On occasion, I've had a disposition towards melancholy (a word I am trying to restore in my vocabulary over being 'depressed'). I think we have overly embraced the illness of depression in today's culture, since it conjures up a disease that needs a cure. Maybe a pill. And yet, melancholy is so much part of the human condition for most, and maybe a healthy catalyst for some.
Nevertheless, it was not my disposition that was the issue, as was the inability to make big life decisions. And as they say: not making a decision eventually is a decision.
I dreaded the idea of going into my past. It seemed so futile. And yet, that's always part of the process when it comes to therapy. To not be held by it, one must be able to hold it.
After almost a decade of it, it became clear (in Attachment Theory speak) I was on the avoidant end of the spectrum partially due to my poor secure attachment to my parents. So I wanted to be loved, but was too overly independent to receive it. I feared being engulfed by another. It's still a sticking area for me, but I am much more objectively attune with it.
I was fortunate with my therapist. He was a well-spoken gentlemen, with a keen sense for listening attentively while displaying useful insight when needed. He was also quite likable. I am not sure if this is necessary in these dynamics, however, when it comes to therapy they often say what most people need is just a good, wise friend. I think that's often true, so maybe likability is part of the mix (albeit the professionalization behind it).
During the latter part of some sessions, we would often meander about political or philosophical discussions. I enjoyed these moments. You can get sick of talking about yourself. And he would challenge me around some bigger themes that were more compelling to wrap my mind around. I often think he enjoyed these talks also. I can't imagine what it must be like to hear people's problems all day long and appear interested through it all.
But eventually I stopped. At the time, it wasn't like I was "cured". Neurosis never is. It's more like I felt I was in an endless loop about me. It started to bore me. And I knew it was time to take break.
I recently came across a passage from Earnest Becker (I started to look through his classic book again after discussing it with a friend who is reading it for the first time). Becker brilliantly noted that,
“Man wants to focus his love on an absolute measure of power and value, and the analyst tells him that all is reducible to his early conditioning and is therefore relative. Man wants to find and experience the marvelous, and the analyst tells him how matter-of-fact everything is, how clinically explainable are our deepest ontological motives and guilts. Man is thereby deprived of the absolute mystery he needs, and the only omnipotent thing that then remains is the man who is explained away. And so the patient clings to the analyst with all his might and dreads terminating the analysis.”Maybe that's why psychoanalysis has done so little for some (see Woody Allen). But it also points out how we are all condemned to religion. It's just a matter of choosing the right one. As I started to see the limits of my therapy, a part of me was orientating more towards transcendence.
It's been several years since I quit therapy, yet I still often think about going back to him for a session here and there. Not because I need a "tune-up" (although it sometimes feels as I may). But I think I want to reconnect with his decency that saw my decency.
With everything I learned about my idiosyncrasies during those sessions, what stays with me most is the imprint of a sort of friendship. Maybe we all need a good, wise friend.