cheers redux

intervention (noun) : an influencing force or act that occurs in order to modify a given state of affairs, such as a punch in the mouth of a person saying something you dislike [NOTE that this is not recommended in light of current laws against battery and the moral implications of what such an act says about you]
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To better explain a post from last week around going out and buying a drink for the alcoholic who will not get help for his/her problem, I wanted to delve into a process that usually precedes that purchase - the intervention.

Strictly speaking, an intervention can be any outside process that has the effect of modifying an individual's behavior, awareness or emotional state. There are less violent ways of creating an intervention than the aforementioned punch-in-the-mouth: you can walk away from the person speaking (or someone else can walk you away); you can take ten deep breaths (or someone can tell you to take ten deep breaths); you can talk with a therapist; you can apply the Dr Steve 'laugh it off' approach. Whatever works for you.

Sometimes a formal process of an intervention is used to break through denial on the part of a person with a serious disorder (usually drug or alcohol addiction). This represents a carefully orchestrated confrontation in which friends, family members and employers confront the person with his/her addiction and its negative impacts and consequences. The goal is to get the person to acknowledge that he/she has a problem and agree to treatment.

Alas, this goal is not often realized. Denial represents such a strong unconscious emotion and is such an effective defense mechanism that all attempts at intervention never really cause that person to acknowledge his/her problem. Worse, an intervention may result in the person acknowledging the problem but refusing the cure with more denial.

Rather than beat yourself up over the failure of this process, understanding more about denial and defense mechanisms may just help you accept the person and his/her problem.

So go buy that person a drink and be done with it.

please don't let me be misunderstood

misunderstanding [as therapy] (verb) : proof that anything can be used in psychoanalysis (for example, "marshmallows as therapy" and "kleptomania as therapy")
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The concept is funnier than anything I could say.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m327m0t47261g273/

Farewell Harry Potter

projection (noun) : a psychological defense mechanism where one subconsciously denies one's own unacceptable thoughts, desires, feelings or motivations, and instead ascribes them to other people
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Another theory developed by Sigmund Freud and it goes something like this: Suppose you don't like someone but (for whatever reason) you've repressed this or are in denial about this (meaning that your unconscious mind doesn't allow you to feel this dislike). Instead of admitting dislike, you project your dislike to the other person and end up with the feeling that the person doesn't like you.

Mumbo jumbo, right? I mean, who can't simply say "I don't like that person"? Some of us say it all the time. (Perhaps I'm speaking for myself here.)

I've discovered that, unfortunately, when the unconscious gets involved, you really don't know what you're repressing or denying. If the feeling or desire is too unacceptable or shameful or dangerous or obscene, then it's easier to attribute it to another person and save yourself the horror of finding out that you actually have that feeling or desire. The solution I've found is to at least ask the question about whether any denial or projection is going on and be open to the idea that it may be. It may not be, but why not be sure.

And where is Harry Potter in all this? Is the bluestraveler simply riding the wave of JK Rowling's success? (Would that I could, readers, would that I could.)

I believe that the fifth book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) clearly shows Harry Potter's projection of feelings and desires that he doesn't want to have onto his friends, feelings that he's ashamed of having. JK Rowling brilliantly allows Harry Potter to discover that he is having those feelings, not his friends. That awareness makes all the difference.

And by the end of the story, JK Rowling tells us that all of us have those feelings and desires - the key is only whether and how we act on them.

cheers

denial (verb) : the state of being oblivious to all the crap in one's life
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When considering the reasons to begin therapy, it's easy to believe that everyone should do it. Why should anyone live an unexamined life? Wouldn't everyone be better off knowing more about their feelings, why they have those feelings, who triggers certain feelings, etc.? Isn't it better than drinking or doing drugs or whatever in order to avoid those feelings?

Maybe.

But not everyone is that strong or able to handle all that talk therapy and the subsequent examination brings. So maybe for those folks in our lives, we should simply buy them a drink and accept them for who they are and who they're not.

if you can't lick 'em, join 'em (part 2)

joining technique (noun) : the idea that one "joins" the experience of another's misguided/misplaced emotions (ie, not an expression of their true feelings) rather than respond with a reaction to those misguided/misplaced emotions
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So what does the "joining" technique mean off the therapist's couch?

Apparently, in dealing with all those people who resist their true feelings (of shame, of inadequacy, of guilt, etc.) and instead express other feelings that are directed at you (at an unconscious attempt to make you feel ashamed, inadequate, guilty, etc.), the technique is supposed to help you deflect and NOT react to their misguided emotions. It's confusing, but if you think of your mother and the proverbial guilt trips she may provide for you, then the concept becomes clearer.

Say that your mother expresses her disappointment/frustration/anger (does it really matter?) with something you've done. Rather than say, "Get over yourself you narcissistic b*&%ch, this is about me not you" or "You're right, what was I thinking" (depending on how you currently handle her), you "join" her feelings (misguided as they may be) by simply saying, "I understand you would feel that way, and I'm sorry that happened for you." Supposedly the act of "joining" her misguided/misplaced feelings allows you not to take on the feelings that she creates by this misguidance (much in the way that the therapist does not take on the blame/guilt of the the patient).

Now I say "apparently" and "supposedly" because I actually haven't experienced this myself outside the therapist's office.

While I've moved away from self-loathing as the miserable daughter that my mother bore (and everything that feeling leads to, like bad relationships and depressions), I still react to the outrageous (misguided?) feelings that this woman expresses when we have those rarer and rarer conversations. Perhaps if I can get to a point where I don't react to her misguided/misplaced feelings and instead understand that the actual expression by the woman is one of her resistance to her own self-loathing, I may be able to have more than a quick conversation with her every few months. This idea of the "joining" technique might do the trick.

And if not, my technique of avoidance seems to be working fine for me!

if you can't lick 'em, join 'em (part 1)

joining technique (noun) : the idea that one "joins" the experience of another's misguided/misplaced emotions (ie, not an expression of their true feelings) rather than respond with a reaction to those misguided/misplaced emotions
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Apparently this technique of modern analysis (developed by Dr Hyman Spotnitz), assists the analyst in helping analysands previously thought to be beyond help. Meaning that the analyst agrees with the analysand when the individual expresses his/her feelings, even when the analysand actually is resisting his/her true feelings.

http://modernpsychoanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/06/clinical-techniques-4-joining.html

So when a female patient says she keeps falling for the unavailable guys and getting hurt and expresses a feeling of anger towards the guys (who don't necessarily say that they are unavailable), or even anger towards the therapist for not helping her choose better men, the therapist "joins" her feelings and agrees with her by saying things like, "I understand that you would feel that way, and I'm sorry that happened for you" instead of reacting defensively to the misguided feelings that the patient is having.

Because most likely deep down in some repressed place, the woman feels unworthy of a good guy. And there's no way that the therapist (or any friend for that matter) is going to get that woman to stop repressing simply by pointing it out or reacting to the misguided/misplace feelings that replace the repressed feeling.

Head spinning a bit? It gets worse in part 2.