Productive Burn
Today I didn't go to work. It was a much needed break after hell-week and dreaded-work-event. A whole, blissful day alone -- with the exception, that is, of my two therapist appointments. Yes, I'll admit that two appointments in one day is a little over the top but it had to happen in my transition from the old to the new. The two appointments were the day's bookends and it was heavy-duty.
I'm not sure that I predicted how difficult it would seem to end my work with the woman I've been seeing for the past three years, and actually I don't really see this difficulty as something to do with me (I was ready to go) but with all that I hate about the practice of someone else's livelihood depending on your mental state. It's why I was always reluctant to go into therapy in the first place -- that and the kind of therapist training and dogma that so guides their every move (at least within a traditional psychoanalytic paradigm). Anita (who is herself a therapist) warned me about this. She predicted exactly what my now-ex therapist would do and say, and warned me that the ex would push for a period of transition, of winding down the work together, of phasing out, blah, blah, blahity, blah. And sure enough, the ex played upon all of the guilt and obligation sensors that are so firmly lodged with my psyche and even though I knew it was coming I still found myself questioning why I was leaving, what I was doing, and if I shouldn't stay on another month to 'properly terminate the therapeutic relationship.'
Luckily when I expressed these doubts to Anita she put me straight. She looked at me and said, 'E., you have dreams about orbs. You're a visionary, and you've got to get yourself with someone who can work with that, so go." I'll tell you now that flattery will get you everywhere and while I dunno about this visionary stuff I do know that I have been bored stiff and going nowhere with the ex, and so I marched in there today and told her it was over. And that was that. We had a productive one-session termination process and she wished me well.
In the afternoon I headed off to Dr. Wise Mytho-Symbolist Jungian Shrink, and hoo-boy, lemme say that it is a massive breath of fresh air. Dr. Rad Jungian couldn't give a shit about proper channels for terminating therapeutic relationships, and feels no need to analyze my process for leaving. I told him about my orby dreams and he practically jumped out of his orthopedic chair (did I mention that he's old?) with engagement. The man's got an MD and a Ph.D and seventy or eighty years of experience in life. Now, I do not believe that one needs multiple high-fallutin' degrees in order to engage with my psyche, but I've got to admit that he knows his stuff. By the end of the hour I'd been cast head-first into the center of the alchemical crucible where I shall be smoldering away for the foreseeable future. Here's to hoping for a productive burn. I need it.
I'm not sure that I predicted how difficult it would seem to end my work with the woman I've been seeing for the past three years, and actually I don't really see this difficulty as something to do with me (I was ready to go) but with all that I hate about the practice of someone else's livelihood depending on your mental state. It's why I was always reluctant to go into therapy in the first place -- that and the kind of therapist training and dogma that so guides their every move (at least within a traditional psychoanalytic paradigm). Anita (who is herself a therapist) warned me about this. She predicted exactly what my now-ex therapist would do and say, and warned me that the ex would push for a period of transition, of winding down the work together, of phasing out, blah, blah, blahity, blah. And sure enough, the ex played upon all of the guilt and obligation sensors that are so firmly lodged with my psyche and even though I knew it was coming I still found myself questioning why I was leaving, what I was doing, and if I shouldn't stay on another month to 'properly terminate the therapeutic relationship.'
Luckily when I expressed these doubts to Anita she put me straight. She looked at me and said, 'E., you have dreams about orbs. You're a visionary, and you've got to get yourself with someone who can work with that, so go." I'll tell you now that flattery will get you everywhere and while I dunno about this visionary stuff I do know that I have been bored stiff and going nowhere with the ex, and so I marched in there today and told her it was over. And that was that. We had a productive one-session termination process and she wished me well.
In the afternoon I headed off to Dr. Wise Mytho-Symbolist Jungian Shrink, and hoo-boy, lemme say that it is a massive breath of fresh air. Dr. Rad Jungian couldn't give a shit about proper channels for terminating therapeutic relationships, and feels no need to analyze my process for leaving. I told him about my orby dreams and he practically jumped out of his orthopedic chair (did I mention that he's old?) with engagement. The man's got an MD and a Ph.D and seventy or eighty years of experience in life. Now, I do not believe that one needs multiple high-fallutin' degrees in order to engage with my psyche, but I've got to admit that he knows his stuff. By the end of the hour I'd been cast head-first into the center of the alchemical crucible where I shall be smoldering away for the foreseeable future. Here's to hoping for a productive burn. I need it.