Retirement

 This post is a belated announcement of my retirement from the practice of psychotherapy. After 18 years of doing work that I love, of being blessed with the opportunity to do this work, and by the many people who allowed me the honor and the privilege of working with them in the deepest sharing and intimacy of the therapeutic relationship, I'd like to express my profound gratitude, humility, love and appreciation.

My prayer for all of you is for your continued growth into the experience of self compassion, self care, and dedication and surrender to your most true and irresistible good.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

May all blessings surround you; may all experience be for your benefit and for the benefit of others; may you know peace, and love, and comfort and delight.

Amen.


http://www.mdavid-lpcc.com

Self-Compassion: The New Most Important Theme In Therapy

 I've been involved with contemplative and devotional practices for most of my life. Various kinds of prayer and meditation are central to how I live, so it's no surprise that I'd be drawn to any psycho-therapeutic modality that is rooted in these kinds of activities. Combining this with my17 years of professional experience, and my personal journey of healing over the last few decades, brings  me to the most exciting confirmation of my inclinations and efforts.

Dr. Kristin Neff, PhD, is a research psychologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
She has been actively spearheading the field of self-compassion research since around the turn of the century, and has written or co-written many articles, chapters and books on the subject, including the one that I'm most familiar with and excited about. It's an audio course (or alternately, a hard copy book) called Self Compassion Step By Step: The Proven Power Of Being Kind To Yourself.

She covers a lot of ground in this 6.5 hour audio course, including many guided meditations, along with her speaking about the various elements and attributes of self compassion, myth correcting, research proven beneficial effects, and overall desirability of this generally radical kind of relating with oneself. One of the most important points to be made, and one of the perhaps newest old ways of thinking about healing, is that there is far more benefit to be gained by changing the WAY we relate with ourselves, rather than becoming fixated on trying to change the WHAT of our experience. And the way that is clearly proving itself to be the most beneficial all around is the way of self compassion.

I'm strongly recommending that you buy the audio course - I favor this over the book because of the guided experiential exercises it contains - and spend the time listening to it and working it. It has been available from
Amazon for $11.49 as a digital download in their MP3 music section. I feel safe in saying categorically that this may be the best eleven dollars you will ever spend.

 http://www.mdavid-lpcc.com

Shadow Work: Oh Boy!

Here's a nutshell in which to understand a lot about the psychological shadow, its effects, it's needs, and some of it's dangers:

The shadow is whatever is present and active in the psyche, but out of consciousness. Out of consciousness may mean I've never been aware of it, or I'm in denial of it, or I've somehow managed to push it aside for reasons usually having something to do with fear/terror, an inability to acknowledge that which is repugnant (or even "too good") about oneself, survival, self image, or the like. We go onto automatic pilot.

The way it usually works is that, that which we do not have available in the light of consciousness will make itself known in indirect, destructive, judgmental, accusing, blaming, hurtful ways in our relationships. We will "project" onto others as qualities they have that which we cannot/will not see or acknowledge in ourselves, or we will react to what we see in others but will not see in ourselves. When this happens, all kinds of undesirable effects follow, from hurtful remarks in intimate relationships to worlds at war. Awareness and personal responsibility are what is required to shift these destructive  behaviors and effects.

This is, of course, deep work. We will and must, inevitably, confront truths about ourselves that we are loathe to confront. We will undoubtedly discover qualities of ourselves, thoughts and feelings, that we have not wanted to admit. That we have, perhaps, spent enormous amounts of psychic energy holding far out of our view.  This does not mean that we are or will be defined by these discoveries, but that we will need to allow for them, embrace them, understand ourselves in  new ways based on this new information, and also then be freer to make choices about how we conduct ourselves in the world.

Matthew's website

Client Age And Decision Making Skills

As in the rest of life, it's not too difficult for us "more mature" therapists to look at all those much younger folks and be able to notice instances of what we might more critically call foolishness, and more generously call, perhaps, inexperience. An example:  a young adult client came to therapy routinely, ie., about half the time, late. Our sessions took place in the morning - the only time our respective schedules matched up - and this person is not a morning person, so getting up and out for morning activities is challenging under the best of circumstances. In any case, I found it therapeutically necessary to broach the subject of late arrival on two occasions, separated by a few weeks. Clearly the first discussion had little impact on the client's behavior, or on the client's awareness of why this behavior might be problematic, or on what the behavior might be communicating both to me and to the client. The second discussion, which occupied an entire - shortened - session, ended with the client's comment that it still wasn't at all clear that this behavior was a problem, or that the client wasn't yet convinced of the importance of the subject at all.

Hmm. Now, we talked about things like personal responsibility to one's obligations - as in a client's obligations in a therapeutic alliance; about what demonstrating either a respect for or a lack of respect for one's own and for a therapist's time and commitment might look like; about what might be getting communicated non-verbally by the behavior; about possible feelings and attitudes the client might have had regarding authority, in particular male authority. This client wasn't especially self aware, and much of our work together was focused on developing various aspects of self awareness, which the client acknowledged was helpful and useful.

Of course, young adulthood is loaded with all kinds of challenges and growth opportunities, and the reality that developmental progress requires time cannot be forgotten. At one point in our second discussion the client said that they were starting to feel "attacked, and punished". You'll have to take my word for it that there was neither any attacking nor any punishing going on from my end, which makes this comment especially informative. And we did talk about it. Part of what became clearer to the client, I think, was that it was the client's responsibility to make decisions about their behaviors, not mine, and that it was a part of my responsibility to point out possibly self defeating behaviors. I believe that this realization was somewhat startling to the client.

Here I was, a male authority "father" figure, being uninterested in either criticizing or "punishing", and in fact articulating and supporting the young adult client's right to make and responsibility for making their own decisions. This is true for any client, of course. My musing in this post is about a way this particular theme might present itself in therapy with a younger client in therapy with a much older adult, and about how clearly it might appear that the kinds of awareness and skills required to be able to make such responsible decisions
isn't in any way a given, and about how clearly it might appear that the maturity necessary to be able to make such decisions does, indeed, often, come only with age and with experience.

Like the young substance abuser or addict whose behaviors can be clearly seen by others to be self destructive, but who is "sill having fun", the time simply has not arrived, and the awareness and skills have simply not yet developed to be able to make responsible decisions regarding their actions. Ah, perhaps it is after all oh so very true that that most precious of conditions, youth, is indeed wasted on the young.

"Part Time" Therapy: Yes Or No?

By which I mean, as a client, coming to therapy on alternate weeks, for example. People ask me about this not infrequently, and over the years I've experimented with seeing people less than weekly, almost always because of the client's stated concern about cost. You might already guess just from the title of this post that my opinion of such an arrangement is less than a enthusiastic one.

Really, I think this "part time" approach to therapy  is based in an essential misunderstanding of the nature of therapy, and of what one might hope to gain from undertaking a "course of treatment". I suppose there might be exceptional circumstances under which, for example, it might be appropriate to take only a partial course of say, antibiotics, rather than the usually prescribed full course. Three days rather than seven or ten, say.
Similarly, I suppose there might be what I'd consider exceptional circumstances under which a partial experience of psychotherapy could be acceptable. But let's put these exceptions aside, for the sake of this discussion. Under ordinary circumstances, why would a diminished approach to therapy be problematic?

Let me list some possible, or even likely, reasons:
avoidance; inefficiency; power/control issues; loss of focus;  self sabotage.

It seems to me to be a no brainer to understand how coming to therapy less than weekly could be easily used by a client to simply avoid the real reasons for coming to therapy at all. More time between sessions, more time to become distracted, more time to "forget" to do assignments, more time to lose focus, more time to avoid. Which includes all the other reasons listed as well. Such an approach is simply an  inefficient use of therapeutic time and resources; not that I think efficiency is a value unto itself. It so happens that I do not. However, a failure to consider efficiency at all, is also a mistake.

And then there are the over arching themes of momentum and consistency in therapy. These qualities of a therapeutic experience seem to me to be important and desirable; perhaps necessary for effective therapy to take place.

My conclusion:  nah. Not worth the time or effort, as a rule. Save your money and go have a lovely night out or a weekend away instead. It would probably do you about as much good.

My Website:  mdavid-lpcc.com

Either/Or, All/Nothing, Black/White - Simple Mindedness

Are we, by nature, simple minded? Are we "educated" into simple mindedness? I'm using the term here in a way that links it to/is perhaps identical with, the well known characteristic of all addiction oriented personality structures. Extremes. No, or very little awareness of or orientation to the immense gray zone between the extremes. In other words, blindness to most of reality.

Do we simply operate this way because we have little choice, that is, because we are made this way? This seems to be an important question, since the experience is so wide spread, almost universal, and it may therefore be concluded, apparently logically, that we can't help ourselves. I suggest that the logic is indeed only apparent, based on "appearances", and not on substance. I suggest that the experience becomes almost a universal human one because it is cultivated almost universally. That it, the preference for simple mindedness is at least a somewhat deliberate choice, attached to at least a somewhat deliberate strategy of "selective reality propagation" by the ignorant who routinely govern, rule, control, propagandize, and otherwise determine (or at the very least, strongly influence) the material and psychological reality of virtually everyone else. Since these people are routinely the same - with regard to the limitations of their grasp of reality - where ever and when ever they occur, the blindness and ignorance they both live and propagate is routinely the same. Hence the appearance of a universal human experience, supposed to be based on "human nature".

One obvious problem with this logic is that there just as routinely appear exemplars of a much more deeply and broadly reality based, healthier, more creative, more collaborative, more peaceful, more humane, more compassionate and ultimately more sane way of seeing and living, who show up to put the lie to the propaganda. We of course routinely ignore them, for the most part. The propaganda has been, and remains, extremely effective, to the point where its message has been internalized as "the truth" for all time and in all places. It's just human nature. What can one do?

I'm especially interested in the confluence of psychology and spirituality/mysticism. Those points of intersection between the findings of psychological investigations into what constitutes mental health and basic sanity, and the perennial teachings of the world's spiritual/mystical/contemplative traditions. Happily, in my opinion, these points of intersection continue to appear and to expand, until the two realms become, virtually, identical. The Emperor - the controllers, the power intoxicated, the "reality" determiners - has always been naked, despite his insistence on the glory of his new suits of clothes. Fortunately, we have the ability to listen to the folks who point out this discrepancy. That we do not do so more routinely is perhaps our ultimate, and fatal flaw.

Matthew's website

Why Do We Change?

Is it because someone asks us to? Is it because we are ordered to? Is it because we recognize good reasons to? I suppose that all of these are reasons that people change, and no doubt there are other reasons as well.

My experience is that people change because they are afraid of something (or someone), because they are tired of the effects of current behaviors and want something better, because love dictates it, because they are in some way unhappy with themselves and what they are doing, or not  doing. Fundamentally however, it seems to me that we change because we finally truly want to, at least partially. That is, there may be a part of ourselves that really does not want to, but a larger part of us does. Without this internal desire, nothing really changes significantly.

In therapy, change can take place like this: at first there is simply unhappiness, ineffectualness, discord, trouble, or pain, and one seeks out therapy as a way of getting help. It isn't always understood, strangely enough, that if things are going to be different, going to change for the better, it means that you, the client, will be making changes in yourself. This realization may dawn only gradually, and then the pace and the means and the manner of making changes comes into play more explicitly.

The experimental phase of therapy may begin here, in which you now understand the benefit of doing things differently, and you have some commitment to doing things differently because of these benefits, primarily to yourself - there is this level of healthy selfishness, of course - but also to the others around you, and to your relationships and living generally. Trying new approaches to behaviors, perhaps struggling with strong feelings that would lead you back into the old ways of doing things, challenging yourself, building new strengths, all enter the experimental stream. And slowly, real change takes place, not only in what you do and how you do it, but in how you think about yourself and others, how you speak, and also how you now feel differently, and feel better.

Matthew's website

Personal Health And Social Health: One And The Same?

Gandhi:    BE the change you want to see in the world. What does this mean? And what are some implications in terms of mental, moral, spiritual health?

I take it to mean that each person, individually, is required to act in ways that embody the principles of health and welfare, not merely for themselves alone, but for the larger good of the "community" as well. Jesus:   love they neighbor AS THYSELF. This isn't an either/or proposition, but a joint venture. Loving myself - truly, not the version we commonly see that is founded on self indulgence and greed - is a foundation upon which I can hope to built and enact love of other. We're all included.

These principles are consistent with the principles of mental health that I routinely see in my practice, in my clients, in recovery from addictions and from trauma, for example (which includes basically all of us). The importance of community in the healing process is well known and well established in recovery treatment.  Health is not an isolated experience. It occurs in community, in relationship. Social health, the health of society, is inextricably linked to individual health, family health, business health, political health, and cultural health. And vice versa. The notion that I can be healthy and whole, morally, spiritually, mentally, emotionally or even physically, without a direct connection to and with a  larger society is a delusion. In Systems Theory, the health of the individual and the health of the larger "system" within which she functions are recognized to be linked. We see this in stark and often difficult terms in therapy when an individual, for example, attempts to become sober from alcohol or drugs within the context of an actively addicted or drug abusing family structure. It doesn't happen. Imagine a young man of, say 20 years, addicted to heroin, sent to "counseling" by the court, let's say. This young man's family has made their living from the sale of drugs for at least a couple of generations, and still does. His father, let's say, died from a heroin over dose. He remains very closely connected with his family. He will not be able to become healthy within this context. Is this a surprise? It shouldn't be.

Moral health, spiritual health, and mental health, all require consideration of the dynamics of relationship. And not merely the relationships closest to me: my spouse, my children, my extended family. These of course are of great importance, and at the same time they are not sufficient to circumscribe the measure of health. When people come to therapy (voluntarily), it is always because they are in some distress, and they want relief from the symptoms of this distress. Naturally. They often do not make the connection between what they are seeking, and the nature of their relationships. But of course everything we do is within the context of relationships (this includes one's relationship with oneself), and so trying to understand one's own health/welfare/well being without understanding its connection to ones relationships is absurd.

It is not a big leap, in my view, to begin to understand that ones relationships are limitless. I am related to and with everyone else, ultimately, and so in some genuine way these relationships have to be taken into account. This understanding and this consideration is the intersection of social and personal heath.

http://www.mdavid-lpcc.com

The Accumulation Of Wealth As Mental/Moral Illness

Lately I've been thinking, again, and talking more actively, about the fundamentally diseased nature of our capitalist economic structure (E.F. Schummacher talked about small, localized capitalism as viable, and I tend to think he was right; he was also basing this thought on a  fundamentally spiritual/Christian model of values, including justice and service, but any spiritual path worth its salt would, and does, say the same)  based at its core on the exploitation of natural resources and of people, and on the active oppression of people for the direct and exclusive benefit of a tiny elite. This has certainly been the history of the United States from its inception, and of the colonization of the New World before its inception.  The current "affluent" way of life of many North Americans would be impossible without these activities. What we take for granted is only possible at the expense and misery of enormous populations around the world, endless wars and the incalculable suffering that they entail, and the systematic and clearly unsustainable pillaging of someone else's "property", land and culture. It has never been any different under the similar social and economic models of any previous empire's rule. We have historically supported, and we continue now to support, either overtly or covertly, brutally oppressive puppet regimes. We justify this by declaring that otherwise some "socialist" or "communist" or "people's" or "populist" regime would gain power and threaten the sacred American way of life ( by which we mean the obscene profits of American based multi-national corporate conglomerates). Too bad for those folks who may have democratically elected one of those populist regimes.

My focus recently has been on the "ordinary" accumulators/controllers of wealth: the so called middle class. My hypothesis is that - and I thank Howard Zinn for the inspiration for this line of thought - the middle class relentlessly pursues the same set of values and beliefs that energize the  elite, engages in the same self indulgent feelings of entitlement that they do, makes the same kinds of assumptions about wealth and poverty and opportunity and responsibility that they do, and thereby directly supports and actively collaborates with the injustices and atrocities which are consistently perpetrated by the ruling elites. As with any addictive system, denial, delusion, and deception - both self deception and the deception of others - flourish. The usual smoke screens are employed in order to divert attention from the real, and ultimately very personal, issues. It's the politicians' fault. And making any corrections is their job, not mine. My responsibility
is limited to casting my ballots at election time, or to giving charity to those "less fortunate" than I. I see this as no  different from the perhaps apocryphal quote attributed to Marie Antionette regarding the poor of France: if they have no bread to eat, then let them eat cake.

In a just economic structure, there would be no need for charity, for the casting of self-redemptive crumbs to the poor. In a healthy economic structure, with mental and moral development recognized, valued and supported, all would live comfortably and well, poverty and oppression would not be necessary and required components of  the social system, and, recognizing the direct and unavoidable connection between my excess accumulation of wealth and your misery would engender self imposed, internally generated limits on the level of superfluous luxury that I "enjoy".

I'm not talking about entering into poverty. This is not required. It is clearly possible for you or I to live quite comfortably, to get all our material needs met, to enjoy a graceful and fluid way of being in the material world, without the accumulation of excess. My current, admittedly arbitrary number is a quarter of a million dollars. I cannot see why anyone would need more than this. Ok. Keep your house, if you're among the fortunate who have one, and have another quarter of a million dollars besides. If you disagree with this number, please explain to me how you justify having more. Is it fair to say that 90%, or 95%, or more, of the people on the planet could never dream of having this much "capital" at their disposal? Why should you? Doesn't this make you one of the elite, with all that that implies? By doing do, I suggest, you are selling your soul - and your mental and moral health - to the devil of delusion, self indulgence and complicity. Why not keep enough to live well - a quarter of a million, let's say; and you can even build back up to that level as you spend, or not - and give the rest away? Radical, I know. But given the realities as I've described them, what real choice is at all viable?

I'm not so naive, or stupid,  that I think that by doing this an over night miracle would occur in which all economic disgrace and suffering would be eliminated. That's not the most immediate point. More to the point is the personal recognition that one's own current economic/financial circumstances may well be contributing directly to that disgrace and suffering, and that it is within one's power to make a choice for full spectrum health, a concept that includes not only one's personal health, but that recognizes that one's personal health is intimately tied to the health of the planet and that of  "the least of these". Otherwise, certainly one has no grounds to stand on from which to complain, and I'd suggest that the possibilities for well being in general are severely compromised, if not made impossible.

In the Buddhist tradition this way of looking at things may be analogous to the distinction that is sometimes made between the Hinayana (or "lesser") path, and the Mahayana (or "greater") path. In the former, one's concern is for one's own enlightenment/liberation/awakening/deliverance alone, where as in the latter, one vows to renounce one's final liberation until all sentient beings are liberated and delivered from suffering (along with the intention/vow to actively contribute to this liberation and deliverance), thus recognizing that one's own happiness and in fact sanity, is ultimately and inextricably tied to everyone else's. In the Jewish tradition there is the teaching of Tikkun Olam, or "repairing the world". Each of us has a responsibility to contribute, in genuine and meaningful ways, to this repair, again, recognizing the full implications of how our own actions, beliefs and assumptions affect all others.

http://www.mdavid-lpcc.com

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.

 mdavid-lpcc.com

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.




mdavid-lpcc.com

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.

mdavid-lpcc.com

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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