Roots of depth therapy

We have to live in the now – we are in the present, yet we’re not. Mostly what makes us adult is that we believe and want to believe that we are. That is no poetry. Most of us have escaped to the cognitive plane, usually by mid-adolescence, and it is that zone of thought that features the adult delusion.

Like Narcissism, which is a feeling-generated thought platform of uniquely special perfection, the adult argument will evaporate if the thought is set aside. Then we will feel – the body, with its near-infinite molecules of sensation and emotion most of which are historical (after all, the present is a split-second abstraction). The key factor of human psychology and depth therapy process is that the earliest parts of this history must be the foundation, the root system of the person. History moves on only when its lessons are assimilated. Pain – pandemic and almost a law of human child nature – prevents that from happening. Cognitive conceit, which keeps us in the adult realm, believes we chose our college major or our career or our spouse or our political or religious beliefs or even “to be happy.” The body’s molecules will show us, if we read them, that our childhood injury led to that major, that career, that abusive partner, that ideology, that temper, that sacrificial character, that humor, that sophisticated cynical ennui, and to whatever we actually feel once the stimulating experience or positive thought or mantra or mindfulness moment passes.

Just as what we must be (in the now) and are (largely in the past) form a paradoxical unity, so depth therapy is a paradox of theory and practice. I help clients feel better and be stronger (mostly as the resilience and buoyancy of improved self-esteem), but this can’t happen without unearthing the demons and death of their childhood. That is, making a damaged childhood more real than it was (many childhood feelings were buried before they could be fully experienced, but may emerge years later). How many demons and dead parts we find and return to consciousness for release must be calibrated based on each person’s capacities. I read that Jung once refused to accept a new patient, perceiving in the man’s dream a latent psychosis. Jung knew that should not be brought to the surface.

There will always be these paradoxes of psychological existence and the depth approach to it, as long as early injury isn’t exorcised at the time it happens, before it becomes entrenched, root-like, structural, self-defending. I tell some clients that if parents had had the therapy-quality of empathy and were a container for children’s hurts, I would have no clients. Some day, parents worldwide will have learned this lesson.