Quote:
Originally Posted by feralkittymom
I think feeling the shame tells us there's a need, and the need reflects an injury. By verbalizing any part of this, it opens it to healing. Therapy isn't necessarily about whether or not the need is fulfilled; it may feel so because the injury often comes from childhood , and we often respond with a child's emotions. I think that's why it's so easy to perceive boundaries as rules, and as an example of withholding. But really, it's about revealing the need to ourselves, coming to understand it, and the healing comes from those feelings being accepted by a T without judgment which begins to heal the injury. Over and over again. Whether or not the needs are fulfilled is separate. Some needs, once the feelings surrounding them are accepted, don't require further response. Others, after the acceptance and understanding, can sometimes be fulfilled because at that point, fulfillment isn't substituting for our emotional work. At that point, we're able to accept the fulfillment fully without dependence. We're ready to respond without the childhood distortions.
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I'm sorry, but I think that weather or not the need get's fulfilled is important. It's very nice and idealistic to talk about the need and all the pain that it causes, but at the end of the day people really deserve to have their needs met, not just acknowledged. We live in an emotionally bankrupt culture, and we frequently do a poor job of helping get the needs met that have been pushed aside over, and over again. If the therapist cannot meet the need themselves they should help the client as best that they can to find ways to meet the need in another way (perhaps with a friend or partner). And we are all responsible for helping each other cope with and meet these needs.
I also don't see why fulfilling a need necessarily has to interfere with emotional work--that is the emotional work. And this whole thing about discouraging dependence is just really messed up. People--mammals--are dependent on each other in a profound way. That is how the biology works. I quite possibly need my therapist, and am dependent upon her more than any one else in my life. Assuming that the current cultural status quo on this whole topic is fine is highly problematic. It should not be that we just go to therapy to discuss our needs and resolve them, there needs to be a large cultural change so that people can really support and love each other, and so that people don't have to live with these horrible unmet--seemingly unresolvable--needs their whole life. It doesn't have to be this way.