Self-pity

 

A little therapy brain-teaser. My 16-year-old client is self-aware and honest enough to say that she knows she is stuck in her sad, tearful depression partly because “I feel sorry for myself.” Her parents are entirely self-absorbed. Nineteen years ago, I wrote an article for The Primal Psycho­therapy Page* that included this sentence:

Most of my clients sit in a chair, though I encourage them to move around, to swing, to yell, to feel self-pity, to throw stuffed animals, to rip tissue boxes, to dilate their soul.

So I have no problem with feeling sorry for oneself. I believe society and the world are ugly to stigmatize that emotional state, espe­cially in children. It is a valid feeling, a truer one, cer­tainly, than its suppres­sion. It is likely to form when no one else is respecting the person. But this leaves us with a conundrum: Though it is destruc­tive to advise or cajole someone to reject self-pity, it feels wrong to encourage it. Especially in children who, in it, may fall down the well of sickness and lostness, lacking the kinds of countervailing supports that adults have.

Here, I require you to kill your objection to this reflexive feeling. If a person can be proud of himself for an accomplishment, rather than merely appreciating the accom­plish­ment as if it were an objective fact in the world detached from himself, then it is equally human to feel self-sorrow. It is our neurotic, repres­sive culture that has con­vinced us to “move on,” to produce without spirit, to “man up” for the sake of business.

I believe the solution is to empathize, truly empathize with your client, put yourself in her place, tell her it is valid to feel sorry for herself. And to continue to try to peel the film of solipsism from her parents’ minds, so that they can finally see her and hear her and feel her. And when that fails, to work to create a richer relationship with her. Depth therapy is ultimately repar­ent­ing. That, too, will mostly fail, but it’s where we are going when we help the client deal with dependency loss.

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* http://primal-page.com/challeng.htm.

How to love sociopaths

 

Many side glances, nauseous glances at the liberal media today convey its fear that the evil and soul-corruption of the Republicans will win again. Trump will run again and can win (psychopathy and old age be damned). Women are victims and men’s posses­sions again. Manchin, the schmuck, sticks his dull finger in the dike restraining social welfare. Repub­lican anger and sickness game purposive delu­sions about stolen elections and slime the country like an overflowing toilet. And of course, nice guys are by Law of Nature wimps destined to finish last while being buggered and humil­iated along the way.

I see individuals in therapy in a myopic, benign way: Each one is hurting. Better to be near­sighted than to look at “people,” whose beliefs are attitudes, whose attitudes are childish feel­ings, who have no dignity, whose sickness is destructive to the world.

My wife and I noticed that coincidentally, the other partner can no longer watch Rachel Maddow or read the papers. Every­where one looks, pure trash is grabbing the crown and strutting to the throne. I recently offended a former client for her conspiracy belief about covid vaccina­tion. I mock imbeciles who claim to be “researching” the vaccines before taking the plunge. Of course, fools: Learn biology, medicine, epidemi­ology, get a PhD, build your lab, buy a lab coat, get funding, set up clinical trials, do your “research.” Or maybe save money and time and look at something besides Fox and Fringe media.

I’m sure the world has always been this way, but when it lands on your home that childish petulance, revenge, sheep-like brainwashing, violence, Borderline craziness and Antisocial predation, ridiculous beliefs and puerile bullying have become a superior force, where a metastatic tumor like Tucker Carlson can go to bed at night and wake up in the morning with impunity – it can be too much to continue to walk by. If Trump’s name comes up in sessions, I present my relevant blog posts. I share merciless views of our fellow men with clients. I say that while each of us has reasons, there is no excuse. And if the Lord is listening: I’d like them all (or most of them) to disappear from the face of the earth.

Dry humor or wet seriousness #6: Utmost trivia, but quirky

 

🚀  Nine out of ten clients (yes, I’ve counted, sort of) who name units of duration or times of past events say “-and-a-half.” That is, nothing in their lives ever lasted for one or two or eight months or years, or happened two or four or six months or years ago. It is always “one-and-a-half” or “three-and-a-half” time packets. They’ve been sober of alco­hol for two-and-a-half months. They split with their partner four-and-a-half months ago. They stayed in college for one-and-a-half semesters or years then got a job. They’ve lived on their own for the past five-and-a-half months. They’ve been depressed for two-and-a-half years. I swear to God-and-a-half! There must be some reason the dysfunc­tional brain doesn’t feel good about a lesser or greater whole number. This may be related to the old advertising psychology that determined sticker prices should be $5.99 rather than $6.00. People are afraid to commit and must fog or false-specify! That prob­ably says terrible things about them.

🚀  Clients present no offense through the entirety of their first (assessment) session. But upon getting up to leave, they have an obvious flatulent moment. Why can’t they hold on for another two minutes? Was it that anxious an event? Are they saying something about me? I don’t know. I remain silent and deadly afraid to ask.

🚀  Scientists talk shop, have rigorous enlightening discussions, cooperate with other sci­en­tists. Atheists debate believers. Philosophers go to conferences, where they confer. Media pundits argue with each other. Therapists, on the other hand, don’t talk to their cohort because they don’t need anyone telling them about human nature. They already know the whole of it instinctively. I used to attend meetings with my fellow clinicians, but they were just adminis­trative meetings. I haven’t heard of a clinical brain­storm session in many years. We all pass each other in the hallways like worms in the night earth. I recently got in mild trouble for suggesting to All Staff, in humor, that some clients may be “ditzy.” Horrors. All think it and none must say it: There would be a groupquake of embar­rass­ment or prissy anger.

🚀  I am extremely pleased that I have only rarely, very rarely, treated a deeply or immi­nently suicidal client. (This refers to individual therapy. I have worked, in the past, at crisis centers and at hospitals, where many individuals were actionably suicidal.) While we can accept the jaded wisdom that the most suicidal people isolate themselves, give only covert signs, and may not come to therapy, I still find it interesting that my thousands of psychotherapy clients over the years have gener­ally been survivable. Certainly I would like to think that our deep, bond-like empathic contact flips a switch toward life in the worst-off clients. But it’s probably simpler than that: Most people aren’t suicidal.

🚀  If memory serves, only one client has gotten angry with me – that is, given any gross or subtle sign of it – in twenty-three years. If this isn’t ridiculous, I don’t know what is. I say many controversial, idiosyncratic and offensive things. “Your parents are toxic.” “Some people have never left the starting gate of life. They are still babies on fire in the crib.” “You can’t intellec­tualize and story-tell your way to healing.” “You are being euthy­mic: fake happy. That defense can keep you from being your real self for your entire life.” “Your mother is a solipsist. She has never seen you for who you are, ever. You are invisible to her.” “You are living in your severed head.” “You are forty-and-a-half, and the umbil­ical cord is still attached.” “The past is not the past. It is your root system that continues to feed every leaf and branch on the tree.” “You will need to leave your parents’ home to have the best chance of being your own person.” Why haven’t people been incensed by any of these statements? What do I have to do to piss them off?