Charles B. Mark, Psy.D. Psychologist
Other
Thoughts
“I can’t think of anything I don’t know.” I don’t say that to be grandiose. Instead I am referring to one of the greatest weaknesses of the human mind. We often have a great deal of trouble accurately and fully knowing ourselves. These blind spots can form the center of our psychological troubles. Our minds are really extraordinary and yet imperfect. We see the world and relate to others through the lens of our minds. Sometimes that lens allows us to have clear vision and at other times the minds lens creates distortions; exaggerating some aspects of our experience and minimizing or obscuring others aspects. As I see it, psychotherapy promotes an exploration of the lens. The goal is to live and feel our lives in a direct and complete way, with minimal blind spots or distortions. Though clinical psychology studies these issues and lays out a way of addressing them, sometimes poets are best at describing the subtle. Rainer Marie Rilke said:
I want to unfold
I don't want to stay folded anywhere
Because where I am folded, there I am a lie
People enter therapy for all sorts of reasons. One common element, however, is the feeling of being emotionally stuck, thinking about their concerns in the same ways, coming up with the same ineffective solutions. Like it or not, we are all creatures of habit. In this sense our personality is one all encompassing habit. The recipe for creating and sustaining a personality is complicated. It includes our accumulated understanding or misunderstanding our experiences growing up, the quality and nature of relationships, positive experiences and traumatic ones. Add a full heaping cup of inborn temperament, and an equal measure of recent life trials and tribulations. Abracadabra -- a personality. Our personality is our adaptation to all these influences. It’s a solution to what it has been like to grow up and live in the world.
Unfortunately, there are too many times when our personality is inflexible. We develop a way of attempting to resolve our struggles and too often that solution itself becomes part of the problem. Consider the procrastinator who avoids anxiety and stress but ends up worsening the problem or the loving spouse that avoids conflicts but then feels emotionally distant and disconnected. Think about a person who grew up feeling very criticized. Later in life they protect themselves by being excessively critical of others or conversely become too self-critical. If we look around or think about ourselves we can often find many examples of where the naturally occurring solution to a life struggle results in more difficulties.
Psychotherapy, as I see it, needs to focus on these patterns and help the person to observe them and make conscious changes. This yields lasting change.
Charles B. Mark © 2008