Posted by Mark H. on February 19, 2002, at 16:31:31
In reply to previous message was for Mark H (nm), posted by judy1 on February 19, 2002, at 14:06:19
Dear Judy,
Thank you for asking. Sue and I "graduated" from therapy with our principal therapist in 1984, at which time we became close friends and extended family with him and his wife (not close in the seeing one another often sense, but in the always including one another in family holiday get-togethers and occasional outings sense).
Sue and I continued with other therapies and paths of personal growth, but until about 1997, it never occured to us to see him professionally once again.
However, with my then-deepening four-year depression, we realized that it might help if we went back to the beginning, either separately for individual support, and/or together as a couple. So we tried both.
It was hard for all three of us to decide whether he should still be our therapist. Could he forget our friendship of almost two decades (Sue's relationship with him stretches back into the late 70s) long enough to still be effective as a psychotherapist? We agreed to give it a try.
At first, he wanted me in group as a co-trainer and co-therapist. This proved personally unsuccessful, in no small part because I rarely focused on my own issues while wearing that hat. However, by changing groups, I was also able to change roles and to drop any pretense of being there as a counselor, when I was definitely there for therapy!
Over time, the greatest challenge proved to be our fundamental difference in values. As practicing Vajrayana Buddhists, our world view is very different from that of humanistic psychology. At first, this worked to everyone's advantage by helping to clarify underlying assumptions about what outcomes would be useful.
I don't mean to be vague here, I'm just trying to avoid claiming one way is "right" and another "wrong." I don't think that was the case at all; rather, his style of psychotherapy is observably effective for many, many intelligent, strong and highly capable people. Nevertheless, the very sense of "self" is in complete conflict with my religion. At some point, one must choose one's path and stop dabbling in whatever comes along (well, I should add, or suffer/enjoy the consequences of dabbling -- again, it's not my place to judge this except for myself).
One of the excellent aspects was our ability to step in and out of our roles as therapist and therapand to discuss the dynamics between us -- what was working and what wasn't. We could be totally at odds during group, then afterwards debrief each other on the interaction and admit our mistakes and successes.
The terminal occurrence for me was a simple mistake on both of our parts. In his system of therapy, he believes that it is healthy and useful to express one's anger in a civil but clear and direct manner as soon as it arises. I resisted any such notion as absurd, but because I trust him based on knowing many of his successes, I decided to give it a try.
Within about 2 or 3 weeks of practicing the expression of "mild irritation" as he called it (in May 2000), I experienced completely uncontrollable inner rage, accompanied by almost constant images of death and dismemberment. I called my psychiatrist and told his receptionist I needed to see him right away.
Fortunately, Scott and others on this forum had much more experience with this sort of mixed hypomanic state than I did and they gave me great advice. It felt quite psychotic and very dangerous to me, but to primary bipolars what I experienced may have seemed relatively mild.
So I took Zyprexa for about a week to 10 days, and all was well. My psychiatrist told me something very interesting, and both my therapist and I learned an important lesson: you don't ask bipolars of any stripe to "express" their "mild irritations" or anger. What it does is kindle rage. The bipolar mind has no idea what "releasing anger by stating what's on your mind" means; it simply jumps from one level of anger to the next, until it is a mental and emotional firestorm that rages out of control.
As for your core question, have I achieved the state I speak of, the answer is that I have not achieved the stability with it that I would like. While my physical behavior is almost always appropriate, my thoughts and speech frequently are not. However, I've worked hard to clarify my values, and when those values are in conflict with my impulses, my values still win out.
I hope eventually that I no longer blurt out whatever is on my mind, and beyond that, I finally reach a point when I will no longer indulge negative or unhelpful thinking. The key word there is "indulge." Perhaps negative thoughts will always arise; the skill I seek is to be able to allow them to come and go without forming judgments about them, attachments or aversion.
I remember something that came to me when I was helping other people with their issues (before my severe depression). It is that the father's job is always to find his daughter completely attractive and to actively protect her from that attraction at the same time. It is our *duty* as healthy adults neither to deny nor to act on the impulses we have that would harm others.
To suppress and deny those impulses is to invite self-betrayal and loss of control (for instance, under the influence of alcohol or drugs), or even illnesses such as cancer that may arise from unresolved inner conflict (and what else is depression at that level?).
So many people's pain is based on the parent not honoring that duty -- either by criticizing the child's emerging sexuality as wrong or dirty (an active form of denial), or by exploiting it for criminally inappropriate personal satisfaction, or even both at the same time.
I hope there is a thread of continuity in these thoughts that you can follow. If not, please ask more questions.
Appreciatively,
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:18403
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020214/msgs/18510.html