Psychology And Psychotherapy For Those Who Do Not Seek Help, Or Why The Idea Of "help" Is Alien To Psychoanalysis

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

When the idea of seeking psychological help matures, at one point a person asks the question: "Can psychotherapy solve my problem?"

And by the time this question appears, the world wide web is already ready to provide a variety of answers for every taste. But all the answers, all the articles on the topic are often united by one thing - the very idea of "help".

The problem with this idea is that “helping” equates to the effect that psychotherapy produces, which is not the same thing; is that this idea shows up everywhere, even when there is no word "help" in the search query at all. And if it is important for someone to know that they will be "helped", then there are people who are annoyed and repulsed by this obsession.

For example, the search query "psychotherapy" returns articles with the following headings:

· "Does psychotherapy help?"

· "How does psychotherapy help a person?"

· "Do psychotherapists really help people …"

· "Why does psychotherapy NOT work?"

· "8 reasons why psychotherapy does NOT help you"

and etc.

There is one clickbait headline that I really like:

Psychoanalysis will definitely not help you

This phrase causes some bewilderment, but at the same time it is true.

The fact is that psychoanalysis is far from the idea of "help" and this word is not often found in psychoanalytic vocabulary.

Psychoanalysis does not seek to help, but it works.

In this article I would like to clarify why the idea of aid is foreign to psychoanalysis; and why this feature is necessary in order to produce a therapeutic effect.

Ethical position

They turn to a psychoanalyst, like any specialist in the psychological profession, to solve pressing problems, find solutions to situations, get rid of disturbing symptoms, etc. They turn to what can be called "help".

Yes, phrases such as "how can I help you?" or "psychoanalysis could help you with this" - can be heard from the analyst. But such a speech turnover only encourages speech on the part of the person who turned to the analyst; encourages you to talk about the problem.

In fact, the psychoanalyst's ethical position is not about helping.

Why?

When starting a conversation about help, you are sure to come across a desire at its basis - whether it is a desire to support, a desire to heal, relieve symptoms or suffering, etc.

This desire involuntarily puts in a position in which knowledge is assumed about "what is good" and how it will be "better" for another.

But what exactly psychoanalysis knows is the significance of the catchphrase: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Sometimes, this phrase is appropriate to the point that an ardent desire to help turns into a desire to impose the good and can do harm. In general, the expression reveals the seriousness of the analyst's attitude to a neutral position.

When confronted with real history, it becomes clear that even the subject himself cannot always say how “it will be better”; and in the process of analysis, variants of solutions to the situation may open up that could hardly have been imagined before.

When it comes to suffering in general or a local symptom, about things from which a person wants to get rid of, it turns out that these things have their own function and are part of an established mental system. And here, too, in relation to suffering and the symptom, an approach that is not impartial, but neutral, is important.

In addition, the desire to help, "the good being done", in a completely natural way causes opposition and rejection even from the side of the one who himself asked for help.

To illustrate the need for this ethical position, I will present several examples of varying degrees of abstractness.

I

An example from family psychotherapy, "The good of the family" and the inability to say in advance "which is better"

The first example from the field of family therapy, which I recently came across on the net. We are talking about an "abstract" family, within which there was a betrayal.

A person or a couple who turns to a family psychotherapist speak of treason as a fact that has happened, the psychotherapist, mentally, focuses not on the fact of intrigue on the side, but on the fact that it has become known in the family.

Information about infidelity enters the family for a reason. Whether it is a negligent evidence, "puncture" or "confession" - this is an act, an act with reasons and pursuing a specific purpose.

Of course, the goal, as well as the reasons, are purely individual in each case.

For example, cheating can be used to end a relationship. By leaving open correspondence in a forgotten in a prominent place on a smartphone, the cheater tells his partner what he did not dare to say in words and provokes the partner to break off the relationship, because he himself is not ready to be responsible for his own desire for separation or divorce.

After the breakup of the relationship, the lover (tsa) also becomes unnecessary.

Quite a sophisticated way to quit / divorce isn't it?

Again, a person does not make plans in this regard, these events occur spontaneously, unconsciously. And from a systemic point of view, the premises of the problem are ripening in the family long before such an event.

This example, while seemingly complex, is oversimplification. Any real story will be more multifaceted and complex, and the interpretation presented is more of a fantasy “on the topic”.

But back to the topic of the text - psychological "help".

This problem is a frequent reason for seeking a family therapist. In the schools of family psychotherapy I know, the goal of "help" is clearly defined - if the couple who apply is ready to work to save the marriage - all efforts will be directed towards this.

People deal with similar problems not only in pairs, but also individually. In psychoanalysis, work is carried out with one subject and psychoanalysis is not limited to the morality of the good of the "family", it does not put relationships or marriage at the forefront and is not guided by the idea of preserving them.

Psychoanalysis does not give an answer to what would be better in the case of this example: breaking up relations or maintaining them, transformation, working out the problem, etc. In addition, a person who has fallen into a situation of betrayal and has addressed the analyst with the problem of oppressive relationships is himself in a state of confusion. Feelings are ambivalent - from the desire to return everything as it was and to forget it like a bad dream, to the desire for revenge. In this situation, a person does not know how to act correctly, what the outcome is favorable and how it will end.

Actually, that's why they come to the analysis - to get the opportunity to influence what is happening, to find out how to act and what will happen, to cope with the shock.

If a deliberately ready-made solution to help was assumed, or some kind of “good purpose”, as in this example “preserving marriage,” then a person with his personal history would be thrown down to the level of an object that needs to be manipulated. The versatility of possible solutions, outcomes and variations of changes for a person would be lost, and the uniqueness of the case would turn into a template.

Psychoanalysis does not imply "help" but produces a therapeutic effect. The person undergoing the analysis changes the way of thinking and acting, followed by a change in the relationship in a couple, and this does not necessarily imply, in the case of this example, the preservation of marriage. The very role of the subject becomes clear in the current situation and relationships, and with this there is a clear opportunity to influence one's life and cope with what has happened.

II

Obsession, imaginary variations on help, and "psychoanalytic research."

The girl, dissatisfied with her appearance, nurtures the idea of transformation by means of plastics.

She turns to the analyst with panic anxiety that after plastic surgery she will no longer be recognized.

-

On the surface, she comes to the analyst to get rid of her anxiety and finally decide on an operation.

But the fear that she will no longer be recognized suggests that the current appearance, with all the desire for transformation, is dear to her. Overly simplistic, we can say that anxiety is caused by the fear of not being yourself.

-

The obsession with the operation also causes suffering, literally does not allow to live. This can be blurted out in the office: "These thoughts do not give me rest, I do not want to think about it."

Getting rid of the obsession would also bring relief, which can also be called a kind of "help."

-

In the conflict of these desires, the request can be traced. The girl turns not so much to get rid of the anxiety of the interfering operation or to get rid of obsessive thoughts - she complains about the rejection of her image.

That is, if during the analysis something happens with the rejection of appearance, the need for plastic and anxiety will disappear.

Thus, you can come up with a variety of options for "help".

- from primitive and rather vulgar, like “supporting” an idea, or vice versa “dissuading” from it;

- to those that sound psychological, for example - “working out the rejection of your image”.

But none of these options is about psychoanalysis.

I propose to digress a little of the given given in the example and ask questions.

Are you wondering why plastic?

If there was an impulsive desire to change her appearance, why didn't she just dye her hair? Why not piercings or tattoos?

What exactly is wrong with the exterior?

What is the flaw?

What element of appearance requires changes and why is it? What's wrong with him? What's the story with him?

Why this and not the other?

Where and how did this obsession come from?

The last two questions are a generalization of the previous ones. And these questions do not at all relate to the dilemma “how and with what to help”, they are rather of interest to the nuances of the case: “why exactly this”, “why so”;

interest in the field of the mental, in the cause and structure of a "problem" or symptom (in the case of this example, an obsession).

Such questions demonstrate the spirit of psychoanalytic practice.

Psychoanalysis is an analysis, a study of those psychic forces that govern your life, and which you do not even know about. Ultimately, this research allows you to curb these forces, makes it possible to get out of their power.

If we talk about the example presented, the result of such a study could well be that the obsessive thought would lose its power and simply disappear at the moment when its source would be unraveled. In this case, the decision about plastic surgery would be made more freely, without the oppression of affective aspiration and obsession.

"Psychoanalytic research" - this is the phrase used by Freud, describing psychoanalytic work. Speaking about research activities, it should be clarified that it is inherent in the need to be impartial and neutral. An ambitious desire to help does not fit into this picture.

Reading these lines, someone might think that the analyst is acting in the role of the researcher, and the analysand is a certain object under study - but no; the researcher here is mostly the person undergoing analysis, but this is a topic for another conversation.

III

"Unambiguous good" or talking about a symptom

It is far from always possible to talk about the multifaceted nature of the case, in which you can offer many options “how to help”. Although I have already argued why psychoanalysis does not take into account these supposed methods of help, for the sake of completeness, one can imagine a situation in which the "good" is obvious; but only in order to confirm here the need for an ethical position, according to which psychoanalysis does not seek to help.

-

A person turns to an analyst with a certain form of phobia - with a fear of flying on an airplane, which makes it impossible to move in this way, which is a huge inconvenience.

-

When dealing with this problem, the requirement is extremely specific - to get rid of the phobia.

There can be no discrepancy about what to help with; "Good", it would seem, is obvious.

A person wants to get rid of something that makes life difficult and causes suffering, which means that the specialist's task is to help him with this - but in the mainstream of psychoanalysis, this is not entirely true.

And although in the end analysis leads to relief of suffering, improvement of well-being, and, finally, complete elimination of the symptom, psychoanalysis does not pose such a task.

In order to explain why, in this case, the psychoanalyst will not show a desire to help, it is necessary to clarify the psychoanalytic attitude to the symptom or to any negative manifestation. For the sake of convenience of argumentation, let us put phobic fear with a symptom in one row, equate them.

Any symptom is used functionally. Even the most banal physiological symptoms familiar to everyone, such as cough, fever or runny nose, have an important function.

With the inconvenience they bring to a sick person, these mechanisms and processes work for recovery.

Only now cough, fever and runny nose are things that are often perceived by the patient as the disease itself, and not as a protective and restorative process. In this case, a person tries to get rid of them without thinking about their function.

It will not be difficult to stop coughing, but this will not solve the problem, and it may generally slow down the course of recovery. This is only symptomatic treatment that does not affect the genesis.

No doctor will be fooled into thinking that a "cough" or "fever" can be cured, because these things are not a disease, but a consequence. Treatment should be directed to the cause.

The situation with psychosomatic and psychological symptoms is similar to the one above.

Like a doctor, a psychoanalyst will not be fooled by what can be healed, for example, psychosomatic migraines, insomnia, phobic fear of flying, or any other manifestation.

Will not be deceived for the same reasons as the doctor.

The analyst understands that these negative manifestations are only consequences, symptoms, and also, by analogy, may have some useful or protective function.

You can try to challenge what has been said.

To claim that a reflex cough during illness helps to clear the airways, while a neurotic cough (for example, in the form of a tic) has no physiological basis and is only inconvenient.

Or indicate that normal fear signals danger, while phobic fear is absolutely irrational, and the object of fear does not pose any danger, and after all, a person suffering from a phobia fully understands this, but no reasonable argument will affect phobic fear.

Doubtful functional benefit … if one follows this line of reasoning.

But here we should talk about something else.

Symptoms formed by mental processes have a more diverse spectrum of functions. Here it cannot be said that they "work for recovery", no, but in each case they are part of an already established mental system, and for each person they perform a subjective and individual function.

They can be used in relationships with other people; may, despite their inconvenience, bring secondary benefits or even masochistic pleasure; can be an attempt to literally say something without words, etc.

With the imaginary foreignness of the symptom, the human psyche is in no hurry to part with it, around the symptom, its own image, subjectivity can be built, the symptom can be used as a label of identification with significant people.

This research is a strong simplification, but even so it is clear that with "negative manifestations" everything is more complicated than it seems.

With this understanding of the symptom and the attitude towards it, it is impossible to say that getting rid of it is an unequivocal benefit. We summarize the provisions in favor of this:

· Symptom - formation with a cause and a function;

· Symptom - part of the prevailing mental system;

· Eliminating the symptom will not solve the problem. The mental system will restore it or form a new one for its place.

If we return to psychoanalytic work, this clarification of the attitude towards the symptom does not introduce much innovation, both from the point of view of the ethical position, and from the point of view of the technique of psychoanalysis.

When working with a symptom, the area of attention also becomes both mental life as a whole and individual nuances - the intricacies between the symptom and the benefits that it gives; between the genesis of the symptom, the subjective characteristics of a person and his life history, etc.

I have already mentioned the results - the psychotherapeutic effect is expressed in the relief and improvement of well-being up to getting rid of the symptom.

Psychoanalysis does not strive to help, because this striving will make the analysis, and after it the psychotherapeutic effect, impossible. It is this particular ethical position that allows analysis to take its course and produce a therapeutic effect.