Thanks, CB, for the link. I enjoyed Ilana Simon’s post. Here are a couple of the issues it raises for me:
While from the outside, therapy looks like therapy (e.g. all therapy looks alike), my belief is: the sitting together with certain rules and obligations, while important, is ultimately overshadowed by the nature/personalities of the two people (not just the patient) in the room and the relationship that develops. In this sense, each therapy is a unique relationship between therapist and patient (my relationship with every one of my patients is very different). It is not, in some ways, useful to lump all the data together and call it therapy. Are some outside (some would call them “real”) relationships more conducive to “positive change” than some therapy relationships? Undoubtedly, but that would depend on the particular outside relationship and the particular therapy relationship. Both can have dramatic effects on the attachment parts of the brain—for better, and unfortunately, for worse. That said, for me certainly my marriage was more “healing” than either of my own two personal therapies, both of which did more harm than good—except that they taught me a lot about what not to do as a therapist.
I love great literature and therapy, too. But not for the reasons Simon suggests. I love both because each, in their own way, seeks the truth in ways unfettered by social appropriateness. And both foster connection around that truth (in literature, with the characters, and ultimately the author). In my “work”, this is probably as much a relief to me as it is to my patients. I only wish I had found it in my own personal therapies.
Richard
