Another summary

 

There are good clients and there are bad clients. There are some whom we put in a powerful position to do solid depth work, and they say “I didn’t get anything out of this session.” There are others to whom we simply tell a four-dimensional truth – “Your parents are poison. They regress you. Get out.” – and their inner lives are changed for the better and they remember you fondly two years later. There are those whose Border­line Person­ality will never be touched, or ques­tioned, or set in a box and placed on a high shelf, whom we should never have treated in the first place. There are so many good and so many bad clients.

There are competent therapists who do incompetent therapy. That was I, recently. I saw a 20-year-old with an extrusive, militant depression, who so intimidated me – or possibly, presented such an opportunity for deep process – that I lectured instead of sat back and listened to his birth-origin bleakness. He departed quickly. An 18-year-old girl fell back to her original depression and self-cutting behavior after a year of sessions during which I thought I was doing her some good. Would I get the consolation prize of continuing therapy with medications added? No. Medi­cations only.

Many clients want mental stimulation, not emotional stimulation. I suspect the ones who stay get some emotional taps out of it, some feeling. But not too much feeling, like the 22-year-old new client who is horrified at the thought of writing a self-disclosure letter to her mother. She is one of two I’m seeing who feel they would black out and their heart would be crushed if their mother responded with meanness or manipulation. A “mean” mother would be the recapitu­lation of death to them.

Remember these two fundamental facts: We all remain children at our roots. Feelings, not thoughts, are our truest knowledge and identity. This is why “the small things” are the final, ultimate meanings of our life, not careers or money or intelligence. But clients don’t want to touch their roots again. So in our intimacy, we’re actually helping them not be them­selves.