38 Elena
You’re a sick man Ton.
I’ve read two paragraphs of your post and had enough of it.
Take good care of yourself, look for help. Find what is beautiful in you and you’ll recognize what is beautiful in others. To be able to help someone you would need their approval and you are too sick for me to work with you. If you still need to communicate with me, write me at tablutt@gmail.com
I think what you’re actually doing is harassment.
37 Ton
i stand corrected then… i can admit if i’ve made a mistake… can you ? so you’re saying that ‘hatred’ and ‘resentment’ do not describe your attitude toward men… can you see why i might ‘jump to that conclusion’ after all the animosity and hostility in your posts to me ? among other roles here, i’ve portrayed varying degrees of and various aspects of the ‘typical’ male ego: direct, aggressive, domineering, ‘all-knowing,’ arrogant, conceited, etc, and your response has been… but i’ll stand corrected, although you weren’t very specific in your correction; what exactly is your issue with men ? we all have issues with the opposite sex, and a different set of issues relating to our own gender for that matter… any history of domestic abuse / violence in your family ? i can understand that this area of inquiry might make you uncomfortable, and like i’ve said many times here, i don’t necessarily expect responses, the questions i pose are asked as ‘probes’ to start your own self-reflective processes, but if you want to ‘talk’ about it here i hope you feel free to do so.
i know we all make mistakes elena, god knows i make my fair share, and this is not about picking on your ‘mistakes’ (really there are no ‘mistakes’ – like you said, it’s all about life-long-learning). i’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable in this process, i know you don’t like to role your sleeves up and get ‘dirty’ slogging around in the muck and shit in order to come to some clarity and resolution… you would rather sit on your throne in an ivory tower dispensing your wisdom for the benefit of others, i understand. i know from personal experience that this process can be difficult and that’s why it’s called ‘work’ — but the process can also be rewarding and whether you realize it now or not now, it is can lead to something more substantial than mucking around in ‘personal shit.’ you think of this as an ‘attack’ on you, but it’s not, it’s designed to expose your ‘false ego’ for what it is — it’s the ‘false ego’ that has ‘crystalized’ and that’s the part of you that is reacting defensively as it’s being observed, solved and ‘dissolved’ — this process may be ‘dirty’ and uncomfortable for you but if you can bear it, it will give ample material for self-reflection and change… you are not your ‘false ego’ elena, you are not your defenses.
the questions i ask and statements i make here represent ‘probes’ intended to elicit responses which gauge sensitivity to any particular issue, hence the discomfort. an assessment is made based on response, and from there we gain a feeling for the direction in which the work needs to proceed. this is for you elena, you’ve asked before what my aim is here on your blog, my response was and is — that you have been calling for attention through the blogs, this is a cry for help and as i was in a similar position long ago after i left the cult, i needed help too so i am able to relate and sympathize with your situation… i can only wish that i had the same recourse and resources available to you today and i encourage you to pursue them… more specifically, my aim is to show you things about yourself that you would otherwise remain unaware of…. this is partly due to years of brainwashing by the cult, but there are other deeper issues at play as well…. (for example, let’s go way back and re-member: what was your toilet-training phase like elena… was it easy or difficult ?). although we’ve encountered a lot of resistance with your ‘strong’ defense mechanisms — overcoming this is a big part of the work — nevertheless, we’ve made some progress thus far. at one point when you said you didn’t need help, i almost relented and stopped treatment, but instead i decided to push on and test your limits — i’m glad we did because you’ve made good progress since then.
i’ll let you in on another ‘inside secret’ — a technique i use is referred to as psychological ‘mirroring.’ mirroring can be used as a type of positive reinforcement, neutral reinforcement (‘photographing’ in the fof parlance), and mirroring can be used as a type of negative reinforcement as well. ‘negative’ here doesn’t refer to a judgment as in it’s ‘bad,’ rather, ‘negative’ refers to an ‘aversive’ approach as opposed to ‘positive’ reinforcement which represents a type of ‘reward’ system. just as ‘negative reinforcement’ doesn’t imply a judgment of ‘bad,’ ‘positive reinforcement’ doesn’t imply ‘good,’ these are simply two tools designed for a similar purpose, and that is generally speaking, to alter behaviors. mostly, i’ve been using mirroring as a type of negative reinforcement with you, which has caused a strong reaction on your part, the ‘false ego’ prefers positive reinforcement, it can’t get enough, but that’s not the best approach in some cases. here’s how it works: for effect and emphasis, i magnify and exaggerate your own attitudes, reflecting them back to you in order that you can clearly see things mirrored that you otherwise would remain unaware of. these are aspects of yourself you would rather remain oblivious to, it’s painful to see certain ‘pathological’ (your term) aspects of the self, but it’s a way to grow. this ‘pathological’ behavior you’ve commented on is a magnification and mirroring of something you have in yourself… in a typical analysis situation, the next step would be to for you to talk about the ‘pathological’ behavior you are seeing — this is something for you to reflect on now for yourself, i don’t expect an answer, but you should analyze it until you are able to recognize that the source is within yourself, and as such, you can ‘own it’ for yourself. that’s the only place from which you might begin to change the behavior, it’s recognizing and acknowledging it in yourself — this is what is meant by beginning to ‘withdraw projections.’
we’ve talked briefly about the idea of ‘transference’ in treatment… there is also the idea of ‘countertransference’ to consider: when consciously used, countertransference can be another therapeutic ‘tool.’ for example there are cases where the therapist has to literally takes on the suffering of the ‘patient’, the therapist intentionally enters into the ‘pathologies’ of the ‘patient’ for particular purposes, with particular goals in mind. that’s where the mirroring comes into play, i portray an exaggerated, magnified picture of what you’re calling a ‘pathology’ in order for you to see aspects of yourself which you are apparently otherwise unaware of. this is an extreme case elena, i’ll admit, and i’ve said before that my initial reluctance to ‘take you on’ as a ‘patient’ was expressed way back in our first exchanges on the fofblog by an old adage i used: “not with a ten foot pole’ — because i knew it would be difficult. countertransference is regarded as a “jointly created” phenomenon between the treater and the ‘patient,’ the ‘patient’ pressures the treater through transference into playing a role congruent with the patient’s internal world… so i represent certain archetypes to you, for example, the most recent issue of yor relationship to men. specific dimensions of that role are colored by treater’s own personality… maybe it’s my approach and my personality that you object to elena, but i’ve encouraged you every step of the way to seek out other avenues for this work…. this is not an ideal way to do this type of work, we both know that…. one problem with it is the lack of direct ‘face-to-face’ contact, that represents a whole world of visceral response that is removed and cannot be ‘monitored’ for feedback, that world remains hidden in this format…. the other aspect that i’ve mentioned several times is that in order to more effectively do this sort of work, one should really get the entire body involved…. it’s no longer about lying on the couch elena, there is a lot more involved than ‘intellectual’ processing, and that’s about as far as we can get here on your blog. my opinions in this regard are based on my own background experience with reichian therapy, specifically al lowen’s ‘bioenergetics,’ as well as shin-tai zen shiatsu, and drama therapy. countertransference can be used as a therapeutic tool when examined by the therapist to sort out who is doing what, and the meaning behind those interpersonal roles — it requires differentiation of the interpersonal world between self and other.
elena, there’s a lot here for you to chew on if it can only get past your defense mechanisms and you take it to heart…. but it seems that once again we’ve come to a point where you want to stop treatment, you are not comfortable with this and that’s something i have to hear from you and honor. i can’t help someone who doesn’t truly want to be helped, i can’t help someone who is too ‘proud’ to admit that they might need what i am willing to offer. although up until this time i’ve pushed you past your perceived limits, and with some good effect, you shouldn’t feel that you’re being held captive by the process… believe me, i don’t want to chase you away from your venue here, that’s not my intention…. so i’ll propose this: if you can demonstrate that you are able to stop projecting your ‘shit’ onto others, specifically onto ‘me,’ i will be able to assume you’ve made appropriate adjustments and progressed to the point where i can give you a break from the process and a respite so that you can return to working again here in the comfort of isolation… i will keep an eye on things for a while but i won’t intrude unless you begin again to project your issues onto the other (me)… in which case i will continue to reflect it back for you…. remember the unexamined life is not worthy… sometimes, whether ‘we’ acknowledge and realize it or not, ‘we’ might need a little help with the process of examining…
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“Children who are deprived of these essential responses, or who instead are subjected to criticism and ridicule for the efforts to achieve, become arrested in their development of an internal sense of confidence and competence. As adults, they are always looking to some outside source of approval or recognition (mirroring). But no mother, no father, no teacher, no coach, and no therapist ever provide the perfect mirror. Some of these mirroring figures, as we all know rather too well, are often quite fragmented themselves and have little capacity to offer the loving and self-enhancing reflection that the child desperately requires. Or, in some cases, a mismatch between child and mirror-figure takes place such that the child eternally feels a lack of understanding, a dearth of genuine appreciation, and a fundamental gap in attunement. Even in the best of situations, the response can be experienced as incomplete. The child thus develops gaps in his sense of self: he mistrusts and disrespects his own internal signals and states; he doubts his own self-worth and competence. He desperately turns elsewhere for validation and, even more than most of us, he becomes excessively sensitized to signals that might suggest that he is unappreciated, unneeded, or unsuccessful.”
