Sleepless in Rochester.

Lake Ontario

The clock continued to count down the minutes until dawn and I became somewhat irritated by the fact that the darkness was giving way to the light of day.  A day, as it turned out, that would be cloudy and windy.  The sun hidden behind clouds.

In the middle of the night somewhere a fragment of an e-mail I had written last July came to haunt me.

… as I now see it, the simple answer to the question of what would happen if I were not “special” would be that I would cease to exist. (Ok, so not so simple, really) Not only my self, but more importantly, my Self. To put this into words may seem overly dramatic, but to me it is very real. Now, I know this doesn’t mean I think I would disappear off of the face of the earth, but it does fit in with the suicidal ideation that would arise.

As the minutes continued to move through the darkness, I came to a point of being faced with the fact that my current reality is that I feel as if my connection to Self has, indeed, ceased to exist.  I very purposefully use the word “feel” here, and not “think”.  I can rationalize away all the reasons why this feeling carries no truth. But it is still how I feel.

At the root of this feeling is Connie’s death. I know that she held a special place for me in her heart — in fact, at her memorial one of her friends made a point to tell me that toward the end she was only seeing a few clients who were “special” to her. Does this “specialness” die with the death of her physical being?   She was the one person who so steadfastly held the mirror for me in which I was able to connect with my Self and with whom I experienced a twinship that also revealed Self.  And again, as much as I may be able to rationalize the ways in which she may still hold this mirror and be “twin” for me, I just do not have a felt sense that it is so.  This “felt sense” is not something that I can will into being.  It is either there, or not.

As this understanding was gathering form from the essence of the darkness of the early morning hours, I felt at the center of my being the old, familiar, dark void.  A void in which I float without direction or purpose. My first impulse is to find a way to escape from this dark place.  But if there is anything I have learned in my work with Connie it is to “Just be” and to “Stay with it.” These two admonitions had become her repeated answers in times when I was struggling and would ask what I should do or what could I read in order to deal with whatever was before me.

I remember that in the days just after her death, I was able to articulate that I did not know how to “hold” this experience.  Our society does not help us deal with the reality of death.  Does not prepare us for its inevitability.  In fact, quite the opposite is true. Our society does everything it can to make us believe that death is something we must avoid at all costs and when it finally does find us, it is as if we have somehow failed.

So I am realizing that the sleepless wanderings of my thoughts have brought me to the understanding that I am in the midst of learning how to authentically hold this experience in its fullness. Perhaps once I have adequately learned how to do this, and I do mean “adequately” and not “mastered”, I will once again have a felt sense of connection with Self.

Psychotherapy.

Attending to Soul

I have been trying to write this post for a couple of weeks.  The difficulty, I think, has been because I have a love/hate relationship with psychotherapy.  It used to be a term I thought I pretty much understood.  Psychotherapy was when you went to a psychotherapist and sat and talked for a 50 minute hour and paid somewhere around $100 for that privilege.  I was a bit confused by the fact that someone with a degree in Social Work — usually a Master’s Degree, could be a psychotherapist and a Psychologist was required to have a PhD in order to engage in psychotherapy.  This perplexed me.  For one thing, it would never have occurred to me to study social work in order to be a psychotherapist.  Does the program of study for a social worker and a psychologist overlap in such a way that both are equally qualified to engage in psychotherapy?

Although these things perplexed me, I really didn’t think too much about it.  Then I did something that really sent me into a spin regarding my understanding of psychotherapy.

I studied depth psychology.

I have received an MA in Depth Psychology and am currently a PhD candidate as I work on my dissertation.

I thought I was confused before I began this course of study, but once I began the study, near utter chaos ensued!  Who knew there were so many schools of psychology?  And guess what — they don’t all agree and at times even contradict each other.  It took me awhile to understand the difference between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology.

Here is an official definition of psychotherapy:

The treatment of disorders of the mind or personality by psychological methods

(“psychotherapy, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 1 March 2014.)

The American Psychological Association defines psychotherapy as:

“Psychotherapy is the informed and intentional application of clinical methods and interpersonal stances derived from established psychological principles for the purpose of assisting people to modify their behaviors, cognitions, emotions, and/or other personal characteristics in directions that the participants deem desirable.”

(https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx)

Now, let’s just look at the word “psychotherapy” itself.  It is pretty obvious that it can be broken down into two words: “psycho” and “therapy”.  Psycho is derived from psyche and it’s etymology is:

Ancient Greek ψυχή breath, life (identified with or indicated by the breath), the animating principle in man and other living beings, the source of all vital activities, rational or irrational, the soul or spirit (as distinct from its material vehicle, the body, σῶμα ), sometimes considered as capable of persisting in a disembodied state after separation from the body at death.

(ED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 1 March 2014.)

Etymology of therapy:

“a waiting on, service,” from therapeuein “to cure, treat medically,” literally “attend, do service, take care of”

http://www.etymonline.com/index.phpallowed_in_frame=0&search=therapy&searchmodnone

And so here is where my love/hate relationship comes into play.  I love the definition if one approaches the word psychotherapy as “attending to the soul”.  I am deeply committed to this interpretation of the word.

I might not actually hate the definitions that are found in the dictionary or held by the APA, but I think they are incomplete and fall far short of reaching beyond mind, behavior or personality.  These definitions ignore soul.

It was not always so.  The removal of soul from psychotherapy is a result of the Enlightenment and the absolute privilege given to science in all matters of health as well as other areas.  I will spare you, dear reader, the history behind the evolution of tending soul and how it has become lost in our time.  But lost it is.

It was by design that I chose to become a depth psychologist and eschewed clinical psychology.  This is because I find it difficult to reconcile the ideas of “clinical” and “soul”.

I decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to join the APA.  I went to the website and spent some time looking around.  I found that the APA does not recognize depth psychology and it holds psychology as a science. I am not allowed to call myself a psychotherapist – the APA believes it “owns” the term.

When I was looking for schools at which to study, I knew I found the right one for me when I read the motto “animae mundi colendae gratia”: “for the sake of tending the soul of the world”.

So, no I may not be able to practice psychotherapy, but I surely intend to use my education, knowledge and experience to “attend to soul”.