Let me qualify what I have said about therapy above.
Say there are two warring children in one room. One, X, of them is often mean, nasty, and bullying. The second one, Y, is often submissive, angry, resentful, manipulates to protect himself since he perceives himself as weak, and often accusing of the other, sometimes unfairly so.
Now introduce a third person, say a teacher, in the room. The dynamics of how these two children interact with each other and the balance of power between them depends greatly on who this third person is. Situation A: If he is always sides with X, we have an explosively destructive situation, for X is a bully. Situation B: If he always sides with Y, it is still not a satisfactory situation, for Y is a good person and knows that he is sometimes wrong, he knows that he sometimes manipulates to get his way through, he is not always right, for no one is ever always right.
If you were a mother of these two warring kids, then you’d want a teacher in that room who was fair and wholesome.
Now substitute for X and Y two warring voices in my head. Until we reach the stage where we are able to become ourselves that teacher who is fair and just to two warring factions in our own head, we have to rely on a third party to broker that balance of power between the two voices.
Few of us will ever find friends or lovers who are skilled enough to stand jury to these two voices, who are committed enough to be there day in and day out for us in spite of our vacillations and sometimes us turning against them (for remember that what X proposes, Y disposes, and these two are still parts of myself.)
If I am trapped in a destructive relationship, it is akin to being in situation A. If I am in an environment such as this message board where I am always told how horrible X is, advised to always put myself and my needs first, told that I am unconditionally supported regardless of what I do, etc. it is akin to being in situation B. To a mother, neither of these are entirely satisfactory. This is why we hear two voices in many post and when one of the voices is criticized – like don’t feel guilty about your mother etc. – we often hear a ferocious defense from the poster.
I believe that therapy is of immense help in neurosis, characterized by conflicting desires within the individual. Until I am able to stop acting in ways that are harmful to myself, it helps me to have another adult look at the situation objectively and gear my internal dialogue a more objective level. In such situations, it DOES NOT help to be told, as I often hear on this message board, that do what you think is right for you etc. because I don’t know what is right for me. My problem is that I grew up in a household where I was taught to do what was precisely wrong for me, to trust the wrong people, so what feels like the right thing is often a very wrong thing for me.
I think that in our day and age, therapy is a most obvious route to dealing with neurosis, so why not try it out? Of course there are legitimate reasons to not try it out, just as there are as many excuses to not try it out. Why would we bring up excuses? Remember, we were trained to not do anything that rocked the boat, trained to do things that were very wrong and unwholesome for us, to feel guilty for spending time, effort, and money on ourselves.
IMHO, objections to therapy are legitimate when someone has been through therapy abuse, or lives in a country where T industry functions poorly, such as in many countries with managed health care, or when someone has a very strong presence, say a mentor or a guide in one’s life, who can fill in that role of an objective observer.
I can see why it would be difficult for October, who has been subject to therapy abuse and has undergone a lot of struggle to find a good T which seems to be difficult by and large in England, because Ts under managed care appear to function as representatives of the state rather than their client; I can see why relying on friends and support system would work for Brigid, because she is not at the moment in any huge crisis and has learnt by now to not beat herself up for her shortcomings.
What is right for Brigid or October or Marta may not be right for Plucky; what seems right to Marta may not even be right for Marta, so it won't be right for Plucky. Such is the limitation of relying solely on this message board for support -- we often take generic solutions that worked for others and graft them to our situation to justify our choices.
But to dismiss therapy offhand without giving it a shot, when one is trapped in a hurtful marriage, without any friends or family to fall back on, without ever having given therapy a serious chance, as in Plucky’s situation, simply does not seem like a sound decision to me.
Self-therapy becomes a viable option only AFTER we’ve learnt to protect ourselves from being pulled in to destructive situations and say NO to abuse. Otherwise, is it not likely that the same voice in your head, which led you to run away from healthy relationships in the past, will not entice you to make similarly destructive choices again?
Of course you may find out, even after having given a serious trial to therapy, that it does not work for you. It takes a process of trial and error to find out what works for you and what doesn’t – such is the nature of the beast. For all you know, you may find out that what works for you is meditation or social service. But at that stage you will be armed with a real knowledge of who you are and why therapy doesn’t work for you, so it’d be a step ahead because you’d also have dealt with this strawman in your head who keeps raising objections whenever you try to do something different to get out of this rut, by saying you don’t have the time or whatever. But to sit at home with nothing and no one to rely upon except for this message board and those two voices in your head is to keep playing in pretty much the same ring you’ve played in all your life. As Mr. Anonymous sez, “If you keep doing what you always have done, you will end up with what you already have.”
Recommendations: Karen Horny has written a series of excellent books that may of special interest to you, especially on the tyranny of the shoulds. Another thing I’ve found very helpful in understanding life stages is the ox-herding pictures from Zen. They talk about enlightenment, but can be applied to any psychological awakening. Here’s a link.
http://www.shambhala.org/dharma/ctr/oxherding/ox1.html
