Thanks, Hops--
At this point in my career, I choose to shelter myself from the usual therapist “lines”—so it is disturbing to see what publicly passes for “good therapy”. Apparently, I disagree, on a fundamental basis, with most therapists. Maybe someday I’ll write about it on the Board or in the Essay section of my web site.
In the example described in the Times above, one (a therapist) could say (if one felt it): " It is agonizingly difficult to cut oneself off from one’s parents no matter how awful/abusive they are to you." What does saying this do? Plenty.
1) It tells the truth—one can look at it in terms of survival value.
2) It tells the patient you absolutely understand.
3) It lets the patient know you understand them in a way their parents (and often, nobody) ever did.
4) Because you understand, it reassures the patient that you could never treat them the way their parents did. Trust/attachment grows and as a result:
5) You gradually become more important to their emotional survival than their parents and they, therefore, can let them go.
Recently, a long-time patient got a very important and prestigious promotion. I was thrilled and I told him so. And he said: “You know, I didn’t even stop and think how my (abusive) father would have reacted.
Such is therapy.
Richard
