May 2012
by Hans TenDam
People turn to a psychotherapist because they want to change something. And that means they are not fully satisfied with their lives as they are. Why are people unhappy? Because they suffer from something—at the very least, from imperfection.
What happens to people who are perfect? First, not very much. Second, they provoke envy in others. Third, they drive the gods crazy.
So the Gods send us all kinds of misfortunes. The first option is to strike us blind. If that doesn’t work, they resort to the dirtiest trick in the book: granting our wishes. Happiness can be a warm gun, but guns cool down very quickly. And when the smoke clears, we may see that we hit the wrong targets. Life stinks.
Therapy can help. Not completely, not painlessly, not for free, and not easily—but it helps. Regression therapy is usually faster and deeper than other forms of therapy, yet we are still operating under the law of imperfection. I remember only a few perfect sessions with perfect outcomes. Our therapy doesn’t stink, but there is still a whiff of imperfection.
Therapists who want to be perfect constantly encounter clients with some resistance. Clients seeking perfect therapy constantly encounter therapists with a certain degree of incompetence. Imagine what can happen when a client’s resistance meets a therapist’s incompetence! I can’t even imagine.
So, if we cannot bring our clients to perfection, what do we bring them to? I would say:
A slightly higher level of life energy
A slightly higher level of clarity
A slightly higher level of calm
A slightly higher level of courage and decisiveness
A slightly higher level of harmony and coherence
A slightly higher level of goodwill
A slightly higher level of inner freedom
We unteach them, discourage them, unsettle them, make them doubt, restrict them, judge them, imprison them. All up to a certain point. I summarize all this with a term I cannot mention here in this civilized periodical, but which I can define indirectly as: re-virginization.
At the level of a single session, our goals are usually more limited—for example, to remove fear, depression, or a psychosomatic complaint. The goal of therapy is to restore health. The goal of psychotherapy is to restore psychological, mental, and emotional health. And since many consider us to be a bit crazy, we usually do this subtly. I feel a limerick coming on—probably about a lack of wealth.
But we can use our method not only for therapy, not only for problem-solving, but also for personal development, revealing talents and qualities, and mental and emotional growth. Beyond problem-solving and improvement, there is a third level: transformation. Real change, a shift, altered awareness, a different self.
Why am I confident that we can help here too? Because quite often our work naturally moves from therapy to personal development, and from personal development to transpersonal development, transformation, life changes.
Many people want to get there directly, ignoring or bypassing their problems, their pain, their flaws. In my experience, there are no shortcuts. It’s even worse: sometimes we first have to confront imperfections and dark places we didn’t even know existed. Jung called this working with the shadow. The scariest, most repulsive, most rotten part of all this is that sometimes (very rarely!) some of us therapists (very few!) have to work with our own shadow side. Sometimes it even seems that therapy and clients embody our shadow.
The true goal of your therapy is to settle karma. Helping people is the dark side of what you once happily ignored and mocked. You must be brave and move forward.
You may meet kindred spirits in misery at EARTh. “If you ignore my shadow, I will ignore yours.” Such things are called the Annual Convention. See you there!
