transference healing

Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am home again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am whole again

~ The Cure

Question:

I was listening to an interview with Françoise Dolto, a famous French child psychoanalyst, and she said that transference* was necessary for psychological healing to take place.  Do you think the same is true for adults?

Great question!

First of all I agree that, yes, in order for therapy to be healing, transference has to occur.  It works the same as an infected wound.  It has to be opened in order to heal again.  In psychological terms, this means regressing to the emotional stage when a trauma first transpired.  Transference facilitates that process. 

But there are various paths to healing.  Psychoanalysis is one path, but it is long and arduous and does not work for everyone.  EMDR is another path.  EMDR facilitates regression but without transference onto the therapist.  It is immediate and effective, but it is not a path that is suitable to complex relational trauma.  Couple therapy is IMHO the most promising path of all.  It is relationally-based, accessible to anyone, and more efficient than psychoanalysis.  Why?  Because, if we are in a love relationship, we have probably regressed to exactly where we need to be in order to be healed from past wounds.  Transference, in other words, has already occurred. 

That said, not all wounds need to be treated with therapy.  Getting hurt is a normal part of human existence and, given time, most wounds will heal all by themselves.  

"The way out of suffering is through it."

~Anonymous

*transference is the unconscious projection of feelings (usually those felt for a parent when one was a child) onto another person, causing the transposition of past interpersonal dynamics onto the present such that one’s childhood drama is re-enacted.

healthy wealthy and wise

I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so.
~ P.D. Wodehouse

Question:
There's a pressing question bugging me right now: I just bought a book from Dr. David D. Burns, a psychiatrist and, in one of his chapters, he addresses the idea that people who find peace and joy within (as much as people with social skills and self-esteem) are the more desirable to the opposite sex. OK, cool, no biggie, I can work on that. But here's the problem: a study made in Britain by the Social Issues Research Center states that women are mostly attracted to wealth, power and material possessions. Not that it's contradictory but- because I have no money, no power and wealth- how the heck am I to prevent myself from falling flat into the water? So now I'm wondering what's the use, what's the point? How am I to better my odds and social skills and confidence if all the opposite sex wants is money and power?!

Answer:
I understand your  frustration in trying to figure out "the truth" about all this so you can use it as a guide in your social interactions.  Unfortunately, scientific studies do not necessarily reveal the truth, let alone approximate it, and for this reason can be very misguiding if you try to turn their social studies into social practice.  How does the author of the SIRC study objectively measure power and beauty anyway?  These are subjective evaluations, a matter of personal taste that vary from one individual to another.  Even wealth cannot really be objectively measured (say in dollars).  Compared to most countries, our country is currently wealthy in water.  It's all relative.

In a nutshell, my advice to you would be to stick with David Burns and chuck the SIRC study; if you find that improving your social skills also improves your self-esteem, keep doing it!  Self-esteem will definitely make you a happier and more peaceful person.  It might even make you  more money!

breathe

Listen, are you breathing just a little

and calling it a life?  

~Mary Oliver 

So many parents come into my office stretched beyond their capacity and can hardly cope.  Yet when I suggest they set some boundaries, get some rest and take a breather, they often fiercely protest: “I can’t.  I feel too guilty!” 

We think that being a good parent means constantly sacrificing our interests to our child’s.  One father I know cannot touch a meal before all of his children have eaten.  He’s only too happy to walk away from the table hungry, provided all of his children are full.  

Self-sacrifice is not always what our children require.  Our actions should be love-driven not guilt-driven.  Granted, a good parent puts a child’s needs above their own whenever necessary.  But it is not always necessary.  In fact it is sometimes contra-indicated.  You cannot be a good parent if you are over-tired, cranky and listless.

Love means being there for your child when you’re needed.  You have to look after yourself so you can do that.  Like the flight attendant reminds us every time we fly: put the oxygen mask on yourself first, and then on your child.

worry wolves

An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life.
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight between two wolves.  One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."

Many people suffer from being torn between opposing forces inside of them.  Some of them experience these forces as good versus evil.  Others experience them as rational versus emotional.  Still others experience them as impulse versus self-control.  It is not always a moral fight, but in all cases there is suffering because of an inner struggle.

I see this most frequently in people who worry too much.  Worry tends to manifest as regret or indignation, guilt or apprehension, feeding thoughts that make you feel worse and worse: “I did not do right by my daughter today”, “How dare he say that to me!” or the perennial, “What if… ”.  These kinds of thoughts do not make you any wiser.  They won’t buy you more peace of mind.  They can’t undo what has been done.  They just fatten the worry wolf.

To have peace of mind, to act wisely and do the right thing, you have to feed peace, wisdom and righteousness. Not worry.  So don’t worry.

how could you?

The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to someone we love is little better than infidelity.

~ La Rochefoucauld

An affair is a symptom of a marriage that is not working. There may not be enough intimacy, affection or sex, communication may have broken down or a baby or child may be taking up a lot of time and attention. In all cases, at least one of the partners is not satisfied. Usually it is the person who has the most trouble asserting themselves in the marriage.

The guilt around having an affair, even just the thought of having an affair, often eclipses this reality. Guilt is in fact why needs may have gone unmet in the first place: you feel badly about having them and don't assert yourself until it is too late. That is why your partner is shocked to learn of your infidelity. “I had no idea you weren't happy”, he tells you, “why didn't you say something?”

Infidelity is often attributed to moral depravity in the face of temptation and its antidote to the exercise of self-restraint. But is that what holds a marriage together? Is that love? I like to quote Spinoza on the subject. He defines love first and foremost as joy but “with the accompanying idea of an external cause”.

Fidelity is really all about mutual satisfaction.

mental anorexia

Parental over-protectiveness can become overbearing.  It can quash the process of separation and differentiation which, like birth, are necessary for a child to come into her own.    

If a child cannot successfully individuate, the child’s will goes underground and may seek expression in deviant or self-destructive ways.

Anorexia is an example of this.  

The refusal to eat harks back to the rejection of the breast and the impulse to self-wean.   When a parent’s need to nurture trumps a child’s need for independence, the child has no recourse but to reject the food of love.  This can be transposed to social expectations and can manifest, for example, as the refusal to swallow Mom and Dad’s rules.

This kind of refusal is more common than anorexia in boys, possibly because boys differentiate from their mothers earlier at the level of their bodies.  Just like anorexia, however, the more a parent tries to cajole a child with preaching and sermonizing and speeching and yelling, the more the child resists being nurtured and controlled.  

Success usually only comes after failure.  That is why an anorexic girl is often cured by hospitalization, and a delinquent boy by school failure.  Unprotected by his parents from the consequences of his actions, a child is finally free to find the motivation from within.

a note on EMDR

ripeness is all
~ King Lear; Shakespeare

EMDR is a powerful adjunct to therapy. When used at the right time it can be just the thing that will move someone out of stagnation and into complete recovery. In terms of inducing an immediate and thorough turnabout in a person's frame of mind it is really unparalleled compared to any other therapy I know.

Sometimes, having heard of the powerful transformations facilitated by EMDR, people come to therapy requesting it like a drug. “I need EMDR to make this bad memory go away,” they might say, thinking that EMDR is going to remove it like a surgical intervention. Or they might think that it can be used like a magic wand to bring repressed pain to the surface to be expunged without having to feel a thing. That is sadly not the case.

EMDR is not a cure. It is a way to help process painful memories so that they become less intrusive in our everyday lives. Although it provides a rapid way to gain insight and resolution over nagging problems that may have had their hooks in us for years, it does not undo the past or change who you are. It merely enables your natural ability to grow so you can adapt to the challenges in your life at your optimal capacity. The growth still depends very much on how ready you are to move on.

Just as a seed opens and blossoms in its own time, so too the human spirit. EMDR is a kind of ripening agent, like Miracle-Gro. No more nor less.