Mothballing Your Parents

Joseph Burgoin
Relationship Issues
·
Social Behavior
36

Last night, we were out at our favorite restaurant, celebrating my daughter Emma's birthday. After a fine meal, we came home and sat up late, discussing, as we often do, the fact that she seems more like 26 than 14 -- not precocious in a pseudo-mature way, but genuinely older than her age. People with New Age tendencies have referred to Emma as an "old soul"; I think of her as a born psychotherapist, with insight and intuition that are remarkable for one her age. She enjoys adult conversation and loves to talk about what makes people tick.

While this is wonderful on one level, on another, it makes Emma's life difficult. With her intuition and good people skills, she gets on well with just about everyone at school, but her emotional maturity also makes it difficult to find true peers in the Eighth Grade. Last night, she talked about feeling a little isolated and alone; she said she couldn't bear to imagine a time when her parents wouldn't be around. Unlike many teenagers I've known, she loves to spend time with us and our friends; she still enjoys hiking with us in Colorado, hanging out on the deck in the evenings and making "pleasant conversation," as she calls it. She told us she was afraid she'd feel completely alone in the world without us.

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Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Video No. 2: The Early Weeks

Joseph Burgoin
The Psychotherapy Relationship
22

This is the second installment in my video series about what to expect in psychodynamic psychotherapy, focusing on what happens during the early weeks. In addition to developing a deeper understanding of the client's past and current emotional issues, these sessions involve a fair amount of education about the process itself: how it's the job of the psychotherapist to make the unconscious conscious; encouraging clients to begin thinking of themselves as a collection of parts, more or less like distinct individuals cohabiting and relating to one another; and explaining what kind of change is possible and how it occurs.

Following the advice given in one of the comments to my last video, I bought myself a clip-on mike, so the sound is much better now. There's still an occasional glint of reflected light in my glasses ... I'll get all the kinks worked out eventually. I'm enjoying this new mode of "just talking" a lot more, and surprisingly, getting something that I like in only two takes (I had to abort the first one in the middle because a gnat kept flying into my eyes). Next video will be about the early phases of the transference.

‘Butterfly’s Child’ by Angela-Davis Gardner: A Review

Joseph Burgoin
Relationship Issues
·
Social Behavior
9

For the last 12 years, I've belonged to a writer's group that meets every Thursday afternoon for two hours. We read our works-in-progress, giving support and constructive criticism to each other; we spend years reading and listening to different drafts of our books, so it's an important event, something to celebrate, when a book by one of our members comes out in print.

Butterfly's Child by my friend and classmate Angela Davis-Gardner was first published in hard cover last year; today is the release date for the paperback edition. Random House, her publisher, has organized what they call a "blog tour" -- a number of reviews by influential bloggers coordinated with the appearance of the novel in bookstores. I'm not one of those "influential bloggers," but I'm showing my support by joining the blog tour and letting you know about this wonderful book.

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Why I’m a Therapist

Joseph Burgoin
Relationship Issues
·
Shame/Narcissism
·
The Psychotherapy Relationship
83

When people find out I'm a therapist, they usually assume I chose my profession because I want to help others. While I derive a deep sense of satisfaction from doing just that, I mostly chose to become a therapist because it was the only line of work I could envision that would support me and a family, while at the same time holding my interest for a lifetime. Human beings are deeply intriguing to me, at least once (if) you get past the veneer, and I can't imagine a more fascinating job. During my last vacation, I thought more deeply about the work I do and the ways it satisfies me. I came to some new insights about myself and how I feel about my clients which didn't entirely surprise me, but that shed some new light on the way the practice of psychotherapy "feeds" me. I believe many therapists feel the same way.

For the most part, I find social conversation and even many friendships to be a less-than-satisfying experience. If you've read my post on narcissistic behavior, you already know how I feel: most people regard parties and the making of a new acquaintance as another opportunity for self-display, to talk about their own amazing experiences, success stories, etc., to elicit admiration from other people and make themselves feel good. Because I'm deeply curious about other people, I'm often eager to hear those stories; but when the narcissistic self-absorption feels too intense, I get tired. It also feels very lonely when the other person shows absolutely no interest in getting to know anything about me.

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