Alan Melton, D.Min., LPC
Some people think that they can do therapy by themselves. That they can just reflect on their own problematic feelings, thoughts, and behaviors and figure them out alone. Or that they can read self help books and get emotionally healthy from them. I am sorry to say that such self therapy does not work. You want to know why?
It is because of DEFENSES. Part of the way our minds operate is we defend ourselves from thoughts and feelings that are unpleasant so we do not consciously think them or feel them. To do so would make us too uncomfortable. So we repress them. Repression is probably the most well known defense we have. Let’s say your boss verbally attacks you and it makes you extremely angry. If you were to feel such anger back at her you might act on it by exploding that anger onto her and attacking her back. This would cost you your job. That is too dangerous of an action to take. So to protect yourself from such a dangerous encounter your minds says, ” I know how to solve this problem. I just will not feel the anger.”–at least not consciously. The defense of repression has defended you against your anger toward her. But, and here is the most import part–your angry feeling has not really gone away. It is hiding in your unconscious. It is still in you. It has to be. Only a saint could not feel angry when attacked by a boss. But consciously feeling it is just too dangerous, so your mind protects you by stuffing it down into your unconscious, and you do not consciously feel it. So does this take care of the problem? I am afraid not. The unconscious repressed anger continues to affect your life negatively. Now you cannot be angry at all–not even when you need to be. Not even when anger is not dangerous to feel. You now cannot be angry at any injustice in the world at large or in your own personal world. And that greatly limits your life because anger is a normal and sometimes needed feeling. You may further develop anxiety, depression, stomach problems, heart attacks, etc., due to the repressed anger coming out in all sorts of distorted ways. Sigmund Freud once said, “” Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come fourth later in uglier ways.” He was right. So why can you not just sit down by yourself or with a self help book and “unrepress” your anger, feel it in a controlled manner and tell your boss that you are angry at her?
Because you do not know who else you were once angry at that felt much stonger and deeper than the anger at your boss. This is the anger of early childhood toward your parents, siblings, and playmates. This anger was so great, and so intolerable, and so dangerous to feel, that your mind could not let you feel it back then either. The defense of repression began in your early childhood. So in order to “unrepress” your childhood anger you need a therapist to help you uncover those early childhood experiences. In therapy you will need to remember those childhood experiences, and with your therapist let go of your defense of repression and feel that original anger that was so unbearable to you as a small child. Then you will come to understand that it has been this same uncontrollable anger that you have defended yourself against toward your boss. Once you work through the childhood experience of the anger you will then be able to work through anger with others in your adult life–including your boss.
It would be really nice if we could do all of this working through and processing of our feelings on our own. But if we could I would not have a job! No, self therapy does not work because we cannot know about our defenses. We cannot see them. We do not understand them. And we have no idea that they originated in childhood when we were first overwhelmed by unbearable feelings. ( Repression is only one of those defenses. There are at least 10 more and I may write about them in a future post.)
The role of your therapist is to help you see what you cannot see on your own–your defenses. Once you see them and let them go you will be able to feel not only your deep anger, but also your sexuality, fear, love, care–and all the other deep feelings you have been defending against. When this happens all of your emotions will take their rightful place in your life and you will be healthier, happier, and more fulfilled.