kodama

The biggest problem is : it should be an advocate, and a collaborator. But a mirror ? What is the purpose of a mirror ? To reflect which part of you, based on which judgement ? Should a therapy be judgemental on you and your behavior, instead of understanding you ? And what if the judgement is made based on therapist's own traumas ? Who is better to have the right perspective on you ? I don't think that having new perspectives on yourself, made by the judgement of another person is right. Ok, you might think you are smarter, and realise later that wasn't the real problem. But you won't necessarily achieve faster to realise this with someone else telling it to you. Where do you learned that you go faster on healing with someone else, than alone ? In my opinion, it might be true, only if the therapist is really trying to be on your side and understand you instead of applying his theories on you. Unfortunately, I never met any therapist that was really working that way. I saw judgement, comparisons with their theories while I was talking, and now I am very agree with what myclippedwings say : 100 % agreed with you ! Even a several primal therapist I saw, supposed to focus on your childhood and not being neutral, they've read Alice Miller, Janov...behaved with me in order to make me fit with their theories. Well, it can be better if it comes from your own butt, than from other's head sometimes. Effectiveness of therapy cannot be judged by someone else than you. And there a lot of people mixing up happiness and recovery. There are also a lot of people that feel relieved from symptoms, without being cured at all, and will reproduce their repressed emotions on their children. There are toxic people saying they are happy. There are patient running away from feeling their buried emotions, dissociating and thinking they are cured, cause they increased dissociation, and don't feel anything anymore. For me, I don't need a smart (high IQ or psychology culture) therapist but a emotionnally smart therapist (empathetic, curious, open, not judgemental), but, I start to believe it's a fantasy of the little baby in me that need a perfect parent, and no therapist can be that perfect parent. So I do the job alone, and it works well, and I don't care about the speed of my healing as I'm not in charge of children, there is no urge for me to be perfect.

Hi Kalden, This is how I see it : The great city with sunlight means your true self and the road you should follow to find your truth. But the only way to go there is to face your traumas, and all the abuses you have endured in the past. You know that if you follow that road that you can only see through a pipe, you might feel and be very vulnerable, so you must find a peaceful and protecting place to do that. The crocodile is the horrible pain ou might feel while grieving in order to find the truth. The metal grill are your psychological defenses, it is solid, but in the same time, it's not a wall, so you can see through. The murky swamp represents the horrible reality of manipulation and lies of the family. On the other side there is a wall of water that forbids you to go there. I suggest that there is someone in your life that prevents you to be true to yourself, and punishes you for having the idea of looking in the wrong direction. By the way, it is revealing that you start your story by "I started out in dark, dreamless sleep". It maybe means unconsciously that you were lying to yourself "asleep in the dark" before noticing the trap you are in. Hope that it will help you.

Actually this is quite funny, cause just under this thread appears a post from Darius, and as I agree with all what it says in it : https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/47116-qa-is-therapy-working-for-me-article/, it can answer to you far better than I do myself.

When the therapist is not healed himself (and in France, it is a constant), he's just trying to get something from you, as every person in a narcisistic process tries to do in all his relationships. I will give you some examples : He talks to me about his life, and he lasts, lasts...and then I have to cut him in order to talk about me (I pay for this), he looks quite angry, listen to me a bit, and then goes on with his own story saying quite exasperated : "As I was saying before......." She says "I cannot promise that this therapy will bring all the memories you have lost". I answer "Okay, I take the responsability of trying", then she goes on "But I cannot promise that you will find the memory you searching for". So I say "Yeah, I got it, Iet's just try". And she says this 5 times. At the end, I'm like : "Stop being afraid taht I will reproach you to waste my money, I will pay to TRY, ok?" then she answers : "Ok, I get it. But let's be clear that I cannot promise..." Fuck... He insists on saying "tu" when I feel more respected with "vous" (in french, it is common when you don't know someone, and we are two adults to say "vous" for respect). To explain, it is commonly used by boss or teacher who wants to show his power to say "tu" to the employee or student, while you must say "vous" to him. When I insist with the "vous", he says "ok...if you like, we say "vous" " (like if I was insane) and the each time he talks to me he says "tu...sorry..vous...I will never get used to it, as you know that every other patients accept the "tu". I want to talk about my relationship with my mother, he cuts me and says "I don't want to talk about you mother today, we will talk about your father" (It's the second time I see him) I tell her that I know some therapy books, and she says "You know my job better then me, allright, allright !" I cry, and he says "Stop crying now, enough" And I can tell more, more...and each example is taken from different therapists,

I have tried many times to follow a therapy with a therapist. EMDR, Primal, Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Behavioral, Gestalt...Even been to take Ayahuasca for 1 month, and I can totally understand why so much people don't want to go to see a shrink. The way I use therapists : I take what I can, and for the rest, I am always very conscious and can detect all attempts of manipulation (which is a constant in this business). I use all the pain these manipulations trigger in me, and work in self therapy with it. After I could grive it, and I can still see the manipulation, but I don't feel anything painful, I am just lucid about it. Now, I do all of it by myself, and it works for the best. Journaling, talking, movements, reading, laying in the dark and feeling, crying, screaming, hitting cushions...

Hi Ruben, I know Lloyd deMause, I red Foundations of psychohistory. But he's not talking about tribes and primitive cultures. He's talking about old civilisations and all what can be found in books. I have also a friend, she lived in the Indian jungle (south Bihar), and she noticed that the culture of the tribe she was in touch with, was absolutely different than the Indian culture. They were more open, free minded, woman and men were equals, they had no religion... I don't say I have nothing to blame on the Yekwanas culture, for example they don't really let the choice of the part a man and a woman play in the society, they are cruel with others cultures and animals. What I feel is that they do what it must be done only for themselves, they didn't have the opportunity to develop an open mind, certainly due to their way of life (hostile nature, had to hide for long). But if you look at other animals, they are not very friendly to each other, between species... I don't think she rejects everything in modern culture, actually she's only talking about nurturing, and it's true that it's really bad what civilisation has done to education. I would like to know what is really good in modern cultures concerning birth, nurturing and development of the human being in adequation of their biological constitution? If you are interested about Lloyd deMause, I advise you to take a look at Bernard Lempert. He's writing about history of violence and sacrifices on children and the relation with the bad treatment of today. Btw, i don't agree with Lloyd deMause on everything, it's true that today, what was a norm in the 16th century is not anymore, but when you know that there are millions of child abuse pictures downloaded everyday, I mean...is it not hypocrisy to say that we are really evolved compare to the 16th century? How can we know how much children were sexually harrassed then and today? I have red a book "La marche rouge" (only in french sorry), talking about child abduction during the 18th century in France. When you follow a little the actuality on pedophily in France, it is scaring, even today...so what is really changing? Is it changing that much, or is it more hidden?

I've just finished the book and it absolutely blew my mind. The author, Jean Liedloff has spent 2 years and half in the Yekwanas tribe, in Venezuelian amazonia, and what she discovered was a really peaceful society with happy and spontaneous people. She obsevered that the mothers were carrying their children for the 8 first month, constantly, while they are doing their usual activities. She explains that the babies are totally quiet, with no anxiety or tension, with very flexible muscles. She develops a theory about the innate expectations of human being that must be satisfied, in order of their biological constitution. The human baby expect to find a very protective person to carry him or her, giving him food as much as he or she needs. Human baby also needs to watch and experiment all the normal and authentic human activities, feeling safe in the arms of the one who does it. So when he feels ready to experiment by himself, they start to explore their environment on all fours, and know that they can come back to the mother when they need it. She describes a very convincing (to me) way of taking care of babies, step by step, by the Yekwanas people. Then, and I must say it was really hard to read (and I've red several testimonials of people that have read it, and everyone says that it was the really disturbing part of the book), she describes the way the western society does with children. She doesn't talk about violence or bad treatment as we are used to hear by talking about "torture on children", but it is a real offense to the babies. The description of the loneliness in the dark and silent pretty decorated room almost gave me nausea. As a therapist, I am really engaged in the way of emotional recovering since many years, advising everyone to read Alice Miller, that saved my own life. But since I've red this, I must say that it goes really farer. Alice Miller really understood the cruelty of the children treatment, but she's finally talking only about what she red, knows and seen by herself. Jean Liedloff is really describing a way to get OUT of this system, by taking example on another society. It is in accordance with (my neighbour is listening the Lambada really loudly as I am talking, it is totally contrasting with the mood I am in...), the theories of unschooling, Montessori...so I really hope that we will slowly move in that direction. But where it blew my mind so much, is for the therapy. In order of the theory she develops, we would better do meditation and taking heroin (really I could not believe that I would be aware of that kind of theory one day), than doing primals and feeling the traumas. So I will develop an idea of therapy that can include emotional recovering (as I think it's is impossible to cure completely without knowing with lucidity what happend to us, that dove us in that state), and following the continuum, the "carrying step" that we missed. If some of you have red the book and are interested about it, please tell me, and I will make a topic for sharing with you my ideas, and I hope, for you to share yours.