By Will
There are endless stages during analysis. Like floating in the sea you are continually tossed around. Sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards and sometimes downwards. Constant movement and chaos without an absolute end result to cling to. It takes courage and perseverance to continually lay out your often out of date thought patterns and beliefs. I often liken it to peeling back the skin from an onion. Bit by bit, layer by layer, the premise being to get down to the inner core. Some stages are painful while others are liberating and some moments seem to change perceptions for good. Some sessions can make you feel like an unprotected and vulnerable child and the following session had me feeling that way.
With my head in my hands sitting up on the couch I was trembling, anxious, emotional and distraught. I wanted to ask my therapist something. It felt so child like to ask and I imagined that my question would not receive the answer I needed to hear. My therapist never gave me advice, it was up to me to work things out by myself, and to ask this would feel like a school boy error. I felt like I was falling into pieces, my emotion was overwhelming and finally after what seemed like 30 mins of deliberating on my question, it just came out. ‘Am I going to be alright?’
The silence seemed to last forever when my therapist finally said ‘I don’t know’. His answer did not dry my tears, nor did it stop the deep pain I was experiencing but I knew that he was telling me his truth. How could he possibly know I was going to be 100% alright. Like a child bearing pain I wanted to hear ‘of course you are’ or ‘this is just part of the process.’ What I was left with was an unfamiliar feeling of realness, that I was connected to something truthful and right. That moment is when I fully trusted my therapist and the first moment I truly trusted anybody.
We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy ~ W Anderson
inPsychotherapy 