"Next: different walks around different parks with different friends, each with the same feeling of being warmed from the inside out; also, bumping into neighbours at the playground and feeling a part of my community. I remember powerful moments with my patients, who have felt understood, by me and within themselves. And I think of the moving messages from readers who have got in touch, sharing precious stories from their lives."
"People often think that psychoanalysis and its NHS-friendly grandchild, psychodynamic psychotherapy, are all about looking inwards. And it's true good therapy should give us the time and space, the frame and the containment, to look inside and listen to ourselves. But it doesn't end there. Some of us don't understand what it is inside us that means we cannot be in the outside world, or be with other people, in an ordinary way."
"Sometimes, if we cannot tolerate whatever emotions spontaneously develop within us, we fend off these feelings with screens or drugs or sex or gambling or other self-harm, or work or sabotaging work or abuse of loved ones, and things get far more dangerous. Without psychoanalytic help, many of us are stuck in our own ordinary and devastating narcissism, unable to relate to ourselves or to othe"
When imagining a good life, fulfilment coexists with fear about life's fragility and inability to protect loved ones. Early analytic experiences can expose shameful hollowness while a steady listener allows painful feelings to be held without contagion. Everyday connections—walks with friends, neighbourly contact, and therapeutic recognition—create warmth and belonging. Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy provide time, frame, and containment to look inward and digest feelings. Unprocessed trauma and unconscious conflicts block ordinary relating and the capacity to bear emotions. Without help, defenses such as substance use, risky behaviours, work addiction, self-harm, and abuse can escalate into narcissistic isolation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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