The present is the melody, the past is the harmony

I thought I’d try to write some of the clip-art, stock-photo, Muzaky, cloyingly truistic, feel-good, shake-hands-with-your-lobotomy fluff that one can read in all the other psychology and therapy blogs. To rejoin my cohort. Let’s . . . . go! –

I.

I once had a client who, seven or eight years old, while her mother was beating her with extension cords, kicking her and breaking bones, brute-forced this attitude into her mind: “I look forward to when I’m a grown-up.” This detached her from the moment and all the similar moments, a dissociation she bolstered with a rosy smile. Forty years later, her face looked like a tan balloon with a red grin painted on it. Her voice was cheery, always. She was perky and her ideas were jackhammer positive. Except when she had depressed breakdowns and could not stop crying.

Think of the good things in your life, milady! Your dedicated husband, your children. Forgive your mother, because forgiveness pacifies the heart. Cherish the lessons you have learned from your past. Join a support group of women who have struggled through adversity and stand, arms joined, on the mountain top. Get exercise and research good nutrition.

II.

The nineteen-year-old knows why his girlfriend left him. “I’m an asshole! I didn’t treat her well.” This is the kind of insight that heals. As Dear Abby said, ‘knowing the problem is half the solution.’ Add to this his awareness of where his personality came from: “My father is a jerk.” His father, with whom he still lives, denigrates everything he does and says. The atmosphere has been shame for the past fifteen years.

Heed today’s Psychology Today blog: “If you only look at negative things, then those negative things can become a part of your personality, and that may keep you in an emotional bind where life becomes more difficult than it needs to be.” “Holding on to pain is normal, but it is also normal to let it go after an appropriate period of time.”

It may be appropriate to wonder: Where on the clock are the hour hand and the minute hand when pain and injustice, depression and anger, lack of love and failure to grow evaporate?

Isn’t it worth asking –

When does the past fall behind us? Probably not five minutes or half-an-hour ago if something consequential has happened. If a distraught partner slaps your face, you may let it go quickly if you have understanding or if she is stunned with regret. But if she slaps you again, isn’t it a bit too “zen” to say you forgive the first but not the second? What of the first and second but not the third?

The essence of bad psychology is the belief that our mind exists in the present moment, that its thoughts and attitudes and feelings form in the conscious now. This is the conceit of the hider, the runner, the counselor who eats dessert first and never gets to dinner. He has painted a smile on his face because he’s conjured a positive thought, and he anxiously wants you to do the same. Even if he is one of those who accept that childhood matters, he wants to believe that because the present covers the past, it has won the battle. We are in the now – we win!

There is no reason to believe this if we realize that our eyes are old, that our mind is rooted in memory, our impulses are related to our earlier impulses, and our developing may have stopped decades ago. That growing up doesn’t change the harmonies nearly as much as it does the melodies. That old feelings emerge and tint or spoil the moment. That though the body’s knowledge is subliminal, it’s a magnetic reservoir informing everything. Including our identity. Sometimes we can see that while our adult doesn’t feel like our child, it can feel like a poor or sad or angry answer to it. And from that, we realize there hasn’t been much winning.

I will always have a terminal problem with contemporary therapists and their work, as long as they believe the anesthetist is the surgeon.