

Now that he is in the process of learning to truly appreciate and even love himself - not egotistically, but with a genuine caring and kindness toward himself - he is becoming able to re-view his past, his family, his culture, and to begin to appreciate some of the qualities of this culture that are indeed central to who is really is, while at the same time, he is becoming able to separate out those aspects of his past that have been injurious, and to not, as it were, throw out the baby with the bath water.

Re-integration. Discernment. Healthy psychological and emotional - and, yes, even spiritual - boundaries.















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An Expanded View of Trauma

Let's clear up some of the wide spread misunderstanding about what constitutes trauma. For most people, it seems, trauma means war, or personal violence, or a car wreck, or rape, or other heinous treatment of one kind or another. Of course, these are indeed traumatic circumstances. Similar effects derive however from other, more common, more insidious forms of experience as well. Growing up with controlling caregivers, or with addicted caregivers; being neglected in essential ways as a child; being made to feel consistently wrong or bad; being consistently and offensively criticized; being shamed; being ignored or "tolerated". These and other everyday forms of traumatic experience can result in a personality that exhibits many characteristics of the trauma survivor, including chronic feelings of shame or abandonment, anxiety, depression, anger problems, compulsivity or obsessive thinking, low self esteem, confusion, sexual dysfunction, and fears of intimacy.

The traumatic profile can be subtle or it can be dramatically obvious. The effects of trauma can be sudden and acute, or they can be chronic and long established. Identifying trauma is not a matter of making comparisons (oh, that person has gone through so much more than I have), but of being able to recognize the effects in your life of previous experiences, and being able to name what is actually taking place. This then opens the door to a realistic assessment of causal links, and to a more realistic, common sense approach to treatment and to recovery.
















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The Dynamic Balance in Couples Therapy

On the theme of the proper "client" in couples therapy, let's talk a bit more about
the challenge of finding the dynamic balance of needs, preferences, personality styles priorities and dreams in a healthy committed relationship. Since we have proposed that the proper client is indeed the relationship, and not merely accommodating two individuals, finding this dynamic balance is an ongoing creative process requiring attention, awareness, willingness, commitment and skill, and not, as is sometimes imagined "automatic". In other words, it takes work.

Example: he often feels abandoned, unappreciated, disrespected and dismissed in the marriage, and as a result becomes either withdrawn or angry or both. She has a need for a lot of structure and personal space, and can be quickly reactive and curt when things aren't done the way she imagines that they need to be done. This dance goes on with slight variations, and it is difficult for this couple to catch themselves in the midst of it, in order to see the dynamics as they exist, and negotiate desired changes,

Negotiate. This is a key. Almost everything, we might say, is negotiable, in a fundamentally loving and caring relationship, and it is in these negotiations that the balance we're after will be found. So, in session, he drops down into the most emotionally vulnerable place I've seen him, and cries deeply while talking about his desire to be "held" by her, literally held, rather than experience the distance that he often feels from her. She is receptive, but also somewhat cautious or reserved about her receptivity. As we explore, she shares that she doesn't always want physical contact between them to have to end up in sex, which she says is pretty much what he wants.

I assure them both that the terms of contact can be negotiated so that both parties can be satisfied, and that there can be the win-win outcome that we always ideally seek. This will require enhanced sharing/communication between them, compromise, self awareness, realistic needs assessment and skills for meeting these needs, as well as a developing recognition of which needs can be met within the relationship, and which, perhaps, cannot.















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