Notes on the Psychotherapies

At home, in a wooden ice chest that says Hoitt Grand in gold lettering, I have a very unfinished novel about a depressed psychoanalyst called Marco Zacchardi. In mid-career, Marco designed a technique (ultimately unsuccessful because all his patients left) called Page Analysis. ‘So,’ he would say to his bemused clients when they first arrived in his consulting room, ‘you are here for the next pages of your story.’ And then he would smile encouragingly. I might rescue Marco one day, but right now I’m preoccupied with Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I’m part-way through my DBT forays, and I’ve concluded that I’ve been half-helped by all the psychodynamic therapy I’ve had. Which is maybe not a bad result. And now DBT, plus the passing of time, is assisting me with what’s left of my difficulties.

I’m someone who can get stupidly struck by very broad statements about therapy. If they resonate, I hold on to them. So I haven’t forgotten that someone (a reviewer, maybe) once said that psychoanalysis is about love, and works (when it does) because of this.

And more than one writer has commented that clients can be terribly caught within the limits of the therapist’s own development. I like to ponder this, every so often. What does this mean for the process of choosing, and staying with, a particular therapist? Another memory from my reading – Stephan Grosz, in his elegant book The Examined Life, describing how he continued analytic sessions with his young, dying patient in a hospital room, his chair placed behind the man’s bed. This was love and bravery in combination.

The great appeal of a blog is that you can cover anything you want. But you do ideally need to understand the subject enough to write something vaguely sensible. Sadly, this rules out quite a few books for me. I’d really wanted to review Robert Stoller’s Splitting: a case of female masculinity, partly because its lead character has a mythical penis which eventually explodes into outer space. But this proved too complex a mission. Likewise Leon Greenberg’s Guilt and Depression. Right up my street, I thought, until I tried to read it. So, a bit humbled, I’ve had to revise my plans for this section. But I’m sure I’ll find something to write about.