Case From Practice: About Love And Recognition, Or Ghosts Of The Past

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

N., a man of 43 years old, a successful businessman, head of a consulting company, father of 3 children, married. Looks very courageous, regularly goes in for sports. He treats children with great tenderness, is attached to them. Family relationships are built in a way that suits him. Before contacting me, for several months he was undergoing therapy with another therapist - a woman, however, due to the fact that he felt a vaguely perceived need - a desire for psychotherapy with a man, I asked the former therapist to recommend someone to him

The therapist considered it appropriate to refer N. to me. Thus, N. ended up in my office.

N. applied for the psychological support he needed in the process of building relationships, on the one hand, with his subordinates, on the other hand, with the higher authorities. According to him, he often feels insecure in situations where "you should put in the place of an oversized employee" or when "you need to protect yourself from unfair attacks from management."

In the process of telling about his life, he recalls that “he rarely received recognition from his father,” and also that their relationship was rather difficult, since his father was “a cold, detached and rather tough person” who could, for example, “hit for no reason, for no reason. Moreover, the father was a very authoritative person for N., whose location N. valued.

I suggested N., talking about my memories, to listen carefully to what would happen to him. In the course of his story, N. suddenly realized the expressed need for me to praise him for the successes in his business, which he told me about at almost every session.

I said that I respect N. for the achievements that he has in his business, for the changes that he made in the company, as well as for the courage and progress that he demonstrates in the course of therapy. (It was not difficult for me to say these words, since N. really aroused a lot of respect in me). N.'s eyes filled with tears, he said that he was very touched by my words and, it seems, gets what the deficit of which largely determines his behavior. This situation initiated some rather significant progress in therapy. N. was able to address the now realized need for meaningful relationships for him, which gradually became much more satisfying for him.

A few months later, the topic of N.'s alcoholization with accompanying anxiety and fears appeared in the focus of the therapeutic process. Experiencing significant anxiety, supported by the opinion about a predisposition to alcoholism (his father is an alcoholic), N., nevertheless, in recent years, drank quite a lot and regularly. N. himself called himself an alcoholic, although there were no pronounced signs of alcoholism, hard drinking and a hangover syndrome were never observed. In his opinion, such alcoholization was a way to cope with stress, which was abound in N.'s life and which, according to N., was associated with "the need to keep a lot of aggression in relations with the leadership and subordinates."

After some time, N. said that he plans to create conditions in his life that are incompatible with alcoholism. I suggested that his plans were to create conditions in which he could freely show aggression. Instead, N. began to fantasize about possible events that imply the fullness of recognition, "praise" [1].

After a while, he again began to say that everything that was happening to him was "an inheritance from his relationship with his father." Thus, N. again demonstrated that it is easier for him to be, realizing his need for recognition, outside the border of contact and experience - in fantasies about the future or memories. I asked if N.now there is enough confession in his life, to which he replied in the affirmative.

N.'s behavior reminds me of the behavior of a chronically hungry person who once experienced severe hunger in his life, who eats a lot today, but cannot get enough. Restoration of sensitivity to the "taste of mental food" in this case is a necessary condition for therapy.

N. responded to this metaphor, saying that he was hungry for recognition, and this will continue until he can praise himself.

I suggested that he not delay the completion of this task and try to tell me personally about his achievements and pride, which would be true. Along the way, I suggested N. to carefully listen to his experience of this process, to those feelings, images, thoughts that will appear in the field.

Shortly after the start of N.'s speech, his eyes became moist and he tried to break off contact. N. said he felt some embarrassment mixed with pleasure and sadness. I asked him to keep in touch with his experience and to let the emerging phenomena live. Despite the fact that it was difficult for N. to maintain contact with me due to the present embarrassment, he continued to “feed” on what was happening in him. N. said that the feelings that are arising now - joy and sadness - are very similar to those that he experiences in a relationship with his son, to whom he wants to give something that he himself did not have - love and recognition.

The described process allowed N. to gain access to the experience of the process of satisfying the need for recognition instead of skipping past him. From that moment on, his ability to "saturate" significantly increased, relations with management were transformed towards partnership rather than opposition, the process of forming a team in the company finally began, and the expressed need for alcohol significantly decreased.

At the moment, therapy with N. continues, unfolding in the direction of the formation of the ability not so much to realize important needs for N. (this, as a rule, in N.'s life did not cause any special difficulties after realizing the needs), but in the experience of this experience as a result of maintaining contact and sensitivity in the process.

[1] A good illustration of the fact that therapeutic hypotheses and the reality of the experience do not always coincide.