PREFACE Please see the posting above titled "Explanation of Six Didactic Letters from Narcissus" if you have not already read it so you understand that this letter is fictitious and used only for instruction. Questions and comments can be directed to Jessica, not to Narcissus, who cannot really write or speak about the matters in these letters, of course. Narcissus in Letter V again refers to the importance of therapists' passing many passive-to-active tests. But it is also explained a little more than before that this kind of testing is necessary not just because Narcissus cannot talk but because these tests represent reliving experiences from one's past. Thus, these tests often also represent the child mind-state of the patient, a state that necessarily is more limited to communication with action rather than with words just as therapy for children is usually play therapy using action instead of words. Moreover, Narcissus explains in this letter that the young mind-state entails a youngster's perspective that sees a huge gap in power between the adult caregivers, who seemed nearly omnipotent, and the child, who felt--and usually was--relatively much more powerless, to put it mildly. When in this young state of mind, an adult patient can experience a therapist's expectations for more mature decisions by the patient to be yet another severe rejection, as Narcissus explains, too, in this letter. CM therapists recommend doing nothing to discourage patients' testing. One reason for this is that the therapist's most useful means of both accepting the patient's needs and encouraging the patient's cognitive development is by showing a willingness for passing the patient's tests. This willingness also shows considerable respect for the child part of the personality that was misunderstood in early life. As Narcissus explains below in his/her own way, even if this understanding now offered by the therapist may not be so persuasively influential as the early caregivers' influence was, the therapist can nonetheless become "influential enough" to impress the patient by passsing repeated difficult tests. .......................... If I Could Speak, Letter V Hi again. Narcissus here talking at you. I'm going to continue where I left off last time. I'm not going to easily trust anyone again to help me because everyone in my life, or at least it seems like everyone, taught me with their actions that I am garbage for needing you or anyone. You must understand that when I was little these people were absolute gods to me--very very big and very very powerful! They left a huge impression on me, with their being so big and powerful and my being so small and relatively helpless in comparison. Strangely, then, you must somehow seem very big and very powerful in your convictions. I'm referring to your convictions that offer me hope that I can believe something more satisfactory that what I came to believe with my earlier misguided guides who misguided me. Until your "good enough" counter influence in my life, I would have to automatically regard these guides from my early life NOT as misguided guides who misguided me but rather as gods on behalf of whom I would sacrifice my own interests for their sake. You will seem pretty powerful if you can pass my tests. That is going to take a while, too. And it won't be easy for you. And the fact that it won't be easy for you is your hidden ace, for by hanging in there with me you can begin to seem quite powerful as you gradually begin to have a lot of importance to me. Thus, you, too, can be rather powerful and big in my eyes if you are "good enough" just often enough to hang in there with me while being put through feeling storms with me as you remain more or less committed to understanding and to representing the voice of care and reason. I would also say that until I'm convinced of your trustworthiness, which will take your passing quite a lot of severe tests (and don't forget: some tests may get much more severe if you pass the early ones!), I'm not going to be acting much like an adult when we deal with these issues. And I will not be having what many persons think of as adult feelings. After all, these issues I'm dealing with have a lot to do with my child mind-state in which I am now quite stuck. So it would clearly be impossible for me to act like an adult when dealing with these matters. If you then expect me to act like an adult, I will feel almost as traumatized as I did as a youngster in which my guides and caregivers expected me to be less needy, less hurt, and more superhuman than I was or than anyone can be (without becoming a Narcissus, that is). So you can, in effect, retraumatize, as it were, in the sense that if you expect me to act like an adult while I'm trying to deal with these things in my child mind-state (where I'm now quite emotionally stuck without your help or without someone's help), that same child mind-state will regard your adult expectations as yet another harsh rejection of what I need understood. And one more thing--the amount of intense negative feeling that I will need to express as we deal with these things may sometimes become considerable, and you may have to help me get myself calm. I have not only the intense feelings from my childhood that I could not be permitted to express back then, but I also have a lot of feelings about having never been able to express these feelings before, and I have a lot of negative feelings about my adult years that were not so good given all this stuff going on that interfered with my adult life. Until later, sincerely not yours or mine, Narcissus
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