The other day when I went to my doctor and listed my long list of symptoms one of the questions she asked me was whether I wanted to see a counsellor?
"No,of course not," I said. "I've been there, done that and anyway, the stress I feel under right now will not be solved by talking about it".
For over 45 years I have been in therapy at one time or another. All different sorts of therapy and all of them have had some value. At the time I wasn't sure about some of the things I was doing or even why I was doing them, but looking back it has added up to a life of varied experiences and at least it's been interesting.
Today I thought I'd spend a few paragraphs looking back at my therapeutic journey and where it began and how it's unfolded. The first therapist I saw was a stuffy, uptight psychiatrist foisted on me by the State of New York. Let me explain. I was 17, in my second year of university and deeply, painfully unhappy. No one seemed to notice despite what I thought were some pretty clear signals I was sending out, so I felt (in my disturbed adolescent mind) that all I could do was take an overdose to draw attention to my unhappiness. I always did favour the melodramatic route, no subtle hints for me and anyway subtlety really didn't work in my house. This led to me being hospitalised, my stomach pumped and the upshot was that I was required under state law to see a psychiatrist for assessment since I was under 18.
I remember sitting in front of a panel of psychiatric social workers and health professionals who first needed to assess whether I was a suitable candidate for therapy at all. I remember feeling very nervous and panicked at the idea that they might find that I was sane enough not to need therapy. After all, I had gone to all the trouble of taking an overdose just so I could eventually see someone to talk to and here there was a possibility that even these professionals might not pick up the strong hints I was dropping. I needn't have worried. The panel recommended I have four sessions with a psychiatrist so he could assess the best therapeutic route for me. Thank god, I was crazy enough to finally get help!
My sessions with this male psychiatrist were fascinating and more than a little bit ridiculous. He asked me standard psychiatric questions like 'what is the meaning of a rolling stone gathers no moss', name the last five presidents of the US backwards, what is the meaning of this ink blot drawing, and he then proceeded to ask me about myself and my life. I don't remember too much about our subsequent sessions except for one thing. He wrote down every single thing I said and I actively disliked him. He was rigid and appeared unfeeling and untouchable. I'm sure now this was his professional demeanor, but to me then it just appeared icy and cold.I remember he had a strange little moustache, a bow tie and red hair - nothing like the Freud-like figure I had imagined I would see.
At the end of the four assessment sessions he asked me if I felt I could work with him? 'Absolutely not' was my reply and to my great relief he agreed that perhaps there wasn't a good match there. Instead he recommended that I see a woman psychiatric social worker. I liked her and I began seeing her twice a week for the next year. At the end of the year she also recommended that I join a newly forming therapy group of people my age. So there I was, just over 18 and in therapy three times a week.
I developed a tremendous library of knowledge as to why I behaved in self-destructive ways. I began to understand myself and in my therapy group I developed a deep ability to empathise and work with others' problems. What was lacking for me in this new found perception were any tools I could use to change my behaviour. Understanding and awareness were wonderful, but did not lead to much change. I was still very unhappy.
A few months before I left the States I met some people who became friends and invited Ralph and I myself to attend something they described as a 24 hour encounter marathon. I had no idea what this was, I only knew that I trusted the friends who invited us and it was a group in which I could express emotions. The group was organised by people who had recently trained with a therapist named Dan Casriel. I had recently seen a play based on the work of Casriel with a therapeutic community called Daytop and was really intrigued so this seemed a fortuitous opportunity.
BINGO! Here was what I was looking for after about three years in psychotherapy. Encounter therapy was my tool for change. Here was a way to put together all my awareness and understanding with a means of acting on and expressing my feelings that helped me to change. I really had found the Holy Grail of therapy and I explored this more and more over the next few years. In England in 1971 I found a place called Quaesitor, a therapy/growth centre and continued my Encounter journey.
After a short time as a group participant I started training as an Encounter leader. I cannot express how much this meant to me, the difference it made to my life and my happiness. I was not just working with others, I was working on myself and my way of being at the same time. I took to this like a duck to water. I was also fortunate to have met some of the best Encounter leaders and therapists in London.
In an earlier blog I mentioned my friend and teacher, Veeresh. He was my Encounter teacher and therapist during those early years in London. At the same time as participating in Encounter groups,I was finding out about other forms of therapy - bio-energetics, primal therapy, gestalt therapy, co-counselling - all of these different ways of understanding and exploring feelings were essential to me and to my continuing journey towards mental and emotional health.
I have come to the inevitable conclusion that there is no answer to what makes me tick. There is no magic pill, no instant panacea. All the things I have experienced have helped me to grow as a human being. I still find myself looking for the miracle cure, but only when I'm feeling too lazy to help myself. I have to come to look on therapy and all its wondrous forms as a great luxury. it is no longer a necessity as it was to me and my life when I was 17. I've grown in mental health and learned to manage my emotional health so that I can live pretty well without an injection of analysis or therapy on a weekly basis.
So, on Monday, when my doctor asked me if I would like to speak to a counsellor about my increasing stress, my response was no, since the stress I am feeling is directly related to my father's ill health and the distance I am from him. Talking about this won't change it and I know that if it becomes necessary, I will go and see my dad again. In the meantime I have lots of tools to help myself. I only need use them.
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