Thoughts/reactions please. The core goal of any psychotherapy is

Hmm. "involuntary experience" was clear to me but now I see how it's confusing.
How about automatic experience (impulses, habits, emotions).
Or any internal experience that you have no direct control over. Direct is a key word.

I can plan to think about my third grade teacher at 2pm tomorrow. I have direct control over that.
At times, the memory of my third grade teacher just pops into my mind.
I have no control over that. I have no idea of why or when it will happen.
I only have control of how to react AFTER that memory pops into my mind.
I have no direct control over my emotions. Most of the time they just happen.
I only have control of how I react to an emotion after it happens.
The same is true of impulses and habits.

Although, as I said before, I can do things that will likely cause an emotion like
going to a scary movie. But I can not feel elation on demand and directly.
I must do or think something that will likely cause an elation reaction, an automatic and involuntary reaction.

I can't imagine feeling "stress" without the involvement of unwanted internal automatic impulses/experience.
When I was afraid to ride a roller coaster, I felt stress and anxiety about the
idea of riding one. AND I didn't want my stress reaction.
When I got over my fear, I realized I felt the same physical feelings while standing
in line to ride the coaster, as I did when I was afraid to ride. The only difference was
I experienced or interpreted the feelings as excitement, not stress.
I WANT excitement.

My point is, your conscious goal is support, but you're really looking to deal
with your stress and stress always involves an unwanted internal response.

Again, I'm not talking about one's stated reasons to go to therapy.

If your therapists said he/she can't lessen the pain you feel from you own responses/reactions to anything,
would you still want to go?

Having support and someone to listen to you feels good, but is that enough?
You're really looking to resolve your pain.

My theory is, if you fully accepted and wanted every feeling, impulse and emotion that
entered your mind, you wouldn't have pain that needs to be resolved.

Since I seem to be blind from the genius of my theory, I'm looking for any
ideas that could poke holes in it.

Possibly self acualization? Closer to enlightenment? In the broadest sense..

I think the core goal of psychotherapy is to alleviate suffering.

People are truly unique on what path takes them to that end goal. Saying that "therapy has to do *this* in order to work" is a little too general perhaps.

oh man... !!!

This does not directly address your original statement (which I don't quite agree with, by the way) but you might want to look into affect theory. It's a complex theory, but some of its core involves the notion that immediate, involuntary reactions to events are biological in nature and last only for a very brief time; these are known as affects, there are (according to affect theory gurus) nine of them, and we are often not quite aware of them, in their milder forms. Sometimes we get a stronger affect which can lead to a conscious feeling, which in turn may lead to a displayed emotion. That's an extremely condensed explanation, naturally.

I don't buy the theory wholesale (I buy very few theories wholesale, there are always too many factors to consider) but it is interesting and rather illuminating stuff. In particular it makes sense that there is a strong biological component there.

People's needs to go to therapy are various.
One's beloved dies - maybe suddenly, maybe tragically, maybe right after birth; maybe after a close loving marriage of 50 years. The survivor feels grief and needs help to reconstruct a life that has been torn in half. Saying "I fully accept and want these feelings" is going to go nowhere.
A person is a victim of trauma. Her trust is shattered; her world has been turned inside out. Shock, fear, violation. Saying "I fully accept and want these feelings" is BS.
Your brilliance is a little overrated.

I'm saying there is one core element to all psychological pain and
if that element doesn't exist, there would be no pain and no reason for therapy.
That element is internal experience we can't (directly) control AND that
is UNWANTED--we try to repress or ignore.

I didn't say that telling yourself to fully accept something will do anything.
I agree, affirmations like that are BS.
I said IF, somehow, you fully accepted all internal experience, there would be
no pain.

If someone fully accepts their grief (many do), they wouldn't think about resolving it in therapy.
They see it as natural and as something they need to experience. Their grief is WANTED and accepted.

Trauma creates many internal involuntary reactions, automatically. You can't control them.
But you can then fight them, not WANT them, try to repress them.
There's a theory that animals don't do that:
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/a...now-the-secret
so they recover quickly.

Obviously some trauma victims recover quickly and some don't.
I'm saying the difference is the former don't try to repress their responses.

And there's evidence that animals, especially dogs DO suffer from PTSD, and need help recovering from that. I've seen it happen, and it is not always a quick recovery process. It's not that the animals are trying to repress or fight the reactions, it's more that events have created a physiological AND psychological response in the dogs that causes behavior changes. http://news.discovery.com/animals/pe...tsd-121127.htm

You said you wanted debate, but the more I read, the more I see you simply repeating your initial premise in various ways, and dismissing all others. It seems more like you simply need to validate that what you think is the one correct answer. That's fine, if that's what you need. Please don't dismiss others experiences and truths, though.

For my point, the source of an emotion doesn't matter.
I'm only talking about how one reacts to the emotion AFTER it occurs,
specifically whether it's wanted or not.

I'm not dismissing anything. "involuntary experience" was completely concrete and
crystal clear to me but obviously not to others so I've been trying to make it
clear and concrete.

Whether or not dogs experience PTSD is irrelevant to my main point.
I'm sure domestic dogs do experience it but probably not wild dogs as the evidence suggests.

I'm looking for holes in my theory, not validation.
I'll try to condense my point that I don't think anyone has yet disputed.

There is one core element to all psychological pain and
if that element doesn't exist, there would be no pain and no reason for therapy.
That element is internal experience we can't (directly) control AND that
is UNWANTED--we try to repress or ignore.