The basic emotional issues that drive us, and their implications for the most common psychological problems: depression, anxiety, shame, low self-esteem, etc.
For anyone who's interested, here's the radio interview I did last week with Deb Scott on her program The Best People We Know. I felt completely at ease this time, and that experience has convinced me I need to speak more 'off the cuff' on my videos, rather than having the whole thing scripted.
I'd like to continue making videos for my YouTube channel; I want to do a series of lectures or talks that would be easier and faster to produce, without all the editing involved in using film clips. I've got some thoughts about what might work, but I'd like to ask for your input on this issue. What I'm looking for is a theme that might unite a number of different videos. When my book on psychological defense mechanisms comes out next year, I'm planning to do a whole series about individual defenses, but it feels premature to begin that project right now. Any thoughts? What would be of interest to you? I would definitely want it to me more clinical, more focused on the psychotherapy process. Please write and let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!
A teenage boy who I'll call Sam recently told me that he was having a "problem with jealousy." When I asked Sam what he meant, he explained that Ryan, another boy at his school, was incredibly charismatic and popular; all the other kids wanted to be around him and he seemed able to attract anyone he wanted. Sam's feelings of "jealousy" were so powerful, so painful that at times, he couldn't bear to look at Ryan. "He just makes me feel so bad about myself," Sam added.
When Sam uses the word jealousy, he's actually referring to what I would instead call envy. (I discuss the difference between the two in this earlier post.) Sam also has it backwards: Ryan doesn't make him feel bad about himself; Sam already feels bad about himself (full of shame), and because of this basic feeling that's he's defective or damaged, different from and inferior to other people, his envy of Ryan is excruciating painful. Envy is a normal human emotion, one virtually everybody feels at one time or another; as I've said before, it also has its value, teaching us what we want to have or to be, and thereby motivating us. When coupled with basic shame, however, it becomes toxic.
In the first part of this series, I discussed Allan Schore's video about early neurological damage resulting from failures in the attachment relationship between mother and baby. In the second part, I used Schore's research to help explain why our defense mechanisms are so tenacious, and why authentic change is difficult and rare. I'd now like to conclude with my personal, somewhat idiosyncratic view on how real change occurs, how that early damage can to some degree be healed, and what conditions are necessary to do so. I don't have the science to back it up; all I can offer is my experience, both as a client on the couch for 14 years, and in working with my own clients for the last three decades.
My thesis is simple: if failures in early attachment damage the brain as it develops, the way to repair that damage (to the extent possible) is through another "attachment" relationship that somewhat resembles but also differs in major ways from that early bond: the psychotherapy relationship. I suppose I mean that in therapy, something like a "corrective emotional experience" occurs, as long as we don't idealize that experience and we understand that therapy doesn't fully correct for all those early emotional failures. The corrective emotional experience in therapy is not a replacement for a mother who truly loved and cared for you. It's the closest to such an experience that many people ever get but it's a distant "second best."
Continue "Attachment Theory and the Healing Psychotherapy Relationship"
After I wrote my last post, I had an experience that for me captured the lifelong effects of having a mother who did not adore you. It took place during and after my piano lesson.
In addition to giving piano lessons, my teacher is also an accomplished singer and vocal coach. One of her students -- a man in his late 20s who began to study with her when he was seven years old -- has gone on to become a world-class opera singer who'll be performing at the Met this fall. At the beginning of my lesson last week, my teacher showed me a video of a rehearsal that had been filmed, where she provided piano accompaniment to her former student as he prepared for a concert he'll give next month in Europe. It was an extraordinary performance. This young man is truly an artist, with an exquisitely trained voice.
"You must be so proud of him," I said.
Her face was beaming as she agreed. "Not only is he an amazing artist but he's such a well-rounded, truly cultured person." It was obvious she felt deeply attached to this young man and also admired him.
That evening, I thought back to her remarks, and how I would never be an "amazing artist." I later caught myself thinking, "I've really let my French slip these past two years; I need to get my language skills together." For me, speaking French has always been tied up with some fairly pretentious ideas of what it means to be "cultured" (see my early post on having a plan for a person). When I realized what I was thinking, I had to laugh at myself ... but I also felt a little sad. For many people, when your own mother doesn't adore you, there's always an unmet need for someone else to feel that way about you. It became clear to me that, even though I'm ten years older than my teacher, I wanted her to feel about me the way she felt about her former student.
Earlier this week, in session with my client Janice, she was discussing her thoughts about what drives her narcissism. She said that when your mother doesn't adore you, then you're all the time trying to do something bigger and better to get her attention, and then later on, the attention of someone else ... anyone else! Janice understands all about the shame that's the residue of failed attachment; she understands how it drives narcissistic behavior of various kinds. The baby whose mother doesn't adore her never gets over it, not really.
So you might think that making video lectures about my ideas concerning psychotherapy would reflect a wish for people to idealize me because my own mother didn't. As far as I can tell, it isn't. While the narcissist wants to be noticed and admired, he doesn't want to be seen for who he truly is; she wants you to believe in the idealized false self she presents to the world, the one that disproves all that shame she feels at her core. In these videos, I feel as if I'm being seen for who I truly am and I don't think I come across as in any way ideal.
And in this third video, I feel as if I'm finally comfortable enough to be myself. The sense of humor is still missing, and I do wish I could think of something to smile about, but this one feels fairly close to who I really am and probably not that different from how I come across as a professional.