At present I am in full-time psychotherapy. I've been at it for nine months and I don't really know how long I'll continue. That's one of the many mysteries about it. Some may need years, others may agree with their therapists that's it after a year, and others may find it's not for them after a week. I say mysteries but it's not like magic or anything, it's bloody hard work to spend five days a week wrestling with 'inner demons'. And of course it doesn't end when the unit shuts. I live with a woman I've been with for six years so in the evenings and at weekends questions to do with how I relate to people and who I am, why I am, are never far from my mind. Often I feel like this is madness, why don't I just get on with life instead of analysing it, but I did try and it just seemed too hard. Now I have the privilege to discover why that is. In the unit I attend we usually have two large groups at the beginning and end of each week with at the most twenty five people and four staff lasting for an hour and a quarter. I've never been there when the whole group has attended. For the rest of the week we split into three small groups for mornings and meet together as a large group for art therapy, writing therapy, and psychodrama. As well as group work we each have a key-therapist who we see for one session a week or more if we need it and they are available.
After finishing my M.A. in 1993 I went to Croatia to work with refugees and then came back to England to work with people with mental health problems. This phrase really bugs me, so does mental illness, but some set of terms has to be used I suppose. After seeing a doctor in February last year, it took until November before I was admitted as a day patient in the psychotherapy unit. For eight years I'd been seeing various people, some helped, others didn't but I knew I needed more. In my own reading I discovered that St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, knew most of the basic principles of therapy hundreds of years before Freud came along. So, as I had already started doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with a spiritual guide who is also a therapist, I had less qualms about entering psychotherapy. However, it was the biggest decision of my life. I had to give up two very interesting and rewarding jobs, sign on, almost turn on, tune in and drop out as Dr. Leary said, and see if psychotherapy could be as mind altering as LSD. How did I know it wasn't a load of self-indulgent New Age bollocks for the losers of the twentieth century ? Well I didn't, so that's where the risk came in and every day now there's a risk. I may open my mouth in a group and really offend someone, or take up time when someone else is in deep pain, or just get more confused, or something so painful may come to my attention and I no longer can remain in blissful ignorance.
Despite the risks, I think it is worth it but this does vary from day to day. Some days I come home seething about how out of order everyone is and planning world extermination. On other days I see how people have really helped me be myself, encouraged me to express how I feel and think without guilt and paranoia forcing me back into isolation. I still live with a lot of fear but I'm starting to be less controlled by it. Likewise, in relationships I am less into trying to control people because I'm less frightened about them manipulating or abusing me. People often think therapy is about getting rid of guilt so you can do what you want but that is the complete opposite of what actually takes place. What does go on is that a group of fellow patients and very well experienced and trained staff listen to you and help you know yourself more, find out what is stopping you from being free to be yourself and from having meaningful relationships, and you begin to realise that things don't have to be as they always have been.
A big thing for me has been attention. I've always been afraid to admit that I wanted attention and got it in various dubious ways, often being the load mouth at school or trying to place others first while knowing I have needs too and resenting this. Attention seeker is meant to be an insult but we all need to be attended to. I've started to trust my key-therapist and realise that I do have a relationship with her that is helping me on a deep level, not just intellectually. For years I've felt like I was evil and often I still do. In my head I know this is utter rubbish but I feel this is the truth. This is the point really. Because I am a graduate student I suppose I am good at thinking but this is pretty worthless really if I am ignorant of my feelings. However much I've tried to channel feelings, through glue sniffing, transcendental meditation, 'good works', or whatever, I've often found myself getting heavily depressed and feeling cut off from people. Unlike a lot of places, in therapy it is not a crime to share that I often feel sad, desperate, unlovable. I can try to hide but it is very difficult in group therapy. Sooner or later things come out and then that is where the healing takes place. I've confronted the 'demon', understood that part of myself and am free from it's control.
Sometimes I think it's all crap. How can going through all this pain, feeling the horror, looking at the awful times in my life really help me ? Won't this just make me worse. For me, because of my Christian faith, I can only explain this to myself in Christian terms. I can see that this is a process from darkness to light. Since my earliest memories darkness has had a certain grip on me, be it subtle or vast. For me, although I did choose to go into psychotherapy and often rationalise it as "hey, I'm an intronaut man, an explorer of inner space," I know I need it. It is helping me become more myself and feel more part of the world, however many anti-therapy books Masson or others may write.