Posted by fallsfall on April 1, 2004, at 8:33:28
I found an awesome book yesterday at the library. "Changing Mind-sets" It talks about how our conscious and unconscious is only aware of things that fit our model of the world (i.e. they give an example of a patient of Freud's - Wolf Man - who believed that all relationships were victim-victimizer relationships. So he had to either be the victim or the victimizer (or, it turns out both...). He couldn't comprehend that a relationship could be mutually beneficial. It just wasn't possible in his world.). So this book talks about how there are ideas that are OUTSIDE of our conscious/unconscious (they call it the potential unconscious), and that the goal of therapy is to find the ideas that are needed to make the patient healthy and happy that are OUTSIDE, and bring them in. (So Wolf Man needs to learn that relationships can be mutually beneficial) Of course, this causes a lot of anxiety - because the therapist is trying to introduce concepts that don't fit with the patient's understanding of reality.
My therapist says that I want to stay depressed and disabled. This goes against everything that my conscious knows. So I respond with "no way! I am doing everything I know to NOT be depressed". What the book is pointing out to me, is that there may be things THAT I DON"T KNOW that are keeping me depressed. I can't see them because they are outside of my world view. He can see them, and his job is to help me see them. I think that in order to see them I have to be open to considering things (which is what he keeps saying to me) that on the surface seem absurd. This is SOOOOO hard.
I'm hoping that reading this book will help me to be willing to be more open - to think outside of the box. I'm also hoping that I will be able to tolerate the anxiety more if I understand where it is coming from (that my view of the world has to change - it certainly seems reasonable that that would make me anxious).
At least I see that the direction he is going in has SOME logical basis. So that should make me more cooperative. I have a hard time cooperating if I don't understand what he is trying to do - it feels bad and doesn't make sense to me, why should I go along with it? The book at least gives me a reason to believe that he MIGHT have a better view of things than I do (usually I assume that if I don't understand it, then it isn't right - and if someone wants me to believe it then they need to convince me and make me understand). This also explains why it is easier for us to solve other people's problems than it is to solve our own. With our own problems, our ability to look at them is constricted by our view of reality. Other people don't have the same view that I do, so if they have the piece that I am missing, they can see that is what I need. I can't see it because it is outside of my "world".
So, now I'm terrified that I will waltz into his office and show him my new book and he'll say "I really don't think that is going to help you". And I'll be completely deflated and crushed and hopeless.
You know, if I wanted to stay depressed, I could have chosen an easier route than seeing him 3 times a week. Doesn't that demonstrate that I don't WANT to be depressed????
poster:fallsfall
thread:331212
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040327/msgs/331212.html