Since the collapse of TMSR in February 2020 and the world’s turn to hysteria in March 2020 I have found myself directionless. Living on tilt. Around the New Year a lovely young lady invited me to go on vacation with her. During the vacation she suggested I try therapy because "clearly someone hurt you"...
Therapy starting with two interview sessions of an hour each spaced a week apart. I made it clear from the start that I was looking for concrete behavioral interventions that could help me strengthen my weak spots with the aim of becoming a more effective person. It wasn’t until the end that she sprang the trap and declared she only does “psychoanalytic” therapy but she expressed confidence she could help. Instead of following my impulse to flee after having been defrauded out of two hours of my time, I decided to trust.
For several weeks therapy consisted of little more than venting over my dissatisfactions with the present, I fell into a trap. After discussing the cleaning I had been doing at the time, she asked if the home I grew up with was clean and organized. It had been anything but.
Having penetrated into my formative years with that question, more questions followed. All of a sudden I could trace all of my worst, most handicapping tendencies to traumatic experiences. My efficacy was thereafter compromised. I was routinely trapped in profound self pity from the end of the Thursday sessions through Mondays without any ability to extract myself of my own power through means other than waiting.
Beatings, the use/abuse of my 5 or six year old self during an overnight stay at the grandparent's place, I did not need my present attention full of this shit.
I didn’t need to remember any of this, but the therapist, Carolina, pushed me into this repeatedly instead of addressing any of my problems in the present. She was happy to sacrifice my ability to function in the present in favor of forcing me into parts of my past I wanted no part of.
Only after despairing during a session that none of this shit is fixing anything did I get referred to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist prescribed firing the therapist.
The world's been rather dark since the Republic fell.
On the bright side, welcome back to blogging, BB!
Thank you
IMO alcoholism and other self-destructive behaviors result from the internalized voices in your head of people in your past who wanted you dead. It can help to separate out those voices from your own. It can also help to give the offenders a chance to make a sincere apology and cut them out of your life completely if they don't because if they don't they're not going to stop trying to hurt you.
I can't help but note the differences in AA's attitude towards resentments and the psychoanalytic approach. AA told me to let go of resentments as they came up while the psychoanalyst felt the need to rub my face in all the piles of resentment shit littering the sidewalk of my mind with no regard for how close my attention was to encountering the shit in the present.
My conclusion is that the psychoanalytic approach is a form of snakeoilmanship. The game for the snakeoilman playing this is to accumulate as many marks/patients as they can and farm their captives for emotional dependence. The enterprise is seeking rents out of people desiring a guide on the path to wellness, but instead of pursuing wellness the snakeoilman drags the mark/patient through traumatizing experiences to cement a "therapeutic bond" between the snakeoilman and their mark. Thusly bonded the snakeoilman ensures themselves regular rents from a low turnover population on marks/patients.
Understanding how our past shaped us is how we understand our biases, and understanding our biases makes us more efficient.
While not directionless, I fail to meet my goals at the speed of what's apparently an unrealistic expectation. I felt better when I realized it didn't make me happy, so there's no point lamenting it, because there be no alternation which would make me happy, that I see.
I've also had some therapy, and found it useless; my woman therapist laughed at me, at least once. The advice I'd give would be to join an Internet cult, as I've done, but that's what the TSMR was. For what it's worth, I've found some joy in long-term works to reverse some damage done to myself, as best I can. I've also, surprisingly, found some joy in producing art for groups of Internet strangers. Since I base so much of my life around computers, having something different has been a great help, and a precious source of lasting joy.
I also suggest no longer taking advice from women.