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Bukowski's On Psychiatry

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Meh:
On grocery store speaker there was a poem that stuck with me. It was The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski.

I started looking up some of his poetry and then it brought me to this.

I'm thinking to myself that maybe I shouldn't post it, maybe it's offensive. Please don't take it that way if it doesn't apply or is not your thing.



ON PSYCHIATRY:
"What do psychiatric patients get? They get a bill.
I think the problem between the psychiatrist and the patient is that the psychiatrist goes by the book, while the patient arrives because of what life has done to him or her. And even though the book may have certain insights, the pages are always the same in the book, and, each patient is a little bit different. There are many more individual problems than pages. Get it? There are too many mad people to do it by saying, "dollars per hour, when this bell rings, you're finished." That alone will drive any near-mad person to madness. They've just started to open up and feel good, when the shrink says, "Nurse, make the next appointment," and they've lost track of the price, which is also abnormal. It's all too stinking worldly. The guy is out to take your ass. He's not out to cure you. He wants his money. When the bell rings, bring in the next "nut." Now the sensitive "nut" will realize when that bell rings, he's being fucked. There's no time limit to curing madness, and there's no bills for it either. Most psychiatrists I've seen look a little close to the edge themselves. But they're too comfortable...I think they're all too comfortable. I think a patient wants to see a little madness, not too much. Ahhhh! (bored) PSYCHIATRISTS ARE TOTALLY USELESS! Next question? "


When he says: there are many more individual problems then pages. Get it?

I like that part!

Made me think, does he mean each person has more problems then there are pages or that there are so many different types of problems.

I think he really means since every person is different each person gets to have their own unique problem.

But I kind of like thinking that I have many more problems then could even ever fit into THE BOOK. That way the whole idea of being cured is completely ridiculous.

Kind of takes the pressure off. The pressure to get cured.

At the moment it's reassuring to me to think that THE BOOK just doesnt fit everybody and everybodys problems. I mean I know that but it's nice to read someone else that thinks so.  

Sometimes I think to get cured would mean to erase me in totality. That fundamentally I am just messed up in an unfixable way and would require complete rebuild.

I mean, I identify with every thing that is "wrong" with me. I have become accustom to the unacceptable imperfect parts. Doesnt mean that I like them but I view the messed up aspect of me as ME.

I feel like the object of hate all of a sudden after writing that. Oh well. enough for now.

Hopalong:
whose hate?
that made me sad, that you felt a blast of hate.
Was it self-hate?
Well, of course...no, probably FOO hate.

I'm sorry.

For me, a great shrink is one who learned the Book really well, and has even some of their own pages that don't fit the Book, and have come to understand it's a dance...not just of diagnoses (bow, plie) but with flying darts and dreams and explosions and floods, and if they're good, their goal is to maintain compassionate contact with you, faith in you, while all that's happening and the Book's pages are fluttering around the room sticking to each other.

Maybe what you're describing, Boat, is a feeling that loving your "dysfunction" is the only way to defy hate and it's actually your way of loving yourself.

Maybe that's from demonizing your dysfunction. When it's really emotional weather. Some weather nourishes crops and some rips up the field. When one demonizes something one gives it a lot of power. It can keep on going and become a little god. When it's just weather. Rough.

I just think persistently visualizing yourself with a lot less dysfunction (not none) and persistently visualizing a peaceful safe artistic future, however modest...isn't the same as abandoning or not loving yourself.

Screw hate. That's just the crappy weather being given demon-status. Doesn't deserve it. Demons are junior gods, obsessed with promotion.

Hops

sKePTiKal:

--- Quote ---At the moment it's reassuring to me to think that THE BOOK just doesnt fit everybody and everybodys problems. I mean I know that but it's nice to read someone else that thinks so. 

Sometimes I think to get cured would mean to erase me in totality. That fundamentally I am just messed up in an unfixable way and would require complete rebuild.
--- End quote ---

I hope I can find a way to validate the above - without essentially disagreeing with Hops said, because I DO agree with her view. I've learned that what she's saying about this being "weather" is absolutely true.

On the other hand, I so know the experience of being able to entertain a belief Boat - that one is so messed up and essentially unfixable that the only "wish" one has, is to crumple up the paper, toss it toward the basket, and start over again with a new blank sheet of paper or canvas... sometimes, this was because I had the wrong definitions in my head, about just how "bad" a dysfunction is or isn't.

And I can also relate to the feeling of the dysfunction actually being part of me. In exactly the way you described - take the dysF out and I'm erased. In my case, it's a lifelong campaign of almost intentional self-harm/sabotage that would erase "me" if it were gone... or so I "feel" way deep down in my core self. It's like gum on the bottom of my shoe... I may want it off and work to get it off... but dang it... I can still feel that foot sticking to everything with each single step...

But you know what I'm beginning to think? I'm beginning to think that my dysF is actually my "voice" - a real one - it's a form of trying to communicate to other people how awful I feel/felt about myself, my experiences, my FOO... and she's like some fire-brand celtic warrior princess... trying to tell the whole world: THIS SUCKS! IT'S WRONG! HELP ME CHANGE IT!!

So I have been trying to help her. Something big shifted awhile back - before Irene - and I'm still studying it, trying to understand what is different... still can't talk about it anymore specifically than this.

Guest:

--- Quote from: Boat that Rocks on August 27, 2011, 01:47:26 AM ---ON PSYCHIATRY:
"What do psychiatric patients get? They get a bill.
I think the problem between the psychiatrist and the patient is that the psychiatrist goes by the book, while the patient arrives because of what life has done to him or her. And even though the book may have certain insights, the pages are always the same in the book, and, each patient is a little bit different. There are many more individual problems than pages. Get it? There are too many mad people to do it by saying, "dollars per hour, when this bell rings, you're finished." That alone will drive any near-mad person to madness. They've just started to open up and feel good, when the shrink says, "Nurse, make the next appointment," and they've lost track of the price, which is also abnormal. It's all too stinking worldly. The guy is out to take your ass. He's not out to cure you. He wants his money. When the bell rings, bring in the next "nut." Now the sensitive "nut" will realize when that bell rings, he's being fucked. There's no time limit to curing madness, and there's no bills for it either. Most psychiatrists I've seen look a little close to the edge themselves. But they're too comfortable...I think they're all too comfortable. I think a patient wants to see a little madness, not too much. Ahhhh! (bored) PSYCHIATRISTS ARE TOTALLY USELESS! Next question? "

--- End quote ---

Boat, haven't read / digested the other comments but wanted to say that the above made me laugh. And I'm sure it applies to many psychiatrists. Many are nuts. I've met a couple. They're both nuts. Small sample, but hey.

Meh:
Hiya,

This popped back into my head and it occured to me that if all 8 of the therapists I had been to were interviewed about ME and what they understood about me, in synthsizing their responses into a synopsis of all the counseling sessions...well I imagined that it would be very vague and impersonal, bland as if they really didn't know me.   

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