The Critical Window in Psychotherapy

In many of my books I have discussed the critical window, the time in which certain needs require fulfillment. After that, there can be no real fulfillment because the critical time has passed. The need and its pain are sealed away never again to be experienced until someone finds a way to access the deep reaches of the unconscious. Thereafter, those needs can only be fulfilled symbolically. That is, if we need touch, cuddling and warmth immediately after birth and for the first few months of life, fulfillment must occur then. If we are touched after the critical period it will do nothing to alter the basic imprint of being “unloved.” If a mother drinks during pregnancy, no amount of abstinence will do any good later on; even later on during the pregnancy. Once the imprint is in force it endures for a lifetime. Nothing will change it except going back to relive the need and its pain due to a lack of fulfillment.

The same biologic law applies to psychotherapy. There is a critical window during a session when the patient brings in a certain feeling, say, helplessness. If the therapist does not act to help the person delve in the feeling it will be too late, later on in the session. When the therapist does not strike at the critical moment, the specific feeling/frequency she came in with is now gone, and what the patient will be left with is abreaction. The discharge of a secondary feeling, not the key one she brought in.

What I think may happen, and this is only hypothesis, is that when the feeling and its frequency are left unaddressed the patient slips into a secondary feeling with a different brain pattern and frequency. Even though she may look like she connected and resolved the feeling there is a good chance that it is abreaction. It is simply the discharge of the energy of the feeling without connection.

Let me make this clear because so many so-called primal therapists make this fundamental error. There is a time in the session when that feeling is very near conscious/awareness. Without professional help the feeling slides away and the patient, now floundering, manages to get into a different feeling, one that may belong to the therapist’s agenda, not the patient’s. That is because the therapist did not pick up on the entering feeling and then projects his own needs and feelings onto the patient. The patient then goes where the therapist decides, which has nothing to do with attacking the basic need and resolving it. Too often, the patient goes where the therapist tacitly is interested. The patient senses that and becomes a “good girl.’ The unconscious of the therapist implicitly directs the patient.

The pain of lack of fulfillment is always an adjunct to a specific need. To address the wrong need is to forego proper connection and resolution; it is feeling the wrong pain at the wrong time. A depressed patient comes in feeling hopeless and helpless. The therapist may perceive latent anger and urges the patient to hit the wall. The release does offer some relief and they both may think there was resolution. But it was only temporary. The real feeling will return again and again only to be waylaid. Or the therapist may say, “tell your mother!” It may have nothing to do with mother; indeed, the feeling may date back to a time before words. So expressing the feeling is a false route. It is tricky business. A sound knowledge of the evolution of consciousness will help here.

We found that in abreaction the vital signs rise and descend in sporadic fashion, indicating an unconnected unresolved feeling. Too often it looks like a feeling but it is not the central important one. Neurologic connection is the be-all and end-all of the reliving process.