Heart view |" Our" dark side

Now that I think about it, what memory do I have of my first 700 hours of current psychoanalysis on the Long Collapse? My psychoanalyst, Olive Smith, was a silent, patient listener, and my fondest memory of her is that one day I judged myself for greedily expecting to inherit property from my parents when they died. I was very successful in criticizing myself, but what I didn't expect was that she suddenly took action and said a sentence to quell my accusations against herself: "This is how our humanity is." ”

It wasn't just that she reached out to comfort me (though I'm glad she did), or that she normalized my mean impulses, but that she used the word. That is, she, like me, has a dark side of her own.

I value this gift from hers and have passed it on to others many times. I do everything I can to normalize the patient's dark impulses. I use "we" like Olive Smith, I point out that some feelings or impulses are universal, and I recommend that patients read some appropriate material (for example, for sexual sensations, I recommend that patients read the Kinsey Sexology Report, the Master and Johnson Report, or the Sea Sexology Report).

Normalize the dark side of human nature as much as possible. The therapist should be open to all the dark, disgraceful parts of ourselves. Sometimes, sharing this with the patient can get the patient to stop flogging himself for real or imaginary transgressions.

Once, when I praised a patient's two children for being well-educated, she looked uneasy and said very heavily that she was going to tell me something she had never revealed to anyone. After the birth of her first child, she had a strong urge to leave the hospital and abandon her newborn child. Although she wanted to be a mother, sacrificing her freedom for many years still made her unbearable. I said, "Tell me about any mother or father who doesn't feel that way." Although I love my children, I have also had countless times of great hatred that they have taken over my life and left me no time for other tasks or interests. ”

The famous British psychoanalyst Winnicott (D. W. Winnicott) has an incredible courage in sharing his dark impulses with patients. When a colleague of mine treats patients who are angry with their children, he always quotes an article by Winnicott that lists eighteen reasons why mothers hate their babies. Winnicott also recorded a hostile lullaby that moms sang to their babies (thankfully the babies couldn't understand them). For example:

Excerpt from "A Gift to a Psychotherapist"

Irvin D. Yalom 著

Translated by Zhang Yiling