Holiday Sadness

Some of us will be sad during the Holidays, especially if we have lost a loved one in the past year. I have heard many patients say, "This first Christmas without my spouse (or child, etc) will be the hardest." Grief is hard enough when there is not a Holiday coming. It is even harder once the Holiday arrives.

I once told a client that "the reality of losing someone takes the mind a year to accept." I believe that is true--at least a year--sometimes longer. Our minds are not prepared for the harsh reality of death. It takes time for the reality to sink in and become real to us. The time that it takes, no matter how long, is what we call grief or mourning. Most often we underestimate how long grief will take to heal. I have used one year as an average, but many feel it takes several years to work through some losses. That is why we call the process "Grief Work." It is hard work. Unfortunately the general population is not always aware of just how long such a process takes.

Our friends and family members often give us about 3 months to grieve and then they want us to be done with it. Why? Because they find it difficult to be around someone who is grieving. It is like being around someone who is depressed. It brings others down as well and they do not like that feeling. This is why we sometimes need to enter counseling to deal with our grief. A trained therapist is better able to bear our suffering and hear our pain--and for a longer period of time. When you go to therapy for your grief you may find you have a host of feelings to work through.

You may be shocked at first and in a state of disbelief and numbness. You may feel overwhelmed with deep sadness. You may feel guilty and blame yourself somehow for the loss. You may have even been angry at the person you lost and fear that they left this earth not knowing that you loved them. No matter what your feelings are, a caring therapist will help you face those feelings and express them. Our natural tendency is to suppress our feeligs rather than attend to them. This is exactly the opposite of what we need to do. Matter of fact the only way you can grive wrongly is to not grieve at all. The key is to let the feelings come and to bear them--regardless of the amount of hurt or pain they cause. An empathic therapist knows this and will be with you throughout the process. If you can allow yoursef such an experience in therapy, over time, your painful feelings of sadness will begin to heal.

Holiday sadness is often about grief--especially the first Holiday Season without a loved one. But as I shared in the"Christmas as an Anniversary Reaction" post, Holiday sadness can also be due to left over grief from many year's past. If you have any unresolved grief in your life, you can be pretty sure it will come to the surface during the Holidays. So whether your grief is fresh or is left over from the past, if you will let the grief come to your heart and mind, you will eventually feel better. You can process your grief with family and friends or you can seek therapy if it is just too much to bear. Either way remember," the only wrong way to grieve is not to grieve." I hope your Holiday can be as good as it can be even as you continue your grief work..... Make a comment!! Ask a question!! Tell me who you are !!!

Christmas as an Anniversary Reaction

Like many, I have often wondered why Christmas is so powerful. Over the years I have heard it is because of our overly high expectations or our idealized notions of what a perfect holiday is supposed to be. Of course these are true but I have wondered if there might be something more--something deeper.

So I starting thinking about Christmas as an anniversary reaction. Anniversary reactions occur when we experience a significant anniversary and the memories and feelings associated with the original event come pouring forth from our unconscious into consciousness. Maybe this is what happens at Christmas. The Holiday is an anniversary. We have celebrated this day every year from the time we can remember. As a result all kinds of feelings get stirred up around it. Each year when this day rolls around we remember all the other years we have celebrated it--the good ones, the bad ones, and the in between ones. All kinds of feelings come gushing forth. One popular Christmas song says,"Christmas makes me feel emotional." That is true.

I believe it is true because we experience Christmas as an anniversary reaction. So this year I would encourage you, when you are feeling all kinds of emotions at Christmas, to think of them as an anniversary reaction. May we all let the varied feelings of love, joy, dread, anxiety, depression, etc come to the forefront of our minds. May we embrace them. Attend to them. Let them come. And also try to understand them. If your feelings get too uncomfortable during the Christmas holidays then you might consider seeking out a therapist to help you work through them. Therapy can help when the anniversary reaction of Christmas becomes too emotionally overwhelming and the negative feelings come to predominate. I hope your Christmas emotional anniversary reaction this year is more pleasant than not, and that the positive feelings of this season much outweigh those that are more painful. Happy Holiday!

Our Psychopath President and His Ardent Followers Explained

A friend asked me recently what makes Trump's most ardent followers so irrational, so out of touch with reality, that they would blindly follow a psychopath and elect him twice as President of the United States? In researching an answer for him I returned to Bandy Lee, MD forensic psychiatrist. She edited the premier text on Trump's mental health entitled , The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, where 27 psychiatrists and psychoanalysts described Trump as a highly narcissistic delusional psychopath. In her follow up text, Profile of a Nation, she went a step further to also assess the illness of Trump's most ardent followers. 

 She believes their disturbed view of reality is a direct outcome of his disturbance. She lists two phenomenon behind such behavior: First is Narcissistic Symbiosis. Narcissistic symbiosis happens this way: A highly disturbed leader hungry for admiration to compensate for severe low self worth, projects omnipotence to his followers. This type of extremely narcissistic leader believes his own lies and thus they become more than strategic lies, they become delusions. Trump himself believes them and in parallel fashion so do his followers. 

The second phenomenon that explains the delusions of the leader becoming the delusions of the followers is Shared Psychosis. This occurs when those in an emotional bond with a delusional psychotic become delusional themselves. These persons were previously disturbed to some degree and the disturbed leader such as Trump takes them over the edge. They come to share his paranoid delusions and propensity for violence. 

Dr. Lee believes the solution to both of the above phenomenon is Removal of the Disturbed Leader, followed by removal of his policies and then rational and pragmatic solving of the socioeconomic and psychological stress of the followers. She shares this perspective and these solutions in her follow up second book entitled, Profile of a Nation: Trump's Mind, America's Soul. I recommend both of these texts for a thorough understanding of Donald Trump and those who ardently follow him. ..... Ask a question? Make a comment !! Tell me who you are !!!!

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From South Georgia to South Africa

 I originally wrote about my interest in geneology (family origins research)  beginning with the genogram I was asked to create in 1992 while in psychotherapy training. Maybe I was wrong about when my interest in prehistoric humans began. Maybe it began before the family genogram.......... Maybe it began when I used to search the plowed fields of South Georgia for arrowheads ( such as these in the pic above). The center arrowhead I found in 1972. It was lodged in an uprooted tree stump on the edge of a river. I will never forget the feeling of seeing it sticking out from the roots of that fallen tree. I later learned it was from a Native American Tribe that lived in Georgia around 3000 BC......They were us-- homosapiens. They too had traveled Out of Africa around 55,000 BC. When we turned to head toward Europe they turned to turned to travel to Northern Russia,  and later crossed the Bering Straight to settle in America around 20,000 BC, and into my home state  of Georgia by about 5000 BC.....Little did I know that when I was looking for arrowheads in the fields of Georgia that Lee Berger Phd, now the Director of the Department of Human Evolution at Wits University in Johannesburg South Africa, did the same when he was a boy. And in GA!! One reason I wanted to visit the fossil vault at Wits is because I had read Berger's book and knew he  and I shared this same experience. And I was thrilled beyond measure to meet Berger in that fossil vault in 2015. By the way, I was 19 years old when I found that  large ancient Native American artifact in the center of the pic above. I believe the journey started then!!

Psychotherapy, Geneaology, and a Trip to Africa!

Have you figured out the connection between psychoanalytic therapy ( and now neuropsychoanalytic therapy via the writings of Mark Solms),  genealogy ( family tree research), and paleoanthropology ( the search for our human origins in Africa)? It is all about who we are and where we come from. .......In psychoanalytic therapy you go back through your personal childhood. I am fortunate to have spent a number of years doing that.  In genealogical research you take it a step further to the tracing of your ancestors to their beginning in history. I have done that as well. Just this year I was able to travel to the United Kingdom and visit the countries of my ancestors' origins. And when you travel to Africa to study ancient human fossils, as I was able to do ( in 2015), you get to go all the way back to the beginning of your roots in humankind's origin....... So personal psychoanalytic psychotherapy.....  Family Tree Research in the United Kingdom ..... And a  trip of a lifetime ---the trip to Africa  to study ancient human fossils. These experiences in " finding  my roots"  have helped me to discover more about who I am, and where I came from!!

2Kathy Melton and 1 other

Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Five Part 1" How to Treat the Mind" Why We Seek Therapy

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WHY WE SEEK THERAPY

It has been five years since my trip to Africa to learn more about human evolution. At that time I had spent a number of years studying evolutionary biology and it’s contribution to psychoanalysis. The big takeaway of the relationship between these two disciplines is we are motivated at a deep unconscious level to survive and successfully reproduce. We are driven at this unaware level by our genes that desire to get themselves into the next generation so that the human species can continue to exist. This happens over and over again and is testimony to the fact our earliest ancestors did just this, and they survived and we are the result of their survival and reproductive success. This is not really new information. Charles Darwin told us this in the 1800’s and Sigmund Freud reiterated it in the 1900’s when he created psychoanalysis and taught that we are all motivated by deep unconscious needs and desires. What is new for me is how I am now finding these older truths, updated with evolutionary biology integrated into neuroscience, so applicable to my work as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

In this lecture about how to treat the mind, I want to start by talking how neuroscience sheds light on why patients seek out neuropsychoanalytic treatment. >

Now my patients do sit down in the chair and say, “ Just yesterday I felt like I wanted to survive and reproduce in order to get my genes into the next generation." Nor do they say they are motivated to raise their children well so they will survive and reproduce and get their genes into the next generation. These motives are unconscious. We are not aware of them. We do not think them. They are innate and built into us. Nevertheless we are motivated by them at our deepest level and much of what we do is a result of these unaware of built in motives. For example take Parental Investment Theory: This theory says if you have children then your genes reside in each child. These genes want to get into the next generation. So there is a lot of hidden motivation that causes your children to want to survive to adulthood and successfully reproduce in order to have their own children.

So these hidden motives that are built into us are called distal motives. Distal means at a distance from our conscious minds. These distal motives lie behind what motivations we do feel, experience and think about—motives that we are very much aware of. And these are called proximal motives. Proximal means close to consciousness. So we do fee these motivations. For example we feel the motive of love for our children. This feeling we are very much aware of and this proximal motive is what causes most parents to do the best job they can in raising their kids.

Now we are talking desire and needs that indeed we do feel. For example we all need to feel safe ( FEAR when not met.) And when we do not feel safe we feel anxious or afraid, so we seek to deal with this danger, and if we do we feel better. If we cannot reduce the fear or anxiety we feel worse. This need for safety is also built into us. But we feel this need for safety very strongly, and if this need is not met we might seek a consult with a therapist.

Modern affective neuroscience has taught psychoanalysis that we have seven basic emotions/needs. These are: Safety(FEAR when not met.); Obstacle removal ( RAGE when not met.); attachment ( PANIC/GRIEF when not met.); SEEKING;LUST;CARE;and PLAY. These are emotional needs that all humans experience. (Psychoanalysis calls these needs drives or innate motivations.) I have mentioned the first of these seven emotional needs/drives which is Safety( FEAR when not met.) The second universal emotional need/drive is the need for love (Attachment or PANIC/GRIEF when not met.) We all need someone to love us. This need is first felt in childhood when we are seeking our parents’ love. But the need for love, closeness, and care from significant others continues throughout adulthood. What happens if this need goes unmet? We first feel panic anxiety and we seek to reconnect with our caregiver. If we are successful the panic feeling subsides. If we cannot reunite with our attachment figure then our panic anxiety turns to despair, grief, and even depression. Panic anxiety and grief often bring folks to therapy.

The third innate emotional need is the need to get our basic needs met. This requires the ability to remove obstacles that may stand in the way of our getting our needs met. When this need is not met we feel RAGE. RAGE can range from mild irritability to extreme anger to pure rage. Clients sometime seek out therapy when they are experiencing overwhelming anger. The fourth inbuilt need is the need to love others, especially our own offspring. We all need others to CARE for and nurture--especially our own offspring. When we are not able to express our love for others then we may feel unfilled or depressed and therefore need therapeutic help. The fifth emotional need is to find a mate. Everyone needs a significant other with whom they can meet their need for sexual fulfillment or LUST. . Many people come to therapy with sexual frustration, lack of desire or impotence.

The sixth deep emotional need is adventure. We all have a need to SEEK out new experiences, people, things, and ideas. We need to forage about looking for new and exciting ways to get our basic needs met. This is the search for novelty. When folks cannot get this need met they may feel frustrated, anxious, or despairing. These feelings may lead them to seek treatment. The seventh and final primal need is PLAY. All children need to play. All adults also need to play. Playfulness brings joy. Playing with others requires team work and social relationships. Competition, winners and losers, and social groups are all a part of the need to play. Those who cannot find playful pleasure with others often seek out psychotherapy.

These seven innate emotional needs(drives) and the resulting bad feelings we feel when they are not met in healthy ways, often motivate clients to pursue therapy. The therapist’s job is to help the client see that the way they are trying to get their need met is not working. That is why they feel bad. The way they are trying to meet their basic need is a childhood way that may have been their only choice as a child but clearly is not realistic as an adult. Childhood solutions do not work well for adults. We need more realistic ways to meet our needs.

For example if you find yourself throwing an emotional fit everytime you do not get a basic need met and acting like a petulant child, you probably will find that this act does not get you what you need. Such a childish solution just does not work very well in the real world of adulthood. Now with the help of a therapist you must come not only to recognize that this is not the way to get your need met, you must now learn new more mature ways to do so. And then you must actually change your behavoir over time to acting in more adult ways. This is what therapy is for, to help you see what your are repeating unsuccessfully in your adult life that may have been your only choice as a child. When over time you begin to see what you are doing, come to understand where it comes from, and how to change it, your therapy will come to an end. This will happen because now you have adopted new ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving that actually do work to get your needs met in the mature adult reality that we must all live within.

C. Alan Melton, D.Min., LPC

calanmeltonw@gmail.com

Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Six, Part 1 " How to Treat the Mind" Defense Analysis

DEFENSE ANALYSIS

In earlier lectures I have spoken about the role of interpretation in neuropsychoanalytic treatment. I explained the part played by both transference and extratransference interpretations. But we cannot always begin with these type of interpretations. Why is this the case? Because of DEFENSE. Part of the way our minds operate is we defend ourselves from unpleasant feelings in order not to feel them. To feel the feelings would make us too uncomfortable. So we defend ourselves from the discomfort.

When patients come to treatment because their defenses have failed them (which is most often the case), they will be feeling their unpleasant feelings. But when their feelings are adequately defended against, these defenses must be interpreted before transference and extratransference interpretations are attempted. Only after interpreting these defenses can we move to transference and extratransference interpretations of the unworkable, repressed, childhood prediction. For example, let's say when you were a young child your Father would scold you harshly everytime you asked him to PLAY with you. And you wanted to destroy him, kill him, or somehow remove him from the home. But he was bigger and stronger than you, and you could not get rid of him. You felt RAGE toward him as an unwanted obstacle getting in the way of your meeting your PLAY needs. You were also afraid, however , if you expressed your RAGE roward him for being in your way, he would harshly punish you. So you had a conflict that needed resolving. But your little ego was not mature enough to come up with a good solution/prediction to the conflict. So you came up with the best prediction you could at the time which was, " I cannot remove him and get my PLAY needs met, so I will comply with him and forgo meeting those needs."

This was not a workable prediction because the obstacle who stood in the way of your getting your need met was still there. But it was the best solution you could come up with at the time. So to get rid of the anxiety of an insoluable conflict/inadequate prediction, your ego repressed it into your unconscious ( This is primary repression in Freud.) But because the prediction did not work ie, the frustrating obstacle was not removed, you were still left with the feeling of RAGE ( due to prediction error.) Now your ego had to call on the other defense mechanisms to defend you against the feeling of RAGE (Freud referred to these other defenses as secondary or after pressure defenses.)

These defenses would be either the more realistic neurotic defenses such as reaction formation and isolation of affect, or the less realistic narcissistic/borderline/psychotic level defenses such as splitting, introjection, projection and disavowal. Your ego at this time chose the neurotic level defense mechanism of reaction formation. The reaction formation caused you not to feel RAGE but to feel it's opposite, love. But, here is the most important part--your RAGE feeling did not really go away. It was still there-- just defended against.

Now as an adult your rage is so well defended against that you find yourself unable to express RAGE at all--even when you need to. This greatly limits your life. So in order to "undefend" your childhood RAGE you need a neuropsychoanalytic analyst/therapist to help you interpret the reaction formation defense against it-- to dismantle it, so you can feel the RAGE, learn where it came from, understand the unworkable prediction that led to it, and eventually change to a new prediction that will eliminate the need for it. The eventual new prediction will allow you to remove obstacles like your Father from your life. It will say," Instead of destroying persons like my Father who get in the way of my PLAY need, I will assert myself with them and demand they stop. If they refuse, I will end my relationship with them."

And since the new prediction works, and you have successfully removed the obstacle in your way, you no longer feel the RAGE. There is no longer any need for the RAGE, and therefore it does now indeed go away. And since there is now no RAGE, there is no need for the reaction formation defense against it.

In Modern Freudian psychoanalytic treatment this process is called Defense Analysis. As shown above, we follow a similar process in neuropsychoanalytic treatment. The difference comes in understanding the relationship of primary repression to the secondary after pressure defenses. ) Neuropsychoanalysis believes primary repression represses the unworkable childhood prediction. The other after pressure defense mechanisms then defend against the resultant unpleasant feeling. It is these after pressure defenses that the neuropsychoanalytic clinician must interpret first, before being able to interpret the repressed prediction that has caused the unpleasant feeling. The repressed prediction itself then is best interpreted through transference and extratransference interpretations. The interpreted repressed, unworkable old prediction is then eventually replaced with the new workable prediction. But replacing the old prediction with the new one requires what psychoanalytic treatment calls " Working Through."