To: K-list
Recieved: 2001/03/20 08:41
Subject: Re: [K-list] Of kids with guns and other things
From: Bestpoet
On 2001/03/20 08:41, Bestpoet posted thus to the K-list:
In a message dated 03/20/2001 8:16:31 AM Eastern Standard Time,
lifestreamsATnospambigpond.com writes:
<< "If you got rid of all the people that I have been sent to
who call themselves therapists ..
I wouldn't feel like I needed a gun" >>
There are good and bad therepists. 15 years ago when I was just coming off
being a drug addict who came close to dying and perhaps homelessness, I
started therapy with a woman who is incredible. I'm not saying I couldn't
have stayed off drugs without her (as I had several support things going at
the time), but she helped me strip many blinders from my eyes. It took a long
time, because I was very resistant and thought my father was God. Turns out,
there is no God, and my father's only a minor, martyred Saint.
I now think that there are a lot of basic issues that are like Therapy 101,
that everyone should have to deal with in therapy (with a competent
therapist), especially those running for political office. It should be part
of our schooling.
I mean therapy is only a little over a hundred years old. It's only
relatively recently that our species has even discovered/admitted having
emotions and ulterior motives behind our behavior (unconscious). Naturally
we're still learning exactly what this therapy stuff is all about, and we're
still evolving the discipline. Freud dominated the scene for a long time, but
in the past 50 years, we've really learned and experimented with a lot more
theory and technique. My friend says Freud's major contribution was to make
sanity a moral obligation, lol.
This is a very interesting journey for our species, in my opinion. Our heads
and hearts have been stuck in hunter-gatherer mode for so long, that now that
we have the potential to satisfy those basic needs for everyone, we still
don't have the emotional/psychological maturity to employ our technology and
know-how to it's best uses. That's why we must evolve emotionally and
spiritually. This is my feeling (as a student of anthropology) anyway.
Recently, I began seeing a new therapist, a bioenergetic therapist, because
I'd read the work of the Bioenergetic founder, Alexander Lowen (a student of
Reich's), and I was interested in what he had to say. This is a more physical
approach, and it's teaching me a lot about the connection between my
intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical bodies. I guess if I were
k-awakened, the energy would work itself out of my body.
I also did a different kind of therapy with a woman in Toronto, whom I feel
pretty sure is k-awakened, though she doesn't use that term. Her experiences
sound like what I read about here. She used to take me thru this incredible
inner journey on the phone, and the results (and her acute wisdom) were
always amazing.
I love therapy, experiencing different ways to approach inhabiting my body
and head. Maybe I'm a therapy addict, but it works much better than the drugs
did (because I mis-used the drugs). I don't mind being addicted to that which
gives me pleasure and stability. I've been fortunate in finding very good
therapists who have sharp minds and don't get their own egos confused with
mine. Plus, there's always something more to learn, for me.
But I also have friends who have seen therapists that aren't very good. My
brother's a doctor, and he says "What do they call a person who made Ds in
med school? . . . Doctor!" Which says, you can barely get thru school, yet
you'll be a doctor if you pass at all. Same with therapists.
I don't think therapy in and of itself is to be discredited. And after all,
Christopher, even tho I was just on yr list for a short time, it's very much
like therapy, what people talk about, how they deal. It's also very much like
a 12-step support group (I went to AA and a few others for 5 years everyday,
and I belong to one concerning money handling online). And you come on very
much like a therapist. I enjoyed much of what you had to say, though, being a
New York poet and teacher of poetry for over 25 years, I'm sorry to say, you
use some writing devices that do not support the image you profess to want to
project. And sometimes the style becomes a little archaic for my particular
taste.
When new poetry students think of writing poetry, they immediately fall into
archaic language/grammar structure. They think of poetry as some 19th century
kind of inflated language thing. It makes it harder for me to get to the
meaning, because the style holds me at arm's length. I would have liked to
hear you just speak. Perhaps I could have been more receptive, but that's
probably my problem with language, not yours.
I like alive language, language that still has the flames in it (which for
me, is about rhythm of the syllables too). But that's just me and my
particular taste (having come thru the New York School and Beatnik poetry
lineage). I'm sure other people feel differently.
Anyway, the above quote from the boy just doesn't ring true to me. Maybe he
had a bad therapist. Maybe he had someone he trusted filling his mind with
why therapy is bad (you know, the old giving a starving dog some love and
bread and he's yr loyal friend for life). Maybe the boy would prefer to blame
his therapist rather than some of the real culprits in his life. I don't
know. But it's not a convincing argument against therapy.
Barg
Therapy Connoisseur
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