I’ve
been in psychotherapy for almost eight years. It doesn’t feel like I
have changed much despite incredible understanding and patience on the part
of my psychotherapist. I have come to the realization that probably the most
important thing I can do in psychotherapy is to leave it. Yet the very idea
sends me into panic—but how will I function? I’ll die! My
psychotherapist does not ever give me advice. I make my own decisions about
my career, my family, just about everything. Why am I having such an incredibly
hard time leaving? Why do I believe I’ll die if I do?
If you have been in psychotherapy for eight years and
haven’t changed much, and still cling so desperately to your
psychotherapist, then something may be terribly wrong. The whole point of
psychotherapy is to dissolve your need for external identifications with
the world. And, naturally, this means that your
identifications
with your psychotherapist must dissolve as well.
Psychotherapy
is not a matter of giving advice; it’s about understanding the emotional
depths of human relationships. And the
psychotherapist-client
relationship is the primary relationship to be examined. So if your
psychotherapy hasn’t examined that relationship thoroughly, then any
thoughts of that relationship ending will seem like the threat of
death itself—as
you are finding out.
Real psychotherapy,
though, should end with a simple, yet profound, release into life, simply
because the psychotherapy itself is not afraid to die.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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