Once you get past all the trauma

the transference, the counter-transference, the anger, the fear, the resentment, the sadness, the phobias, the counter phobias, the hurt and anguish,

there can be a truly profound sense of lonliness left.

Like, in the end, I was left to my own devices to survive. Just me.

I think when you let your therapist touch that essential, existential lonliness, that's the recovery.

That's the blossoming.

well said!

Thanks for this. I like the contrast between this post and your signature too ^^^^

I feel sometimes like the whole thing (therapy) is just this very careful dance around this fact that we're alone.

I am working on having the whole thing right now. I call it the donut/hole conundrum. You can have the hole without the donut (I think?) But you can't have the donut without the hole.

very interesting point - thank you

What a wonderful post, lastyear! All too many here are "dancing around" the essential reality of what they're learning in therapy. Which is not a fairytale. Which is not necessarily a happy ending except in a totally tough, adult way. Yes, yes, you are absolutely correct: a very careful dance around the fact that we're alone. You've got it! And have to tough it out by ourselves with whatever scraps of love and intimacy we can scrounge from our partners and children. The donut/hole conundrum. Yes! Yes! Yes! Please, lastyear! Let's hear some more from you about the donut/hole and the reality of post-therapy life! You sound very, very much like you know a lot more about this than most of us do!! Take very good care!

Interesting, what one would write off as scraps, I would call miracles.

What others may scrounge for, I hold very dear to me.

It's not really an ending at all I think, but rather a beginning.

Yes, THIS. Exactly

Thank you for putting words around it, Elliemay.

I haven't gotten past my trauma yet, and I feel it....

I am trying to learn now to feel deeply connected to the world.

What if there's not an existential aloneness, but rather an interbeing with everything else?

This is from some of Ticht Naht Han's Buddhist stuff. It's not from my T.

Does anyone feel that this is a valid possibility also?

-Far

Irvin D. Yalom, the renowned Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford University and author of many books has written:

"There are 4 givens particularly relevant to psychotherapy:
1. the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love
2. the freedom to make our lives as we will
3. our ultimate aloneness
4. the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life

"However grim these may seem, they contain the seeds of wisdom and redemption. ...it is possible to confront the truths of existence and harness their power in the service of personal change and growth."

From "Love's Executioner" Page 5

I believe it's both - there's a gnawing existential angst UNTIL we realize something bigger....

Well, to be honest, it's just my third session. So far, I've gotten the hole in relationships. I want that donut so badly!!! I can already taste it!!

It's difficult of course when one's therapist can't love one. I really really adored my old one and he was sort of hatefully over-involved with me, if that makes sense. I do think we can sort of pile on a craving for care, love, "situations" and drama, and still have a lot of avoidance and numbing at the base of that.

Honestly maybe a nice therapist who just lets us be can be an EXCELLENT ROLE MODEL! Fingers crossed on this side, at least. Would be interested to hear your thought son this Ygrec.

>>> 4. the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life

Whenever I see stuff like this, I have to ask: If there is no meaning or sense to life, why spend so much time and energy and tears and effort on therapy.
IMO Yalom is just voicing his own pain, he admits it in several of his books. I think it's sad, he thinks of himself as one who can lead others, but has no idea where he is going. How is it that in dealing so intimately with so many kinds of people over so many years, he's still stuck here. I'm sure glad he's not MY therapist

After the trauma is discovery of life, of social interconnectedness, of human love, sometimes of forgiveness - and if one can understand that being given the chance to discover all that is a blessing, one might look to see where the blessing comes from, and that is to discover real peace.

He's not saying there is no meaning to life. I think he's saying that it's not so obvious and we each need to find that meaning for ourselves. The purpose of our lives exists but it's not obvious like the sky is blue or sugar is sweet. He works to help people find their own personal understanding of life.

I think there are a lot of different interpretations (dare I say meanings) to his quote - which I personally find to be very true on a lot of levels.

I think there are things that happen in life that have absolutely no intrinsic meaning at all. They just are. For instance, IMO there was no meaning in the recent tsunami that devastated Japan, it just was. It just happened. Unpredictable, unavoidable.

It is what it is.

It's kind of like a zen buddhist reading a map with a big red dot in the center saying "you are here". The buddhist says "well, I already knew that".

Also, while I'm on an existential roll here, I suspect Yalom has listened to hundreds, if not thousands of personal stories of suffering.

I think the conclusions that he has drawn from that body of knowledge merit some consideration. In the end, one may completely disagree, but I think it is hard to question his experience and his ability to offer wisdom and healing.

>>> hard to question his experience and his ability to offer wisdom and healing

Oh I don't know about that.

When I read "Staring at the Sun" (which struck me as an immensely sad, pain filled book), I kept a pad by me on which I would write my reactions to his book. It all got very long!!! I thought about sending it to him, but in the end I gave up. He's unlikely to change at this age, I figured there was no point - and he wouldn't have time (or inclination, probably) to write me back anyway.

I have read quite a lot of his published stuff, and interviews as they've come up; I don't say he's a bad guy but he does strike me as fairly self centered, for a therapist, not to say sexist, and I don't even mention that beard

Just my honest $0.02. Sorry, all you who may be Yalom fans.

I think you've got a point SAWE. Each of us must check whatever we read or encounter with our own sense of what is right. I so often just cherry pick what seems to be relevant or helpful at the moment and ignore the rest. Be an informed consumer, as they say.

Yalom bothers me too with this "nihilism" thing, just the way he insists we are small and our actions are meaningless. I find that very irritating for some reason. It just feels like the only person who would make such a big deal out of nihilism is someone who secretly believes it is very, very unfair not to matter a lot. I watched Nietzsche Wept and was surprised to find out about Yalom and that he's written so much about being a psychologist. Such a simple mindset! Is it really so tragic that not every middle aged man can have a wife AND a string of young hotties? Isn't it missing the poiint? (Love/ connection/ empathy)

/derail

edit/........