I have lots of complicated and contradictory thoughts about Freud and about particular aspects of the psychoanalytic method, but this, from Oliver Burkeman’s article in The Guardian, seems to get at something interesting about therapy. In my experience, it’s more like help me, i’m stuck! followed by but i’m scared to be not stuck! — which is, again, reductive, but…
“What happens in therapy,” Pollens said, “is that people come in asking for help, and then the very next thing they do is they try to stop you helping them.” His smile hinted at the element of absurdity in the situation – and in the whole therapeutic undertaking, perhaps. “How do we help a person when they’ve told you, in one way or another, ‘Don’t help me’? That’s what analytic treatment is about.”
My experience of CBT, though, is considerably more simple but far less positive: CBT sessions left me feeling like i was a naughty child who needed to be disciplined into good behavior, which does not make for good therapy.
In any case, here’s the link to Burkeman’s article. I’m going to go contemplate increasingly ridiculous revenge scenarios. Zombie Freud, anyone?
Begins With Lemon and Ends With Pie 