14b. The Monotonous, Grinding Mechanics of Long-Term Talk Therapy: A Partial Summary, Part Two

For the seventeen years I worked with Judith, I thought therapy was like school. You put in the hours to master the concepts, and then you passed the test. Once you learned something, you knew it for life; you never backslid into ignorance. You could build on your knowledge and attain new levels every year.

So, in the freshman stage of Therapy, you learn the basics. You begin to understand the events of your childhood with adult clarity. You see the links between your current behavior and the behaviors that were encouraged or discouraged in your early upbringing, during the formation of your nervous system. You’re no longer a complete mystery to yourself.

A lot of people stop after Intro to Therapy. They wanted an explanation for why they’re all fucked up, and they got one. It’s their parents’ fault! They don’t suck; their parents sucked! This is the terrific relief of early therapy—maybe you’re not an unlovable monster! Maybe you were a lovable human baby that was raised by unlovable monsters!

You’re absolved! It’s exhilarating. And your absolution is both backdated and front-dated. Since you can never change what happened to you in the past, you can never change your reactions to similar stimuli in the future. Sorry, everyone around you! You will always freak out over anything that reminds you of that thing your parent did! It’s science!

“I’m this way because of what my parents did to me,” is the most facile way to express the revelations of early therapy. I should have used it as the title of my first book.

In the next phase of therapy, I thought, you learn how to be less fucked up.

Now that you’ve integrated the lessons of your past, you can apply yourself to improving your current situation. You learn not to act automatically according to old scripts, and your new actions produce new results. Circumstances in your life improve as you continue to live in a reframed reality where you have self-control.

This stage brings exhilaration too. Every time you watch yourself avoid an old pitfall, or handle things better than you used to, you get to smack yourself on the back with congratulations. Wow, Old Janice would have severely crashed out over this, but look at me, persevering. Conquering. You get to stand on top of Pride Rock, chest out, your fists on your hips, as the sunset illuminates you with fire.

This is the, “I used to be all fucked up because of my parents, but I overcame that, so I’m better than they were” stage.

Then you enter the phase of therapy where you seek transcendence.

Now that you understand your own suffering, and can sometimes even mitigate it, you learn to see your suffering in the context of the suffering of others. You see the people who affected you in your childhood as human beings with suffering of their own. You understand that the abuse you endured was, weirdly, not really about you. You witness the greater suffering of other beings in the world and concentrate less on your own.

Once you get to this phase, it’s like, what is there left to say? You start your sessions by saying that, really, nothing is wrong in your life, everything is fine, and you are grateful for each second of every day. You talk mostly about your closest relationships and how to navigate them, given your superior psychological insight and capacity for patience.

This phase could be called, “I wish everyone could get therapy so they could become as evolved as me, but the world is unfair, which is something my infinite wisdom has fortunately taught me to accept, namaste.”

Then you dick around in therapy for as long as you like, enjoying the attentive care of your shrink, honing your self-expertise, bumping your head against the sloped attic of the tippy-top triangle of Maslow’s pyramidal Hierarchy of Needs, those being the “Self-Actualization Needs,” i.e., finding meaning, purpose, joyful creativity, and one’s full potential in life.

Thus, the longer you are in therapy, the more evolved you are. The more perfect you become. Until eventually, you are able to endure any pain, suffering, deprivation, or loss with equanimity, and you live out the rest of your days on Earth with a surplus of joy which you can spend to nurture others.

This is not how therapy works.