These days I am painfully aware that the field of psychotherapy is struggling under the weight of demands for quick fixes – demanded both by insurance companies and by the public in general. The truth is that we are culturally conditioned to expect the brightest, shiniest, most perfect-est products at half the price and delivered within 30 minutes or less. We all want the quick fix – this is why chocolate, alcohol, drugs, and binge-watching TV shows are so popular. When someone says she’s depressed (or complains that her co-worker is a bitch, her husband is a jerk, and so on), it’s very hard to explain – in a quick, convincing way, why doing deep emotional work is worth the trouble and the expense, why it’s worth it to look deeper into those feelings. We want to give that person a cookie, a drink, or a hug, and hope they “feel better”. Most of us really don’t learn that there is any other way.
I do it myself at times – act on the wish to make some problem go away. It’s painful watching someone suffer, and the wish is to make it go away for both that person’s sake and my own. But beyond that, deeper than that, I wholeheartedly believe in the enormous potential of psychoanalytic work. It’s not just so that you can feel better, have someone to talk to, or even stop drinking – although these are indeed important. But in my heart of hearts, what psychoanalysis is really for is to find the connection to one’s own truth and to have the real possibility of owning it and living it in the world. That all sounds beautiful and poetic – so let me get more specific with an actual example.
I started Psychoanalisys while my Exchange in Ireland, around rain , cold and a child care job, I have been always interested in discovery myself and why some things happen to me, also a have a big interest in knowing people and their thoughts .
"I studied in a brazilian course for 2 years, and since then, I am in love with that knowledge, with the past of the days I was discovering myself and why the things always repeat in my life, I undertood about my mother and father , their ways, about why them do what they do. I got so much learnings about life, relantionship, love, friendship, my work, my family, and why I am who I am.
This studies changed my mind and help me to be a better person, helped me to have good relationship with people around me. (Sheila)"
This had such a profound effect on me that I became an analyst myself, in the hopes of offering as many people as possible these experiences of a different relationship, one where they’re cared for and held, while having their erroneous beliefs gently shaken up and reworked. A quick-fix won’t do it – it took years for us to get our personalities wired the way they are, and it takes a long time for them to get rewired. But it is so worth the energy, sweat, tears, and money, as well as countless people’s personal experience, points to the truth that there is no substitute for true, human connection at the level of the heart.
I won’t bother trying to convince the insurance companies of all this. I just hope to appeal to the people out there who are wondering why they keep picking partners who are wrong for them, who feel terrified whenever their boss comes around, who suffer with nightmares, who have shoved away their grief because their families implicitly demanded it, and who have lost all sight of ever having their own authentic life. To all of you I say: please, for the love of something deep within you, find an analyst who fits you (that’s important), and do the work. You won’t be alone at it (maybe for the first time in your life!), and you will get something you really and truly cannot get in any other way.
Psychoanalys studies.
by,
@lifebysheila
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