Author: skysblue
Announcement
Announcement
I’ve kept a few draft chapters of my book on this blog. The book will be published late 2024.
The title of the book is “A Funny Approach to the Experience of Psychotherapy: Tales of a Therapy Journey” by Pamela L Holten.
If you’d like to be updated to the progress towards publication please email glenwoodpublishing@gmail.com
Announcement
I’ve kept a few draft chapters of my book on this blog. The book will be published late 2024.
The title of the book is “A Funny Approach to the Experience of Psychotherapy: Tales of a Therapy Journey” by Pamela L Holten.
If you’d like to be updated to the progress towards publication please email glenwoodpublishing@gmail.com
Chapter 6 – The Dungeon Keeper
No, no, no – I’m not talking about that famous video game where we want to conquer the world. No, that’s not what I mean. My dungeon keeper is someone slightly different but you’ll have to wait a bit to understand until I get to that part of the tale.
See, I had a story. I’m not unique. We all have stories. I can tell you a story about my trip to Costco yesterday. Breakfast stories are always entertaining. Stories within stories are numerous too. Let me tell you about the T.V. show Luke Cage on Netflix. Or did you hear the latest about Rihanna (or my next door neighbor)? We breathe stories every moment of our lives.
But what if you have a secret story, a hidden story? What if that story hurts? What if it keeps gnawing at you and it won’t disappear?
That story lives inside. And that story wants, no, NEEDS to be told. It needs to be heard, and seen.
Maybe you remember some happy stories from when you were a kid. Maybe you remember getting an ‘A’ on a test or drawing a picture that you liked. Didn’t you run to your Mom or Dad all excited because your ‘story’ needed to be shared? Didn’t that feel good?
And those stories that hurt? Maybe someone at school was mean to you. Maybe you felt ashamed that you hadn’t done your homework. If you were lucky, there was someone in your life you could tell.
But, many of us weren’t given that gift of having a listener in our lives. And so much of our unspoken history collected inside of us. And some, or even many of those tales, were seemingly forgotten. You know, like when you throw your excess coins into a bowl or box but then forget that you’ve amassed a small fortune?
Our abandoned stories sure don’t seem like treasures. We may have deigned them simply as waste to be discarded. We cast them into our own personal dungeon – deep below our living room – below the space where our conscious lives carry on.
Then one day, or one week, or one year we begin to live a story that we can’t have imagined. The dungeon is full – no more stories can be hidden. We believe that everything tossed into the dungeon is offal – getting close to it too terrible to contemplate.
Maybe we try to empty the dungeon by throwing this refuse into the garbage cans out back. Again, surprisingly, we discover that no one is coming by to pick up the rubbish.
What to do? Panic mode ensues. The muck is beginning to seep everywhere. My goodness – what if someone sees it? Smells it? What if my secret story spills out into the alleyway? What, what, what to do?
Well, now it’s time to face the Dungeon Keeper. Who is the dungeon keeper? Why does she keep my stories captive? Why do the stories seldom escape? And why do I believe my stories are less than worthy – that they need to be tossed?
It wasn’t until my own self-described sewage became too toxic to survive anymore that I realized the dungeon keeper was my own fear. It was me, living upstairs, who kept the stories hidden.
I needed to release my stories. And who would slay the dungeon keeper? Who would conquer the fear? Who slays the dungeon keeper? Who will be the hero? You may begin to agree with others that I have a split personality when I tell you that it was ME who was able to become the conqueror. The courage within ME overcame the fear within ME.
Courage slays fear, I’ve learned. Well, no – the truth is we’ve always known that courage slays fear but I guess I’d say that that ‘truth’ does not become Truth until we’ve experienced it ourselves.
I became the hero.
I don’t know about you but my imaginary life overlaps with my so-called ‘real’ life. Honestly, when I thought about my pent up stories, I actually could visualize their life in a dungeon.
So, anyway, what does all this talk about dungeons, keepers, trash have to do with therapy anyway? (Yep, two anyways in a sentence is bound to be an object of your admiration, right?)
This long drawn out story is really about my therapist, Anne. No, maybe it’s really about the hero, my courage. No, I think it’s about that space that opened up once the hero came forth and rescued me. No, it’s about….
Let me think about this a bit more, ok?
Well, the metaphor so far has a few characters – all of whom are me, by the way. The trash, the dungeon, the hero, the dragon master, even the trash cans are the roles that I inhabit.
So, what role does my therapist play? Is she the ‘sanitation engineer’ that we so fondly like to name our garbage collectors? Did she help me dispose of the trash?
No. I don’t want to visualize her in that role simply because by the end of the story I realized that what I had considered trash and garbage were really signposts to my deeper self. They needed airing because without coming into the light out of the dungeon they would fester and rot and sicken the entire house.
What she was and continues to be is the torchbearer. When the hero (me) used courage (me) to look for a solution to the trash problem (me), she showed a beacon, a light that guided me.
One of the definitions of torchbearer in the Oxford dictionary is “ A person who leads or inspires others in working towards a valued goal. Yes, I could state that about my Anne, my therapist but how she did that is the magical part of the story.
See, with Anne, I WAS HEARD. I AM HEARD. Being heard, I believe, is the most important part of inner growth and healing.
And though we began this little fable referring to dungeons, I’ll conclude by stating that my forward journey could not have begun without someone listening to ME.
The removal of the treasures (I called them trash earlier) in my dungeon can take a long time. That’s o.k., because unlike real trash which we want to discard as quickly as possible, our ‘trash’ are jewels that need close inspection and renewed appreciation. We discover that these jewels deliver a richness of life that might never have been discovered without someone the hero could show them to.
I’m going to repeat myself: Being heard is a powerful antidote to emotional suffering and is a salve to emotional wounds.
It is a theme that runs through all of the stories I’ll share with you. Whether I’ve struggles with ruptures with my therapist or I’ve felt fear of her or I’ve gained incredible insights with her, I can guarantee you that if I hadn’t felt heard, my inner work with Anne would have not have been fruitful.
Now that you know that the key element, for me, in therapy is the experience of being heard, I can now discuss some of the stumbling blocks that can be put in the path of our inner work.
The work of cleaning out the dungeon can be dirty and challenging. We face steep, slippery steps. Some of the bags to remove seem too heavy. Other debris is difficult to see in the poor light.
The next chapters I’ll begin describing some of those challenges.
Chapter 12 -Finding Nemo, I mean, Ovid
Ha! You thought you’d be reading about a cute little fish, didn’t you? Nemo, the star of the 2003 animated feature by Disney, is beloved by children of all ages. And, yep, I’m guilty of pulling that ol’ “bait and switch” dirty trick. But, hey, be honest – if I’d just thrown out Ovid’s name, would you have even taken a second look? Probably not. So, don’t blame me. I’m just doing what I can do to help you see the connections between Nemo, Ovid and Justin Bieber and how they all are part of the string of associations to my experience in psychotherapy. (Hey, did that last sentence grab you? Just so you know – Walt Whitman makes an appearance also)
Let’s begin at the beginning. I found Ovid. Well, not actually. I didn’t even know I was looking for Ovid. Truth be told, I had never heard of Ovid before. (Don’t tell anyone) Well, maybe that name was tucked away in one of those tiny cavities of information that is stored so deep in my brain that not even the most talented of brain ‘miners’ in the world would be able to recover.
This is it – Ovid is to Narcissus what Usher is to Bieber. Not bad how I am able to plug pop culture into Greek mythology into Roman poetry, huh? (Hold on – I’ll get to Nemo later)
In the first months of seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, I was very uncomfortable talking, talking, talking, about myself. That’s not how I do ‘real life’. In real life, I have CONVERSATIONS. Those conversations incorporate the natural give and take of sharing.
But, no – not in a therapy session. The focus is all on you. You know – out there in the world, it’s not cute to be as self-absorbed as one must be in therapy. It’s not attractive. It’s not appealing. We say things about those people who seem like NARCISSISTS!
“Oh, my”, I whispered to myself. “Am I a narcissist? I think I’m a narcissist. All I do is think about myself – my thoughts, my feelings, my life, my point of view, my intentions, my, my, my, my.”
So, I came to believe that my new-found attraction to therapy was simply and only an elitist exercise in self-indulgence. With a creeping growth of a sense of horror, I could not avoid thinking thoughts like:
“Where else can I show how much I love myself except with my therapist? Only there with her can I talk about myself non-stop. Only there can I think only about myself. Only there can I hang on my every word and thought. Only there can I believe how important and precious I am. Only there can I accept my own self-accolades. Only there can I, in reality, make love to myself.
“Sure, I can moan and groan about my lacks and faults in session. But, dang, they’re MY lacks and faults. Oh, what a pleasure to examine them in detail and to explore their ‘possibilities’. And what about my childhood? Oh, the most important childhood ever – because it leads to ME!”
Because of my feelings of shame and disgust about the signs that seemed to point to my being narcissistic, I decided to investigate the topic more. And that’s when I learned about Ovid (Publius Ovidus Naso 43 BC-AD 17), the Roman poet who in his work, Metamorpheses , popularized the Greek myth about Narcissus. [Like Bieber toiling away in obscurity in Canada before Usher brought him fame, so was Narcissus tucked away in the canon of Greek myths until Ovid brought him to our attention).
And the character Narcissus is the source of our term narcissistic which is defined as ‘excessive love or admiration for oneself’. This mythical character was very proud of himself and his beauty. He felt aloof and held disdain for anyone who loved him. He cared only for himself – so much so that when he saw his reflection in a pool, he was so entranced by his own beauty that he could not leave the image and died by that body of water.
But many centuries later, Walt Whitman, in his poem, “Song of Myself” begins his work by writing:
‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself’
And further in poem states:
‘We are large, we contain multitudes’
And so, maybe during this exploration into our inner self, we can face the adventure like Nemo who was abducted and lost but was able to face the dangers and learn how to take care of himself.
For us, one of the dangers is the risk of beating up on ourselves too much while we’re engaged in our own adventure and to realize that we need not compare ourselves to ancient mythological characters while still accepting that, yes,
“WE ARE LARGE”.
Chapter 9 – Archeology
You know those people who dig and excavate and chip away at old ruins, those people called archeologists? Curiosity of the past is understandable but who wants to get dirt under their fingernails for such a cause? Not me!
Little did I realize when I began therapy that I would be embarking on a true excavating adventure. And what is even more amazing is that when I began, I was not even aware that I was moving towards getting my own hands dirty, so to speak.
We know about exploration – we explore the foundations of knowledge and try to fill the tank with more and more facts; we explore the tiniest to subatomic matter; we explore the furthest to distant galaxies; we explore the past to the time of dinosaurs; we explore the future to centuries ahead.
Our eyes look, our ears listen, our fingers touch, our lips taste and we are captivated in wonder by all of creation.
But, I believe, the greatest target of exploration is within oneself – not the body, but the mind.
And so, when I began my work with my therapist, I began an excavation. It is the most curious thing because I was not exactly sure, in fact I was completely ignorant of what I was searching for. There was only an impulse, a drive that kept me digging and a vulnerable, naked intent that took ahold of me.
The search takes place in the dark. The tools used are unseen and unknown (at least to me they were). Handling such tools was awkward and frustrating. There was only clumsy movement with no sense of direction nor any easily understood goal.
O.k., o.k., now I’m scaring off those of you who might consider entering the fun playground of psychotherapy. Hey, don’t be frightened. It’s actually quite exciting. Who wants to live their whole days and complete lives in comfortable and boring circumstances? Maybe we don’t have the chance to go to the moon or discover the Americas, but we CAN dive into that wonderful adventure of learning who we are.
Hey, go ahead and laugh. You won’t be the first one nor the last. I’m laughing too. Really, there are people watching me who smirk and snicker and most of them are the voices I hear within myself that continually told me I was on a fool’s errand.
I felt like Don Quixote but at least he had plenty of faith, courage and belief. Whatever faith, courage or belief I may have owned continued to waver and flicker and threatened to die.
Well, yes, like any excavation project or any crazy search for life on other planets, the work is grueling and dirty and sweaty and the dust and commotion created is immense.
The pull is almost overpowering to give up the exertion and return to the ground/surface on planet Earth where all seems clean and calm.
The voices pounded away at me: “Give up your silly pursuit. What do you really hope to gain? There is nothing to be found. You have been enchanted by a romantic idea that has no foundation in reality. Just accept your lot like everyone else and save yourself all that turmoil and trouble.”
So, with so much doubt, confusion and weakness of will, how did I continue? How did I hang on to that willowy, barely discernible sense, that yes, there IS something valuable to discover deep within?
Well, I can’t answer that question. I suspect that there is a life force that insists on exerting its power. I could not ignore the hints that came my way that confirmed that my efforts were not a tremendous waste.
To be honest, I have no idea how I was to snag sufficient faith that my endeavor was worthwhile; how I strengthened my shallow and weak belief that I was heading in the right direction; how I sensed that the dirty and difficult work WOULD reveal a hidden treasure – a healing that was to be mine alone.
I wavered and threatened to quit too many times to count. But I always returned to the thought that ‘ I don’t have anything to lose even if the hunt, in the end, is a hunt for nothing.’
And clinging to these concepts did help:
Persistence; Perseverance; Patience
And now- well, you could say I’ve become a believer in archeology.
Chapter 7 -At The Deli
When I’m at the deli counter, I usually have a list in hand. In days past, I’d glance at a crumbled piece of paper in which I’d been adding names of delectables throughout the week. Even though wrinkled and scribbled upon, it held the inventory of my needs and wants. Nowadays, those goods of desire live inside my smart phone in one of those ubiquitous shopping apps.
I’m not one to command or bark at another. I just softly but firmly point to that which I require – a pound of potato salad, ½ pound of sharp cheddar cheese, a dozen dolmas. I suppose if I were wracked with hunger, my order might be expressed with more urgency and with maybe a tremulous voice.
My first visit to my T felt like going to the deli when hungry. I intended to express my needs in the same manner of clarity & urgency as when requesting deli items. In both situations I intend to hide from the other any detection of my hunger. I suspect I failed in that quest with my therapist since she’s trained in the art of detection. No matter.
A difference emerges- the therapy list’s purpose served also as a barrier between me and T. A flimsy piece of paper has never been put to such good use. I could keep my eyes on the words while reading and thereby avoiding eye contact. And I could hold the paper in a defensive posture (we’ve all heard the stories of therapists attacking their clients, right? just kidding, just kidding)
Lists have always served me well. They help me organize my thoughts and clarify my actions. Lists even morph into outlines if I’m not careful with them. And outlines occasionally scurry into diagrams. They’ve even been known to get out of control and become synopses or blueprints or thumbnail sketches. Lists exude safety – false security, I know, but still they do help me. I did learn later on that lists can also serve as a crutch but that’s a topic for another time.
So, you must already know, I had no idea what my therapist was selling. Did she even stock the goods I wanted to purchase? I didn’t know who she was and what she’d be like. So, fear (of what? I don’t know) along with desperate need accompanied me into her office- all to acquire a certain commodity.
Should I self-disclose? Right now I feel anxious about over-sharing. But I will let you take a peek at some of what I had meticulously painfully concentratedly inscribed in my therapist shopping list.
I read to her the entire page but for you now just the first 2 sentences.
Here goes: “What I want – I want to talk, unburden, confess, bare my soul in comfort and without fear- with the freedom to tell the truth as far as I understand it. And I want a listener who can offer insights and guidance.”
Dang – what demands I brought into that office. That 1st paragraph presents the introduction.
How many items are listed so far? –
1.Talk. 2. Unburden. 3. Confess. 4. Bare my soul. 5. Freedom. 6. Need Listener. 6…and more to come
To my therapist’s credit she did not graciously escort me out of her office right then. It must have been clear to her that I had high needs and expectations.
I did enjoy a saving grace that day, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought I was simply there to ‘interview’ her and then to decide if I would ‘employ’ her. I didn’t know then that she also was making an assessment of me and would be deciding if she’d take me on. I’m sure I would have fumbled the first meeting even worse than I did if I had have known I was being ‘interviewed’ also. What happened next? We made another appointment for the following week and my months of self-study had seriously begun.
Chapter 2- Mail Order Bride
Pre-Beginning
I’m not saying that I know what it’s like to order a bride by mail (can you order grooms?) but I am imagining it might be like trying to find a therapist…… except I can’t help but believe it’s easier to order bride/groom than to ‘order’ a therapist. With the former you can just list your requirements, 32 years old, brunette, knows how to bake bread, or in the case of a husband, 32 years old, brunette, knows how to bake bread, and voila, you have your candidates.
But how can I order a therapist? Is there a search engine anywhere where I can plug in my requirements: nice, helpful, and what else…? I don’t know. Uh, since I’ve never been in therapy I don’t know exactly the qualities I’m looking for so I’m in the dark. Even with that imaginary search engine, it would not be useful because I don’t know EXACTLY what I need. I just keep returning to my only thought – I need a NICE person who will HELP me. Hmmm, I wonder how many therapists advertise themselves as NICE people.
I revert to that old-fashioned method of research by opening up paper pages of a paper phone book. I know, I know – who does that anymore? Well, at my age I can defend my default habit of resorting to antique behavior patterns. Well, guess what? – there are only (only!) 130 names listed in the phone book. Hmmm, this should be fun. Just tear out the pages, tape them to the wall and throw a dart to choose a therapist – that should work.
Nah, there must be a better way. Therapists have their own business, right? So, they should have nice and tidy little websites to sell their wares, right? Just like other businesses. Give us your sales pitch and then we can make an informed choice – right? Shouldn’t be that tough, right? I mean, we live in THE INFORMATION AGE, right? So, good data is always at our fingertips, right?
Wrong.
Searching for a therapist is like searching for – I don’t know – like hunting for the holy grail, historically known as a silver chalice with magical powers but in my hunt, a magical person – A PERSON WITH WHOM I WILL SPILL My GUTS AND EXPOSE MY INNARDS AND LAY MYSELF TOTALLY EXPOSED AND EMOTIONALLY NAKED!
Phone book research a bust, not a sliver real information there, internet exploration next, I googled ‘Madison County Psychotherapists’ (not real name of my county) and 25 web pages later I still did not find any cohesive and clear list of my local therapists. Those few therapists who listed in the Psychology Today website did show up quickly in the search but they numbered only about 6 and did not grab my fancy, and a few haphazardly placed pages of therapists who took the time to create for themselves a webpage also appeared.
But the hits I got were mostly about physical therapists or massage therapists or sex therapists or even listings for technical schools in the neighboring states but no comprehensive listing of psychotherapists in my county. The link that did catch my eye, though, was ‘alien implant removal’. I kid you not. And that link appeared on the first page of a psychotherapist search – what does that tell us about the general consensus of the public’s (or Google’s) understanding of therapy? And what is wrong with Google? Shouldn’t they know better how to help? Is psychotherapy such a ‘verboten’ activity that it buries its existence in hundreds of miscellaneous and random pages. Aaarrggghhh!!
An idea crossed my mind to do a search by descriptive region instead of by county – you know – it’s like if you live in south Texas you might search “Gulf Psychotherapists” or if you live in Boston you might search “New England Psychotherapists”. I could have just as easily searched for “Mountain therapists” or “Seaside therapists”. I think this is a really loose way to identify a group but by that search I did come across a complete listing of my local therapists included in their own mental health providers association website. It was a fluke that I even thought to make a search by such a descriptor. Why their website didn’t appear in my county search I have no idea.
All of this hunting within the period of 2 days. This was not a casual relaxed search. It was a activity of desperation. Why was it so difficult for me to find that website that listed each therapist with their address, phone number, experience, orientation, etc. etc.? Well, who knows, but at least I finally have something to work with and now I’m faced with the dilemma of…how does one scroll through those NAMES and choose that PERSON who will watch you squirm and (hopefully) die to your old dysfunctional self (that is the goal, remember?).
Complicated and more complicated – these therapists have letters behind their names – LPC, MA, Psy.D, LPA, LCSW, Ph.D, LMFT – the list goes on. Am I supposed to know what those letters mean? I could google them (I’ve lost my confidence in Google) but still… what do those signs really mean? I’m wishing that at least one of them had the letters ABC and that is the therapist I would have chosen. ABC is soothing; ABC is nurturing; ABC is foundational; ABC is the beginning, I want to go to the beginning; I want a therapist who is ABC.
Being that there is no ABC therapist and succumbing to the harsh truth that I am ignorant of all things therapy, against the common sense that God gave me, I choose to slide into checking out the other descriptors those therapists give themselves.
Ah, modalities- those methods of therapy that therapists apply in their work- what a number of options. I think they’re also called ‘orientations’ or ‘approaches’ or ‘treatment styles’ or… I advise you not to read the following paragraph because I am going to list all the treatment styles that were named by the therapists in my area. I have no idea if some of these are redundant, being different names for the same thing, being ignorant of all things therapy and so for me it’s all gibberish just like it was all gibberish when I first read them and probably is gibberish for most of the population. So here goes:
Types of therapy: developmental, humanistic, transpersonal, transactional analysis, systems, experiential, cognitive behavioral, solutions-focused, mindfulness based, eclectic, emdr, systemic, dialectical, family systems, body-centered, psychodynamic, feminist, sex therapy, strength based, mind-body, multi-cultural, interpersonal, gestalt, client-centered, somatic, shamanic, NLP, psycho-educational, relational, attachment theory, integrative, contextual, differentiation based, character analytic, orgonomic/biophysical, communication (Satir), Jungian, expressive arts, play therapy, hypnosis, narrative therapy and so on.
Pretty scary, huh? Confused yet? I am. I was. I knew I was in over my head and made an executive decision to ignore all of the concrete yet unclear information I’d uncovered so far. Since I didn’t know what the letters behind their name meant in regards to how it would help me in therapy and since I didn’t know anything about theoretical approaches, I needed to narrow my search by some other methods. I decided on a very reasonable decision making method. I would choose a therapist to call by a deliberate, easy to understand, unique to me, process of elimination.
Hey, this is easy after all, I was thinking. I know I don’t want a male T so I eliminated all the men. Whoops, I only lost 10 names off of the gigantic list. O.k. – what other criteria can I use? I guess I can eliminate those who specialize in children or those who treat drug addiction. Great – now I’m 5 more down off my selection. Well, what other ways can I sift out names from this list?. Oh, I know – I’ll keep those T’s whose offices are within 5 miles of my house. That should get rid of a bunch more. And it did. Yep, college educated me with lots of experience in research knows how to make informed decisions, don’t I?
Progress made. Began with 130 possibilities and now I’m down to 40. Hey, I have trouble choosing between chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream. How the hey am I gonna be able to choose which of the remaining 40 therapists to call? At least with ice cream I know what I’m choosing.
Things are getting tough now. I’ve used up my ‘easy’ methods of elimination but now I have to get serious. Hmmm, I guess I have to resort to a kind of voodoo magic. I mean, I never really thought of it in that way before but my options seemed to have petered out. What else could I do?
“Voodoo magic” works by applying zero thought to your actions. You just let your body do the work. Sounds easy huh? Well, it’s not. You really must let go off any idea of control or analysis or judgment. So what I did was eliminate those names on the list that I simply didn’t like. Yep, that’s it. I decided to make a choice based on the aesthetics of the T’s names. Now, I would never be able to defend or explain how that might work or if indeed the beauty and sound of one name was truly better than another, I just let my body do the work. (Oh, and ‘voodoo magic’ is just a term I made up to mean that I had no idea what I was doing and just needed a fancy dancy label to give it. I mean no disrespect to any of you who engage in voodoo or practice magic.)
And here we are – at the finale. From 130 names now to only 5 names. That’s good. I wrote them down. I looked at them over and over. Which one to call? I had no idea. I chose one name and then changed my mind. This was nerve-wracking. Who should I call? Back and forth between the 5 names. Well, voodoo magic to the rescue – and I zeroed in on one name and had a number to call.
Now, I know there must be a better way to find a psychotherapist but I have no idea what it is. I could gripe and gripe about how hard these mental health professionals make it for us to find them and I would complain and throw a fit but… who has time and energy for such a cause? Not me.
I think I have confirmed that the life altering experience of tracking down a therapist is much more difficult than the life altering experience of ordering a bride.
All this action and effort even before I made that first phone call. If you think I got exhausted, you’re right. And we all know that exhaustion is never helpful when fear is present. For many of us there’s plenty of fear to go around as we anticipate therapy. Even so, I somehow or another found that kernel of courage inside of myself and was able to take that very important step to reach out to a psychotherapist.
Man, so proud of myself. Oh, but it gets better. (Is the sarcasm obvious?) We ain’t even started therapy yet at this moment. The ride is just beginning.
A Therapy Story 