STUCK IN THE NOW

................ by Stanley

......Living in ‘the now’ is an attractive idea, but it is possible to be stuck in the present unable to get out. Present concerns seem to fill the scene demanding all one’s attention. But ‘the now’ is porous and full of holes through which the past can insinuate itself, dressed up to resemble an issue in the present – just as though it were the real problem.
.......One often sees people stuck in a present-time problem that recurs over and over – maybe in various forms, but always really the same problem. Talking about it can discharge the feelings on it and so relieve the pressure, but each time nothing leads beyond the present-time constituents of the difficulty. It just stays as it is; and when it’s gone, it’s gone – until next time.
........In each crisis a past trauma takes the form of a present-time problem. That’s why each crisis looks the same.
........One can sense in all this a discernable resistance to the past. Not really apparent, though, because the person can refer to the past in a general sort of way like: ‘I’m sure it all comes from the way I was brought up’ or ‘I don’t want to blame my parents for everything’. They will even refer to certain specific roots of the problem in earlier times, but it’s only a passing acknowledgment on their way to total immersion in the present situation, the real guts of it – or so they believe.
.........But this attitude is part of a bigger picture. The way they have always dealt with painful situations, a particularly childlike strategy, was to dissociate from it. When the trauma was over they cut off from it, go out and play, pretending it didn’t happen. You can be pretty sure that when a person is badly stuck in the present, the early years were very painful. The dissociative strategy became a way of dealing with intolerable situations. The past trauma may not be a specific incident, but the whole atmosphere of childhood.
........As a kid dissociation was the only thing they could do. But it has consequences in adult life where the person will lurch from crisis to crisis.
........As I said, in each crisis the past trauma takes the form of a present-time problem. Once the person has discharged the emotion on the present issue the doors then close again and it is as though it didn’t happen. They feel better. But the total situation is the same as before. The past trauma sits waiting in the wings for the next trigger.
........The problem is not so much the trauma in the past, but the continuous style of dissociation. One must be aware that the fear and worry surrounding the past event is embedded in this strategy of dealing with it; and the anxiety about slipping out of ‘the now’ is enormous, so the day must by filled with worrisome activities that keep the mind fixed exclusively in the present.
........The wisest and most balanced people often have a very painful past. There is a way in which the past can enrich the present by a continuous and subtle interchange with it, bringing an emotional ambivalence and depth. It isn’t that one has learned from the past – nothing so mundane. It’s more like a certain fluidity, a mutual interchange, where the present influences the past as well! One moves through a landscape that is never the same, never fixed or one-dimensional. The doors are all open and each moment is always more than it seems.
........It’s not about being able to remember all the facts and fantasies of a lifetime, not about literal remembering. Not about remembering, so much as being open to subtle reminders of where I have come from and who I have been – ghosts I might have neglected or forgotten. It’s about whether these inaudible intricacies can whisper and whether you cock your ear to listen. Living in the now is fine, but it’s also a question of being receptive.

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THE GIFT

...............................................by Stanley

............Much of my life I have waited for someone to give me the gift of myself. That’s what I was always waiting for. In every relationship I looked into the eyes of the other hoping that she will see me for what I knew I almost was. I wanted that special kind of approval that would let me ‘come out’, as they say. It made me a kind of waiting, hopeful child, but over the years I have gradually learned to be more maturely dependant. Less ashamed, that is, of my lifelong infantilism.
...........Realising, too, that this is what therapy is about. Not about finding formulas of the mind or archetypes beyond the mind, not about psychological management, not about curing disorders and dysfunctions. It’s about giving another the gift of themselves, being with them, looking into their struggles with empathy and with pride at what they are edging painfully towards, knowing that they are relying on someone to give them the gift they can’t give themselves.
...........For it is so hard to do it for yourself alone. To give life a kick start it seems as though something essential has to be given. It was true in the beginning of one’s life and, in some sense, it is always true; the audience gives me my role in the play.
..........It’s a strange paradox that the hardest thing to give to myself…is myself!
..........The other person is part of me and if they withhold on me I’m stuck; but we will face anything except the truth of this kind of dependency.
..........Dependency is so terrifying that many people go into what you could call creative overdrive, determined to fashion themselves, to not be reliant, to give to themselves what they need – what they now believe can never, ever be given by anyone else. Thus their primal need and dependency goes underground, still in its infantile form. But being adults they now seek what they need from others surreptitiously. They often become very giving people – generosity with a hidden agenda.
..........It is almost an axiom of pop-psychology that, as an individual, you have to be the source. It’s no good looking to others to give you the gift. Life will only give you what you put into it. The ‘law of attraction’ they call it. This keeps one obsessively trying to create oneself as a worthy attractor. But a gift earned is not a gift.
..........The doctrine that one can make oneself worthy assumes that one has the power to do it. That one has the wherewithal is a puffed-up fiction to bolster the illusion of omnipotence. Nothing is more terrifying than one’s weakness, need and fragility. That’s the place where I know the terrible, terrible truth: I can never provide what I need. I am not enough – that by myself I am simply not enough.
..........That’s the way I started life – and that’s where, in a sense, I always am.
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..........Sigmund Freud was the innovator of the Psychological Age we live in. He invented it. But what has become of psychoanalysis, almost drowned out by the thousands of offshoots it produced? Well, over the last year I have been finding out. Psychoanalysis has evolved quite a bit. Working within Freud’s framework of ideas people like Fairbairn, Kohut, Leowald and others have produced new and valuable ideas. I propose a series a TAAP seminars to examine and discuss all this new material. Dates and times will follow.

A LITTLE FLIGHT RELIEF.

............................from Stanley

.....After a year working with really serious issues I think my unconscious has needed a break. Several times during the holidays I have had early morning dreams of composing the most unusual letters. Here is one:

..........To Air New Zealand
..........Dear Sir
..........My name is Stanley Richards and I am a gorilla. My wife Gladys is also a gorilla. We wish to book a flight from Christchurch to Queenstown on January 29, 2008. Early morning if you can.
..........Would it be possible for you to arrange a seat near a window for my wife, since she is prone to air sickness, a condition which is exacerbated by the fact that she is six weeks pregnant? A window seat would undoubtedly help.
.........Could you also arrange for a wheelchair at the airport, not for my wife, but for me as I suffer from motor neurone disease? While I am mostly quite able, I am prone to episodes where I revert to earlier forms of phylogenic development.
.........I feel obliged to mention that my wife and I will be suitably dressed for the trip since this question has previously arisen when making application for oversea flights on other occasions.
.........May I extend to all Air New Zealand staff the appropriate season’s facilitations. .........In anticipation of a reply at your earliest convenience,
.......................I remain,
.........................Your Most Obedient Servant
...................................Stanley Richards
.
......................................................*

Interpret that !