Dancing inside the fire

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt

My good feelings from the therapy session the other day continue. Part of this was my own catharsis and part of this was easing someone else’s pain.

What’s more interesting is how these two things mesh together. This is the essence of the wounded healer idea. It’s not just that the therapist has felt pain, or just that the people come to see us are in pain, but the magnetism that draws this shared pain together. This is the art, the dance, and the substance of why therapy can be a life-altering catalyst for change.

Irvin Yalom, who has perhaps contributed more to the discussion of how to do therapy than anyone else since Carl Rogers, talked a great deal about this very thing. He even went so far as to suggest that in some cases the power differential in therapy can shift so it is in fact the therapist getting assistance from the patient. I’ve certainly experienced this. Jung felt that therapy was not in fact effective unless the therapist changed along with the people that he was treating.

This is a powerful idea and one that has been very much on my mind recently. I’ve had more than one dark night of the soul where I’ve seriously questioned if I should be doing what I’m doing given the consistent state of my life over the last several years.

And yet….. I know I’ve done some good and touched a great many lives. Although I’ve made a horrible mess of my own life, I’ve always been able to make a fair assessment of my work with others. I say this not to excuse myself from my own occasional unethical behavior, but simply as a fact. Much of my own suffering has been a useful conduit for others change. This I know. And they have changed me!!

Heraclitus said “You can’t step into the same river twice” with the idea being that life is constantly in a state of flux and change. Human interactions are like this is well. For a truly sensitive person, each significant conversation with another person slightly, (and sometimes not so slightly) alters the way we move in the world. We are always consciously and unconsciously recalibrating our perceptions of the world based on what we learn from others. This speaks to the importance and power of truly listening to others as opposed to constantly waiting for our turns to talk. This is a lesson most people unfortunately have never taken the time to learn.
Can this be taught? I don’t really know. Most of us have so much we want to say that we forget that the people across from us have these very same feelings.

This is where the therapist comes in. We are there to listen. For one hour a frustrated human being gets to say all of those things they can’t seem to get others to understand. Sometimes, after emptying their pent-up trash in the therapist’s office, they feel better, but alas this is a temporary fix. What they haven’t done is address the emotional component of their frustrations. This is the difference between venting and healing.