Why We Must Relive to Get Well (Part 2/2)

Why can’t any therapy help patients with their feelings? One good reason is that they are talking to the wrong brain—the brain that thinks rather than the one that feelings. Unfortunately, the correct brain, the right brain doesn’t talk much, doesn’t understand English and, as a matter of fact, doesn’t understand words. It doesn’t understand in the way we think of understanding. The correct brain is one that contains our history, our pain and our feelings; the lower brain that processes our deep feelings that can finally liberate us. It does understand feelings; we need to speak that language—one without words. We have to convince the brain that spouts words and ideas that it is necessary to go back to early life and a world devoid of intellectuality, (kids are not intellectual as yet), and relive—that lack of love—feelings that were too much to feel at the time. We have to convince that thinking brain to let go, let the lower brain systems emerge and breathe the air of freedom. It can be done; cure can be accomplished. But only by stealth not by deliberation. Feelings have to creep up on us, not sought out. It has to be a therapy of nuance, of subtleties, of flexibilities and lack of domination; that is, it cannot be a therapy of experts because the only expert is the patient. The doctor has to let go of any notion of superiority. Even keeping the patient waiting for a session is a sign of superiority, which I do not tolerate in our therapy; it means: “I am more important than you and my time is more valuable”. And while you are trying to get back some self-esteem, I the doctor, lowers it by keeping you waiting. It is subtle but there. And above all, we need to get rid of any time constraints that force a crying patient to leave in the midst of her feelings until the next session.
We do not touch the patient when he needs to feel unloved; we touch her when the pain is so excruciating that we need to lower its force so it to be experienced and integrated. It is one means of keeping the patient in the primal/feeling zone. If the therapist cannot feel he cannot distinguish the difference and will touch at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Patients can sense when they are being touched out of the needs of the therapist and not our their own needs. So the therapy can go wrong when the therapist has not resolved a good piece of his own pain. And none of that can be taught; when students take notes all of the time it usually means that they cannot feel what is right and need intellectual signs of what to do. This is a therapy that cannot be done by the numbers. It is a matter of sensing, intuition and instinct…..plus a soupcon of training….a lot of training. When a therapist cannot tolerate the patient's suffering she may touch to ease the pain, and thereby ruin the session because it kept the patient from feeling all of his pain. The therapist may be acting out her own need for touch and caress in her own early life. Watching the patient writhing may bring up great pain in herself, setting off her own feelings, forcing her to stop the patient from feeling.