Counseling / therapy : page 2........ .Talent Development Resources --..home page...site map

.. .. I began seeing a therapist after my brother Will died [which] triggered a whole series of reactions inside me....  Will was the only person in my life up to his death who truly loved me unconditionally for who I was, without any questions, reservations, or hesitations. He just loved me, period.... I didn't feel that kind of love from anyone else and that created this whole kind of split personality dynamic inside me. ...  For a long time I was someone who was constantly trying to please everybody, to make people like me by putting on a false self that was designed to play on my pleasant features. But it was a lie. I wasn't being myself because I felt that no one would like me if I just behaved the way I am normally.

I didn't feel confident enough in who I was to be able to deal with people honestly. Will's death put that in perspective, and after years of therapy I realized how stupid and self-destructive it was for me to pretend to be anything other than who I was. Life is short, so I decided I wasn't going to waste any more time being anyone else but me. It sounds like a cliche, but it's one of those terrible cliches about life that can destroy you if you let it. .... [My husband] Davis has given me a lot of support and confidence, and he's helped me overcome a lot of the fear that I was hiding in the back of my mind. ... the fear that i wasn't good enough, smart enough... that I wasn't someone who deserved to be loved and appreciated. It's taken a long time for me to get rid of that fear and it's still a process I'm working on. Elisabeth Shue    [imdb, Sept., 2000, posted on elisabeth-shue.com]

related pages:****identity...........self-esteem / self concept

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What I loved about this therapy is that it comes from a place that says there's nothing wrong with any of us. We just need to rebalance our identity because it's our identity that dictates where we're going. If you are able to separate yourself from your identity, which is what you are helped to do, then you can really listen to yourself and get on course. ... Transformational therapy is a lot like preventive medicine -- it helps keep our eyes open and located on our inner truths.  Susan Anton- about working with coach/therapist Breck Costin  /    [photo from susananton.com]   from book: It Works for Me!:  Celebrity Stories of Alternative Healing  by Heide Banks, Jack Canfield

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A reasonably clear perception of self appears to be one prerequisite to advanced emotional development.  For people who are outside the norm in any significant way, as gifted people are, obtaining accurate feedback about their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and the acceptability of their personality characteristics is difficult. Deborah L. Ruf, PhD -  from article: If You're So Smart, Why Do You Need Counseling?

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.. .. As health officials around the world debate the risks of antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Paxil, doctors are reevaluating standard treatments for conditions from depression to obsessive compulsive disorder to panic attacks.  Some say antidepressants have been oversold; most say that they're being needlessly vilified. Largely ignored amid the controversy is one alternative that has proven itself as versatile and effective against mental illness as any antidepressant. Cognitive behavior therapy, a short-term talking cure, helps people make small, seemingly mundane changes in the way they think (the cognitive) and act (the behavioral) that can produce profound and lasting recovery. // "It's really a matter of people being informed about the therapy," said Judith Beck, director of the Beck Institute, a nonprofit cognitive treatment clinic near Philadelphia.

"When people are informed, they're usually interested, whether they've tried drugs, or want to avoid them. One of Beck's recent patients, a 42-year-old mother of two, quit her job after suffering a sudden episode of depression.  Believing that her family faced imminent financial disaster, the woman became paralyzed by her depression, barely able to get out of bed, care for her children or maintain her household, Beck said. Beck had the mother try a few simple experiments. She asked her husband about the family finances. They were stretched but in no danger of losing the house. On one day, she called a friend to meet for lunch. On another, she went for a walk. As a matter of routine -- again, an experiment -- she started doing the breakfast dishes, instead of fretting about not having done them. "It took 20 minutes, that's it, but it kept her from going right to bed," Beck said. "Small things; you're breaking the day down into small parts and handling them one at a time." By small steps, the woman made her way back to work. She has not needed medication. from article Thought therapy - Small changes in thinking and behavior can be as effective as antidepressants. By Benedict Carey, LA Times Apr 19, 2004 image from book : Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond -  by Judith S. Beck

 

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  Margaret Cho interviewed by Rosie O' Donnell

Rosie: With a childhood like yours, I found it interesting that you resisted therapy as long as you did.

Margaret: Yeah, I know. I think that what prevented me from getting treatment was coming from
the Korean culture, which is so anti-therapy, anti-sharing all those painful secrets. You just don't
do that. You don't talk about your life and those issues with other people, especially people who
aren't in your family, who aren't Korean.

But I've been in therapy for a couple of years, and it's been so helpful—just to be able to talk
about my life and share it with people and not have all these secrets.

Rosie: What made you finally decide to go to therapy?

Margaret: Well, I was in a relationship, and I wanted to kill him all the time. ... I really hated him so much
for no good reason. ... I sought therapy because I thought, "This really is not okay, this is not normal."

And it wasn't the right relationship anyway. I wasn't going to salvage the relationship—I was going
to find out why I had repeated this pattern of not connecting with anybody for so many years.

So that led me to therapy, which really helped me enormously.

  [rosiemagazine.com August, 2001]

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"People who've accomplished the greatest things probably have the biggest insecurities.
We act out of neurosis, and as you grow older, and as you change within yourself and
become more resolved, you become a calmer and perhaps even a quieter person.

That doesn't mean you become less creative. Most creative artists are worried that that
will happen. But if they could stand the pain of change, I think they'd find their creativity
came along with them."

        Alyce Cleese    (psychotherapist; wife of John Cleese)  [Donny and Marie Show, 6.1.00]

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I've been going to therapy since I was twenty one. I think the more you know about your own psyche, the more you can know about other people's, and can play them better.   Jennifer Jason Leigh  [paraphrased from "Inside the Actors Studio" interview]

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"Society blindly regards psychiatry as safe medicine, a position that is very comfortable
since people who reject it are likely to wind up with psychiatric labels themselves."

 Jeanine Grobe, Editor of book: Beyond Bedlam

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Of course therapy is not the only route to a sense of mental health. Psychotherapist Sandy Kaufman, for example, suggests a wealth of activities for his clients to use in addition to therapy. "I really try to fill up an actor's life with their own life," explained Kaufman. "I often will ask actors to volunteer doing anything because actors are generally very self-involved. So I ask them, Are you volunteering? What are you doing that doesn't involve you? They look at me like I am crazy. And I say, Your life has to be filled with your life. It's important for people to have a full range of activities so that their life is not 'I'm an actor, and this is all I do, and every person I meet I have to be an actor for.'  "A key word is balance--finding a balance between being a real person and being a professional actor, and they are very different." Added Kaufman, "Try different things. Try meditation, try yoga, try hiking and swimming and pottery classes. Whatever people are going to do to enhance themselves and relieve themselves of the mind being cluttered, I am all for." from article: Soul Workout by Laura Weinert [Backstage magazine]

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"My mother said I was a sweet kid for the first four years of my life. But then I turned sour," [said Woody Allen]. "There was no traumatic event. It was a mystery. I can only attribute that to an awareness of mortality, seeing what you're involved with, and I never recovered from that." ... "There were no dramatic moments. No insights. No tears," Woody Allen said about his decades in therapy, which began more than 40 years ago when he was writing comedy for television programs in his mid-20s. "People used to say 'you're using psychoanalysis as a crutch,' that was very common. And I would say, 'Yes. You're hitting it exactly on the nose. I'm using it as a crutch.' "  Allen, who apparently is off the analyst's couch these days, conceded that psychiatrists helped him through difficult times and broke up his days of isolation. "It got me through periods of my life when I was very unhappy and was insecure," said the quirky auteur, who writes, stars in and directs his films. "Just the act of having someone to speak to, someone interested in my problems in some way was helpful to me."  Allen said his life was great these days with his wife Soon-Yi, who was the adopted daughter of his former lover, Mia Farrow, but that he is still dogged by pessimism. "I'm very happy. I love being married. I love being a father," he said. "But I'm still a pessimistic person. This is probably the best time that I've had and I deserve it."  Allen, who has been nominated for more than a dozen Academy Awards, won three Oscars and received a lifetime achievement award this year at the Cannes festival, said he has not lived up to his own expectations.

.. .. "I had grandiose plans for myself when I started," he said. "I had a much grander conception of where I'd end up in the artistic firmament. "What makes it particularly poignant is I've had great artistic freedom in a medium where people don't get that freedom," said the man whose films include "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."  "The only thing standing between me and greatness is me," said Allen, who said he would have traded his comic muse for a gift for drama. "I feel I should have done better."........ [excerpt from CNN/Reuters story, November 8, 2002] related bio: Woody Allen on Woody Allen

*related page:.....depth psychology

*related article: Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals.

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"Individuals usually seek psychological evaluation because of a vague perception
that something is out of balance, incomplete, unexplained, or that some vital factor
in their well-being equation is missing. Rarely do clients enter with more than a list
of symptoms and complaints, which are, of course, the very place to sort through
the problem puzzle and a necessary part of a complete assessment.

Yet limiting an evaluative inquiry to current symptoms is far from adequate for the gifted adult.
A simplistic symptom focus often shortchanges the gifted client who has not been accurately
identified as such, and therefore has no method of introducing a topic of immense significance
or of explaining the existential angst that arises from being vaguely aware of a disparity
between potential and fulfillment.

As Linda Silverman reminds us... for the gifted, 'Counseling is essential, because the journey
to discovering that which is finest in oneself is precarious, and those who embark upon this journey
sometimes falter and lose their way.'"

from article Arousing the Sleeping Giant: Giftedness in Adult Psychotherapy, by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen -

  Her book: The Gifted Adult : A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius

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Many people undertake therapy to heal feelings of differentness or isolation owing to their cultural, racial or religious background, a physical disability... their appearance, their sexual identity, or because of other difficult life experiences.  People with exceptionally high intelligence and creativity also often struggle with feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as with all of the challenges associated with making use of their gifts. Sarah Benolken, Ph.D. - from her site*****A clinical psychologist, she is also moderator of the listserv of APA Division 10 - The American Psychological Association's Division for Psychology and the Arts

 
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Four days a week, Rachel H. takes the subway uptown, waves to the doorman in the large prewar apartment building where her psychoanalyst keeps his office, lies down on a burgundy leather couch and begins to talk.  Ms. H., a 33-year-old graduate student, has heard all the jokes. She has listened patiently to friends who tell her she would be better off taking Prozac or trying yoga or leaving New York altogether to escape her obvious "dependency" on her analyst.  She has endured teasing and incredulity. "Don't you think that's so last century?" asked one woman.  After spending six years and about $60,000 on analysis, she says she is less self-destructive, more responsible, more productive and more successful in her work. She has more compassion for others. She understands, in ways that have grown more layered and complex, her own strengths and limits and those of the people close to her.

.. In the last quarter century, psychoanalysis has been declared dead many times over. Psychoanalysts, once dominant in psychiatry, now stand on the sidelines of a field where drug treatments and brief forms of talk therapy are the rule.  Thanks in large part to Woody Allen, Freud's talking cure has become shorthand for costly self-indulgence with no obvious benefit.  And many psychiatrists barely hide their disdain for what they regard as an outmoded approach to treating mental disorders.

Yet thousands of Americans - it is not known exactly how many - continue to seek out psychoanalysis.  Like Ms. H., they believe that the arduous, uncertain and often emotionally painful dissection of mental life such treatment entails offers something they can find nowhere else. ... Ms. H. said that in the course of her sessions on the couch she had examined every aspect of her life, from her fears of abandonment to her perfectionism to her repetitive dreams of running through city streets to save her brother from an attack by urban guerrillas. She has learned, she said, that "the truth is mutable, the story changes." from article: "Even in the Age of Prozac, Some Still Prefer the Couch" by Erica Goode [NY Times] photo: psychologist [Loren Dean] seeing one of his patients [Hope Davis] in film Mumford [1999]

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Claire Danes : [As a kid,] I was on this whole perfection trip. And that's just totally boring. And arrogant!... I finally realized after years of therapy -- I'm 18 and I've already had years of therapy -- that you can encourage yourself to move further in a nurturing way. You don't have to be abusive.***[Allure, Nov., 1997] My therapist gives me permission to accept that I'm human.***[unknown source & date] It's a luxury [seeing a therapist regularly] ... It can get so crazy when you keep running around from place to place - you don't know where you stand. It's amazing how far removed you can become from your real self. It takes a lot of work to keep yourself well-adjusted.***[British Vogue, March, 1997]

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I've been in therapy for years. .. the stronger you get inside, the better you do [professionally]. I don't think that the wackier you get, the better. I used to think the more manic I am -- or the more angry or hurt -- the more creative I am... but you always have that to pull from. The healthier person performs better at an audition, they listen better... you're safer to be crazy, or sad, or weepy, or wild in an audition if you're not it, and you can separate it... The way [therapy doesn't help] is that it can trap you in your head. You try to solve the world with your words and don't listen to your heart." Vicki Lewis***[Movieline, May 1999]

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1.We grew up in an atmosphere of invalidation which resulted in ambivalence
about our artistic expression.

2.In any given twenty-four hour period we find ways, consciously or unconsciously,
to avoid doing that which gives us the most joy -- expressing our creativity.

3.We have withdrawn from our art by investing ourselves in lifestyles, relationships and
work activities incompatible with our artistic purpose. Our creative energy has often been
diverted into destructive compulsions toward alcohol, food, sex, money, drugs, gambling
and preoccupation with the past.

4.We have made needless sacrifices for our art and yet are afraid to make the necessary
sacrifices. We are unable to balance the significant areas of our lives -- Physical, Financial,
Social, Love, Family, Spiritual and Creative.

excerpt from The 12 Traits of A.R.T.S. Anonymous

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   Psychotherapy Isn't What You Think  - book review by Eric Weislogel, Ph.D.

The title of James F. T. Bugental's [book] is a play on words. While not repudiating
the normal course of psychotherapy, Bugental takes issue with the constant focus
on a client's past.

Rather, Bugental, one of the leaders of the humanist / existentialist school
of psychotherapy, teaches his intended readers-practicing therapists-that the key
to a client's improvement lies in diligently probing the emotional state
of the client in the counseling session.

Bugental's central thesis is this: "The difference between a psychotherapy
that is chiefly concerned with information and a psychotherapy that centers
on the actual experience of the client in the living moment has great significance
for life-changing psychotherapy."

Psychotherapy isn't centrally about what you think; it's about what you are
experiencing now. It is easy to hide from problems or pain by trying to articulate
one's biography or to reconstruct childhood memories.

Even descriptions of one's current life are, in the end, fabrications (if not mere fabrications).
What is crucial is the present moment, the now.

--book:--James F. T. Bugental Psychotherapy Isn't What You Think -
               Bringing the Psychotherapeutic Engagement into the Living Moment
 
 

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Friedman entered therapy for writer's block. After two weeks, she found herself writing her first book.
As a result, she identified [her therapist] Sing as the source of her inspiration, and an intense
infatuation resulted: "Little mattered now beside Harriet Sing. Everyone else was merely metaphoric."

Friedman emerged confident in her identity as a writer only after seven years of intense self-scrutiny
with Sing. By then, the therapist's role had evolved into something far more ambiguous, and it is here
that readers may come to understand what really goes on between therapist and patient.

Friedman refers to Sing as a "thief of happiness." Though at times self-indulgent (as when the author
veers off into half-articulated, dreamy memories), the book is excellent in the way H.D.'s is: it illuminates
the intricate, murky relationship between therapy and real life, the ways in which, as the author quotes
Adam Phillips, "in one's relationship with the analyst one unwittingly relives and thus discovers one's
emotional history."

Friedman is at her best when relaying the delicately nuanced exchanges that occur between
the patient and therapist. [from Publishers Weekly review]

--book:----Bonnie Friedman. The Thief of Happiness : The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy

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Peter B. Raabe, Ph.D. Philosophical Counseling : Theory and Practice

More than two thousand years ago Epicurus characterized philosophy as "therapy of the soul." He maintained that the arguments made by a philosopher are just empty if they do not relieve any human suffering. ... Philosophical counselors know that the majority of people are quite capable of resolving most of their problems on a day-to-day basis either by themselves or with the help of significant others.

It is when problems become too complex -- as, for example, when values seem to conflict, when facts appear contradictory, when reasoning about a problem becomes trapped within a circle, or when life seems unexpectedly meaningless -- that a trained philosopher can be of greater help than the average friend or family member. The philosophical counselor often deals with individuals who are dissatisfied with other forms of counseling they have had. She sees individuals whose minds are sound but whose thinking is confused or obstructed.

The philosophical counselor understands that most individuals live by many unexamined (rather than unconscious) assumptions and values that can affect thinking and behavior in puzzling or distressing ways."'

related site: A Philosophical Counseling Website

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"Unfortunately, this dismal picture of not being able to understand mental processes,
did not dissuade the followers of this practice from reaching into our schools, our
justice system, and our literature, with their theories.

Too many people have been exposed to what has been offered by this field,
and then with no intellectual inspection, they have chosen to accept it from
the self-proclaimed and authoritative voices of psychiatrists, even when there
is no basis in fact to do so."

Diane Klein - author of In The Name of Help : A Novel Exposing Psychiatric Abuse -

from article "Important data about psychiatry..." on her site
 

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.. .. Now, the thing about writers is that they're so therapized. They've been in therapy for years, and they'll lay out a lot of their family dynamics for me.  But as I always say, "Insight's the booby-prize of therapy." That means change doesn't come from insight. You need insight and awareness to understand what's going on. But change comes from courage, the risk of challenging those meanings everyday. Psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFCC ..[Writers Guild interview] **book:  Writing from the Inside Out

The number one reason [writers see me in therapy] is either procrastination or writer's block.  Invariably, a person's creative struggles, whether it's procrastination or fear of rejection or whatever, are so inexorably entwined with their personal life...  If a person is struggling with writer's block, and we learn a little about his family of origin and how his relationships are going now, we learn what function the writer's block is serving in his life. And so I use the therapy to get under those issues, to illuminate them and explore them...  That helps writers move away from the meaning they tend to give it, which is, "I'm blocked because I'm not any good. I'm blocked because I don't have enough willpower. I procrastinate because I'm afraid." The negative self-talk that accompanies writer's block and procrastination.  What's so striking about most of the blocks we have is that they tend to have a psychologically protective function. Dennis Palumbo - from the Dec/Jan 2001 issue of "Written By" Dr. Palumbo is listed on the counselors page

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"I hear you're in psychology. I'm in a related field - pest and rodent removal."

           [a character in the film "Saving Silverman"]

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"The more you head into the maelstrom, the more vulnerable you are, of course.
But it's what you owe to whatever gift you have."

playwright Ellen McLaughlin
 

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[Is there any one thing you've picked up in the course of your life
           that has served you well in Hollywood?]

"Denial, which I learned from therapy. I'm not kidding. I was in group [therapy] for a hundred years...
and the first lesson you're supposed to learn is to be in touch with your feelings and to express them.
And then if you're really lucky, you learn the final lesson of group, which is that being in touch
with your feelings does not put you under an obligation to express them. ...

Look, people can be whatever they want to be in Hollywood. They can be complete babies and do brilliantly or they can
be fascists and do brilliantly. But I have found it very useful not to let a lot of things bother me...
most of them get sorted out, and if you react to every little thing, you could go crazy in the movie
business. Now a lot of people feed off it. I call them the uproar guys. It makes them feel like they're alive."
   Nora Ephron  [Premiere mag., 1996]
 

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"Therapy would always interest me, but I couldn't connect my mind to my heart.
It left me mentally stimulated and emotionally disconnected."

Jennifer O'Neill (about having tried psychotherapy unsuccessfully)   [New York Times, April 27, 1999]

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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted
or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery...
since it is now named and defined, it's lost its mystery and the potential for a vast,
infinite experience."   David Lynch
 

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I had some pretty silly shrink sessions. Each shrink grabs onto something in your life
that's supposed to be the root of all your problems, and you end up doing things like taking
brightly coloured baseball bats and hitting pillows and going `I hate you Daddy!' or whatever it is.

Which is not particularly helpful in any way, shape or form... I did a lot of talk therapy... a lot of
crying, which always makes shrinks think they're getting somewhere if they can make you cry.

So we did a lot of things that did not help in any way. .. a good cry is actually good for you, but
to sort of go over all of the childhood traumas, which everyone has some of, I believe only reinforces
that pattern. You get stuck in them. To go to a psychiatrist's office and only talk about the bad things
in your life, over and over, tends to keep you stuck in them.  Margot Kidder  [CBC interview]

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"You want to get angry with yourself for not knowing better. The mind has a
very insidious way of making you feel guilty: you're the guilty party, shame on you,
you're the one who brought this on yourself."

      Carlos Santana

(about being molested from age 10 to 12, and getting therapy in 1995) [RollingStone.com]

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"I used to call therapy my part-time job."  Michelle Pfeiffer**[US mag., Nov., 1993]

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