(no subject)
"A good deal of advice for dealing with depression (for example, turning aggression from the inner to the outer world) has a clearly manipulative character. Some psychiatrists, for instance, suggest that the therapist should demonstrate to the patient that his hopelessness is not rational or make him aware of his oversensitivity. I think that such procedures will not only strengthen the false self and emotional conformity but will reinforce the depression as well. If therapists want to avoid doing so, they must take all of the patients’ feelings seriously. How often depressive patients are aware that they have reacted over-sensitively, and how much they reproach themselves for it. It is precisely their oversensitivity, shame, and self-reproach that form a continuous thread in their lives, unless they learn to understand to what these feelings actually relate. If the feeling that begins to arise is not experienced, but reasoned away, the discovery cannot take place, and depression will triumph."
Alice Miller, "The Drama of the GIfted Child".
Alice Miller, "The Drama of the GIfted Child".