#pathologies of control

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Love is a wonderful terrible thing. Wonderful because it connects us to others in the ways we most need to be connected. Terrible because that connection leaves us horribly vulnerable. You can’t love someone and protect yourself emotionally. Not really. Real love means hurting when the other person hurts, and being subject to all sorts of doubts and disappointments, disillusionments and…

(THE BOOK) Chapter 29: Me-monkeys

Once there was a handsome young shepherd so self-absorbed he could love nobody else.  The gods punished him by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a pond and stare into it until he starved to death. His name was Narcissus, and every third or fourth day one of his distant cousins shows up in my office. They’re not there for therapy.  What they really want is magic.  They want…

(THE BOOK) Chapter 26: The addicted

Everyone I see in therapy is addicted. So is everyone I know. When I first became a therapist I distinguished between addicts and nonaddicts.  That distinction no longer makes sense to me. Now I think we’re all addicted to something.  It’s just that some addictions are more obvious than others. As I said (see Chapter 12), addicts are people who can’t deal with feelings, and so feel compelled to…

(THE BOOK) Chapter 25: The depressed

For the anxious, constipation is a problem.  For the depressed, it’s a lifestyle. Usually it starts unconsciously and in self-defense.  All my depressed clients grew up in dangerous families where it was unsafe to be themselves.  (See Chapter 14.)  Kids in such families have little choice but to self-constipate.  Ever been physically constipated?  Remember how, the longer it lasted, the more…

(THE BOOK) Chapter 23: Five weeds

After the workshop described in chapter 13 — the one where I redefined codependency as control addiction —  I went back to doing therapy with clinic clients.   Mine was still a typical outpatient caseload, filled with the same problems every therapist faces.   But now something was different. Did you ever buy a new car — a new Honda, say — and take it out on the road, and wherever you drive you…

(THE BOOK) Chapter 22: Lessons and rules

So the first thing to remember about Plan A is that we learn it and follow it unconsciously. And the second thing is that every Plan A has the very same goal: Control over emotional life. Do this, it tells you, to be safe and avoid pain.  Do this to win love and acceptance.This becomes clearer when you examine the lessons and rules which are Plan A’s component parts. I, for example, grew up in an…

How to spot monkeytraps

. How are your holidays going?   Thought so.   Bert and I guessed you could use this refresher: . In Asia they trap monkeys by placing bait in a heavy jar with a narrow neck.   The monkey smells the bait, reaches in to grab it, and traps himself by refusing to let go. A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that triggers you into compulsive controlling — into holding on when you really should…