Posted by alexandra_k on May 28, 2018, at 19:41:30
In reply to Re: just need to talk, posted by sigismund on May 28, 2018, at 14:53:13
I remember there was an academic who worked on prostitution, a while back. She gave some lectures for an Education paper I was enrolled in. As part of her research she travelled and interviewed prostitutes.
I remember her saying that prostitutes who had regular clients would say that it didn't seem to be about the sex, so much. That that part was mostly over fairly quickly. But that the guys would still pay for an hour or two and mostly they seemed to want to just lie there with them and... Talk. Laugh. Cry. Complain about life.
So I do get the sense in which people have thought that therapy isn't really so different from prostitution.
I did a little bit of physiotherapy (physical therapy) also. The head of school was interested in it from more of a humanities point of view. He was interested in how it had evolved from prostitution to massage therapy to physical therapy. His focus was on the idea of non-sexual physical contact as theraputic.
Just as an idea... Have you thought about getting a massage? I don't mean going to see a prostitute, I mean, actually going to get a massage. I've heard it quite common that people cry during massage. Sort of quietly. That it is a good sort of release.
I remember reading some stuff a while back about physical touch in psychotherapy. Some therapists would hold their clients. It was hard, though, because of how despite the very best of intentions it could bring out physiological arousal / desire for greater intimacy for some patients. And given that therapy is mostly about talk (whereas bodywork is mostly about no talking) Quite a lot of therapists would find that really hard to know how to deal with such a thing through talk appropriately, so would shy away from the whole thing...
While others ran with it and started to write about incorporating massage / bodywork into their practice. Or even in how maybe sex with clients could actually be theraputic...
I've been thinking quite a lot about intimacy and balance of power. I was exposed to Kant, at some point, (actually, in North Carolina) and I feel it has ruined me for quite a lot of things, since... Kant has this whole thing about how a person can't will suicide... And I think he is right. Suicide isn't a thing willed by persons -- it is a thing wished for by non-persons. And it is merciful for homo sapiens who are only ever going to be treated as objects to be traded around and abused in the face of other needs and wants and desires and whims.
The only kind of relationship I want with a person is as a person. Only I'm not a person, and there it is.
Relationships can involve give and take, of course. There can be aspects of favors for favors or similar... But it is fundamentally different from the sort of accounting worthy of prime time drama... As marjory had power with / over the king on game of thrones, for example...
Rambling...
I'm just trying to say that I hear you. I'm not sure if any of this helps..
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1098872
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20161002/msgs/1098950.html