Re: Staying with feelings

Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2007-05-21, Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
jackdaw <jackdaw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been told by my therapist that when uncomfortable/frightening
feelings come over me I need to stay with those feelings. How do you do
that without going mad?

First approximation: the therapist is a tosser who needs to have their
head stuck into a pan of boiling water. It's the sort of unhelpful
idiotic thing a lot of 'em say.

I'd hazard a guess that the therp was trying to help the patient either
come to terms with the feelings or work out where they come from. But
there are better ways of expressing that sort of notion.

The thing is if you approach it the way the therapist did, you'll never
get anywhere. The trick is to get the `patient' to suggest the idea
themselves - with suitable prodding in the right direction, of course.

If I'm anxious I want to stop being anxious. If
I'm frightened I want to stop being frightened. If I want to escape I
want to escape. Has anyone been told the same and have you succeeded in
staying with your feelings?

People are not static. Everything about you is a process - a dynamic
shifting of everything all the time.

What I reckon the thing to do is not stay with the feelings - that just
holds you back (you're not supposed to stick with `one thing', but
always develop and always change and always move on to something new) -
but crash on through to the other side somehow. Chapel Perilous is
where I am at the moment. I walked in with my eyes wide open and
despite careful preparation beforehand, I'm still stuck inside.

But the way out is close to hand - all I have to do is keep at it and
I'll get there.

The above probably sounds like the ravings of a madman. *** 'em all,
sez I. It makes sense if you understand where Chapel Perilous is[1] and
what's inside.

I spend a lot of time feeling nothing, just numb.

I've met that. Sounds like nasty depression to me, possibly exacerbated
by any drugs they might be feeding you.

Rowland.

[1] It lives in metaphor space.

Is that like gopher space, but more nebulous?

Much more.

There's one in web space
<http://www.chapel-perilous.net/>.

Blimey! Well, that ain't it, but I suspect the page's creator is well
up on the `real' version of the place. The fact that it's powered by
durable gerbils makes me think that it might actually be produced by my
alter ego.

I hadn't heard of the play, or the
playwright, before
<http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsH/hewett-dorothy.html#16417>.

Hmm. And the playwright was well up on it, too.

Rowland.

P.S. Data withheld. My knees hurt.

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