On Saturday, I made a short new video, making use of what I'd learned in media training. I felt very good about that video because I'd confronted some underlying shame and the related wish to remain invisible -- that is, relying on a blank facial expression and little modulation in my voice in order to reveal as little as possible. I uploaded it to my YouTube channel and wrote a short post about it here on After Psychotherapy. Not long after the post went up, I received a supercilious, mean-spirited critique from one of my readers. Even after 2-1/2 years writing this blog, I still find it difficult to bear when site visitors say hurtful things to me. I have not developed a thick skin. In posting the video, stating explicitly that I felt good about it, I had made myself vulnerable; receiving that comment hurt. I felt humiliated.

The Difference Between Anger and Hatred

Joseph Burgoin

Love and Hatred

Relationship Issues

Society and Culture

February 14, 2013

In preparation for my appearance later today on Sandy Weiner's BlogTalkRadio program Courageous Conversations, I've been thinking about anger and hatred. Sandy and I will be discussing how to cope with the eruption of hatred in our intimate relationships and I needed to clarify how hatred differs from anger.

We can distinguish between anger and hatred in two ways: intensity and duration. It helps to think of them as occurring along a spectrum. Anger might be triggered when a loved one does something that frustrates us. It tends to come and go and doesn't crowd out all our other feelings for that person. We can often voice it in ways that aren't hurtful. Hatred lasts longer and is more pervasive. It tends to overwhelm us and obscure everything else we might feel. It makes us want to take action, to hurt or destroy whatever inspires the hatred.

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Why Free Association is So Difficult

Joseph Burgoin

Shame/Narcissism

The Psychotherapy Relationship

February 9, 2013February 9, 2013

Most people understand what free association means: to voice all thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to mind during a therapy session, without deciding in advance whether they're relevant or "worth saying." At the beginning of traditional psychoanalysis, clients are instructed to freely associate and occasionally reminded to do so as the treatment proceeds. We call it the "fundamental rule" of psychoanalysis; we believe that free association brings apparently unconnected ideas into relation with one another, revealing links that give us access to the unconscious.

Here's an an example. In session this week, my client Tom was discussing his work schedule. Tom is a highly successful entrepreneur with several thriving businesses; he works enormously long hours and operates himself as if he were a machine, with little regard to his needs, feelings and limitations. In this particular session, Tom spent a long time discussing the demands of the workplace in a light-hearted manner, telling jokes about problems he encountered, making light of his frustration. In a practical vein, I kept pointing out that he could say "no" to certain demands upon his time. I wondered aloud whether he had room to acknowledge just how exhausted he felt, how far beyond his limits.

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The Controlling Client

Joseph Burgoin

The Psychotherapy Relationship

Unbearable Emotion

February 1, 2013

Early in my personal therapy, my analyst used to tell me I was trying to control him. He'd talk about the way I left pointed openings for him to speak. He identified a pattern -- how I'd relate events in order to elicit a particular response from him, the one that I wanted. He showed me how I would bring in material that repeated themes from prior sessions, hoping I could "predict" what he would have to say.

This kind of interpretation focuses on the role of unbearable need and dependency in the psychotherapy relationship. When we can't tolerate needing someone else and having to wait for him to give us what we need, we feel helpless. One response to such a feeling of helplessness is attempting to control the person you need. This view holds that control is a defense mechanism developed during infancy, where the helpless baby strives to control the object of need -- i.e., the mother. It assumes that, as an adult, he or she will have similar issues with dependency and control in other relationships. Clients who want to feel in control of their therapists would likely strive for control in any relationship that stirs up feelings of need, dependency or helplessness.

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What Hurts the Most

I don't usually relate to the trending topics on Twitter -- often about celebrities I don't know and TV shows I've never watched -- but earlier this week I noticed that #WhatHurtstheMost was a popular hashtag for the day. Out of curiousity, I searched the term on Twitter and read through a hundred or so tweets to see what it was that people found especially hurtful. There was a variety of answers, but the most popular one involved romantic rejection or unrequited love. Here's a sample of the variations on that subject:

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