Happiness is an Inside Job

In North America, the three months from October through December are socially engineered to pull ones attention from the internal world (where reside feelings and whatsoever things are true) and to direct it toward the worldly attractions of the material world (evoking thoughts and more surface, material concerns.) During January through March it is common to feel a kind of emotional hangover, and to have that experience complicated by the consequences of our having been over-invested in the material plane for a full season.

This is an interesting time of the year right now (as I write, we are approaching the last week of February,) and one that brings its own challenges. In North America the three months prior to January are very much focused on Christmas. Even though Hallowe’en falls at the end of October, by the beginning of October the Christmas decorations and products clearly designed to be given as gifts already are crowding their way into the places we shop and hang out. Thanksgiving falls either in October or November depending on where in North America one lives, but Thanksgiving has become sort of a test run for the festive meals that rise in importance as Christmas approaches. For many, it’s been three months of spending more than usual. Then comes January. People withdraw a bit and try to regain balance. The stores put on sales to entice further spending, but generally it’s far less busy. Part of this seems to be so because with the start of a new year, all kinds of necessary licenses, taxes, memberships, registrations and the like come due, each one having associated demands on time together with financial costs. I’ve heard it said that people don’t really start making any financial headway until June 1. From what I’ve seen, I believe it.

People often ask me in December if I’m very busy with clients. It seems many have heard the adage that suicide rates peak at Christmas, and they assume all kinds of depressed people must be coming in for help. As far as I can tell, that story about suicide rates peaking around Christmas is a myth. The real peak in moodiness and despair comes around now: Mid February to Mid March. The bills are coming in, and people who started thinking that psychotherapy is a luxury toward the end of the past year face a mounting stack of evidence that it is no such thing. Once a person recognizes a personal need for a professionally facilitated growth/healing process, even if it once was so it is no longer optional. They begin phoning around March. At least, the ones who are fortunate enough to recognize their need do. That’s when it starts getting busy.

I’ve heard it said that by this time of the year, winter’s “back is broken.” I hope that is true. I also hope that people take care of themselves by seeking the help they need. Because the return of the sun can act just like an antidepressant does, improving physical energy prior to improving mood. The danger is that someone whose mood is still in the tank gets energetic enough that they take ill-advised steps to end their suffering now rather that waiting until the mood starts improving and the suffering begins to abate.

It would be wonderful if the busyness of October through December and the challenges of January through March were less distracting to people. Happiness grows from the inside out. Thinking that the reverse is so, as much as it may act to swell the economy, is simply and dangerously wrong.

Remember

Carl Jung - 10 Quotes

A little help

Sometimes describing what I do is like trying to tell a stranger about rock 'n' roll. Tonight especially.

If you'd join me in praying for a good guy I can't tell you anything about I'd appreciate it.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who joined in. The feared outcome did not occur. Everybody’s still looking at the grass from the green side.

I’m not really religious. Just sometimes it gets to where the only option is to pray. I believe when that happens, one does well to pray as well as one can, and to ask for help.

Molliere

Gertrude Stein

On her deathbed she asked "What is the answer?" When no answer came, she laughed and said "In that case, what is the question?"

Then she died.

Franz kafka

Robert M. Pirsig

"When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event."

Hakuin

Not knowing how near the Truth is,

People seek It far away, -- what a pity!

They are like one who, in the midst of water,

Cries imploringly for a drink of water,

Or like the son of a rich man

Who wanders away among the poor. ...

Those who testify to the truth of the nature of the Self,

Have found it by reflecting within themselves,

And have gone beyond the realm of mere ideas.

For them opens the gate of the oneness of cause and effect;

And straight runs the path of non-duality ...

Abiding with the Undivided amidst the divided,

Whether going or returning, they remain forever unmoved.

Holding fast to, and remembering,

That which is beyond thought,

In their every act, they hear the voice of the Truth.

How limitless the sky of unbounded freedom!

How pure the perfect moonlight of Wisdom!

At that moment, what do they lack?

As the eternally quiescent Truth reveals Itself to them,

This very earth is the lotus-land of Purity,

And this body is the body of the Buddha.

-Hakuin

Integral Breath Therapy fall leadership

Bodhidharma

An excellent reminder

May this perspective create for you an eye in any of your life's passing hurricanes.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

"My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path. It is too difficult, too long, and is too demanding. I suggest you ask for your money back, and go home. This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you. So, it is best not to begin. However, if you do begin, it is best to finish."

What to make of substance use disorder

Alberta's deputy minister of health is getting a lot of flack from my leftist cohorts for saying that naloxone causes disordered opiate users to consume more fentanyl. I hear he says they OD on purpose and then take naloxone to get back home so to speak. Clients tell me it's called "yo-yoing" (note well: I just used yo-yo as a verb.). Some of my cohorts say it doesn't happen. Some call for his resignation.

Let's think about this. I believe I operate the oldest established private psychology clinic in Alberta. Throughout my career and at present I routinely work with people whose use of substances is disordered. I've never met such a person whose use is confined to one substance. Not once. So: People with substance use disorder using multiple substances in a disordered way isn't a big surprise to me.

What would surprise me is if such people (who are notorious under-reporters of their use) told me they did it falsely. So, I believe them when they report doing it. Ergo the deputy minister is right to say that it happens.

Unlike many therapists, I don't think Substance Use Disorder is a disease. I think it's a wound. However, it's such a deep wound that most people lack either the stamina and/or the motivation and/or the resources and therefore will not be able to do what it takes to heal that wound. Also, testing whether the wound is healed undeniably risks a dangerous relapse, which many would argue outweighs any benefit it might promise. Those people (i.e. most people with Substance Use Disorder) do best to think of it as an incurable disease for which the safest treatment is abstinence. Either way, Substance Use Disorder is a medically significant condition and people who have it need care. Without it, too many die.

Saying that the disordered use of a substance is caused by the disordered use of another substance is stupid, mean-spirited, and wrong. The causal wound predates the disordered use. Also, I don't believe any opiate user used naloxone first. By definition causes precede effects. So, naloxone can't figure in the cause. Ergo, the deputy minister is stupid, mean-spirited, and altogether wrong about that.

Opiate users who OD, if they are fortunate enough to receive treatment, are ipso facto exposed/introduced to naloxone. And there you go. Some of them like the experience I guess. Why? Ah, answer that question and you're on the way to finding the source of the wound.

Good luck with that. In my experience, every case is unique. I'll give you one hint: Compassion is the right approach. Blame is not.

On Conversion “Therapy” and the nature of professionally-Facilitated change

I notice my home city council is in the process of making so-called conversion therapy illegal. While I'm not a big supporter of such “therapeutics,” I'm radically opposed to the notion that any representative of cultural normalcy does well by intruding on the privacy of therapeutic space. Cultural norms are intimately involved as causes in the pathologies I help people heal. Solutions to these pathologies typically lie outside the norm.

Seems to me what transpires between healers and their adult clients is at best (and even by definition) a cooperation conducted in private. When people assume authority to invade that privacy (be they authoritarian family members with a religious or moral axe to grind, elected authorities whose axes are more political or social in flavor, or third party payers whose axes are generally fiscal, ) the result is a compromise of the extraordinary nature of the therapeutic space. The majority has no say in a private diad; in fact, a majority in a group of two is mathematically impossible. Authorities have no say in a private diad. Diad decisions are made through both parties to that diad reaching an agreement, reaching consensus.

Any apt therapist knows that taking on an agenda from a third party that is not principally involved in the process and subsequently inflicting that agenda upon an unwilling client is not therapy at all. I cannot see how any therapeutic good could emerge from the obviously flawed process that would ensue. This applies not only to conversion “therapy.” It applies to many more prevalent instances where for example third party payers insist on particular methods such as CBT or medical model diagnostics, spiritually based total abstinence models of recovery and the like. I’m not opposed to any of these methods or models. Where appropriate, they’re effective and good. I’m opposed to their being imposed by outside parties.

I'm saying that in therapy, the goal to work towards is properly a client's decision, meaning the client independently volunteers for it; and whether and how to join in facilitating the client’s work towards that goal is a therapist's decision. Through a process of mutual volunteering and inviting, therapist and client reach agreements that apply within their unique and extraordinary interpersonal space. In that space where there is agreement between client and therapist, therapeutic interaction is possible, growth is possible, healing is possible. Failing that agreement nothing good or therapeutic is likely, and the process is probably pointless and should probably stop.

As a therapist working with clients I have learned that it is important to accept my client's initial goals if at all possible. Even if I believe their pursuit is unlikely to succeed, the client usually needs to learn that for themselves by pursuing it. Enlightenment comes to mind: Enlightenment is a state that transcends desire, but every seeker desires it. A seeker must seek until they give up. The sutras and the Bible both tell us this story. I'm certain more immediate examples exist: How many times have you heard of a couple trying to get pregnant and failing, only to succeed after they gave up on it? Discouraging the pursuit from the outside interferes with the pursuit's coming ultimately to discourage itself. The only client goals I find impossible to agree with would be goals that by definition are dehumanizing or goals that present an immediate physical danger to clients themselves or others.

Given a therapist is professionally licensed, effective channels exist through which dissatisfied clients can seek assistance. Professional regulatory bodies come to mind. City council is not the best or most effective channel to seek redress. Making a bylaw against "Conversion Therapy" cannot constitutionally prohibit people from having a private dialogue toward its purpose. A by-law may make it unsafe to employ that specific term. People will just go ahead and call it something else. Until someone comes up with a way to define "Therapy" in a way that legally distinguishes it from talking (and no one has succeeded in doing that to date) no law that respects freedom of speech can prevent it from happening. It can't even stop unqualified self-proclaimed "professionals" from calling themselves "therapists" and describing what they do as "therapy."

Maybe that's for the best. If a reasonable person believes their own sexual preferences are not right and, driven by that belief of theirs, seeks professional help to change them, I think that's nobody's business but their own. Anyone else who either thinks that such a goal is impossible to achieve and/or that such a person does better to instead change their beliefs does well to stay in their own lane. No one who believes that a client's goals are unachievable or improper ought to be involved in a therapeutic process involving that client and those goals. Motivation aside, their intrusion into the extraordinary interpersonal space that exists between therapist and client is as inappropriate as it can possibly be. It makes no difference whether it's a parent interfering with their gay child's coming to terms with their homosexuality because they believe it to be sinful, or a well-intended politician interfering with a a client's efforts to redirect their own sexual desires because they believe it to be impossible, or an insurance company that won't support anything other than cognitive-behavioral approaches to therapeutics because they believe it is more cost effective. Whether they're trying to save a soul, or an heartfelt idea about the nature of human sexual orientation, or a buck; or even whether they are correct or incorrect in what they believe: these concerns are irrelevant unless the client shares them. They need to stay out of it; it's frankly none of their business.

In sum, any major problem with "Conversion Therapy" generally results from third parties imposing from outside methods and/or objectives upon therapists and clients. When these third parties are parents in custody of, and inflicting processes on minor child(ren) against their child(ren)'s wishes, changing the laws surrounding child custody and welfare might prove helpful, but that is beyond the reach of city council. Changing bylaws won't solve the problem.

Gilda Radner

I wanted a perfect ending… Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity…

On Healing and why i don't seek ratings

Let me start by noting that Sussman Psychological isn't a widget factory, meaning I don't serve up therapy to order the way Wendy's does burgers and fries. If there's a "product," it's my time and energy. As I write this, no one has yet commented upon or rated these services. I post it now, while it is still the case that this is not a reaction to anything other than the idea of ratings as it applies to clinical psychology.

Numerous factors exist that conspire to determine a client's feelings about their therapist, and most of them reside outside of the client's normal waking consciousness. (I'm not at all seeking to mystify by saying this. Freud rightly observed that even the simplest of actions is "over-determined ;" that is, every action has more than one cause. For example, I could probably spend the next hour listing reasons (ranging from uncomfortable sensations from stretch receptors to avoiding embarrassing social situations) why I might go to the bathroom to urinate. If such a simple behavior has so many causes, how much more so would it be true for something as complex as a client's felt sense ot their therapist?) Psychotherapists call the feelings clients have for them "transference," and the feelings they have for clients "counter-transference." Some form of analysis of transference and counter-transference in the therapeutic relationship is an important part of any facilitated deep growth process. This work is done in session, face to face. It can lead to healing of even the deepest wounds. It cannot be done through ratings on a website. Here's why:

When their reaction is positive, a person might endorse my expenditure of time and energy with respect to their process, such as they perceive and remember it. I do hope I'm not the first to point out to anyone that endorsements have no objective value whatsoever. (Somebody really ought to have told you that before now is what I'm saying.) As a result, endorsements are uninteresting to anyone who seeks valid information. Admittedly if a client reporting a positive experience also goes ahead and brings that up in session it can be useful to the process. But simply rating on a website isn't that helpful for them.

Criticism is just as uninformative as is endorsement. In addition, due to confidentiality concerns, as a psychotherapist I can't defend against any specific criticism; even when I have good reasons for actions I have taken, even when I took no action such as a critical comment describes, I simply can't disclose any of that in a public forum. Even when it is in fact the case that as far as I can tell the critic has never been my client, I can't even say so. Without their specific written signed permission I can neither confirm nor deny whether someone is or has been my client at all, far less confirm, deny, or defend any specific event they claim occurred. People claiming to be or to have been my clients face no such professional/ethical restrictions and can just go ahead and say anything they want without any fear of repercussion. It's a perfect playground for bullying. Bullying wounds both parties, it doesn't heal anyone.

My sole reason for maintaining websites for Sussman Psychological is to inform people of the kinds of healing and personal growth work I facilitate, and to let them know how to get in contact if they want to give themselves that sort of gift. I avoid as much as possible the whole business of ratings. Wherever possible I disable ratings mechanisms on my websites.

My strong preference is for people to process any feelings/impressions they have about me directly with me, either by telephone or face to face. That way the playing field is level, and what needs to happen can happen. Maybe even a healing. Healings are an awesome therapeutic possibility. Healing through personal growth is in fact the goal.

Wishing everyone love, light, and especially personal growth and healing.