(Continued from “About hidden agony.”)

.

The person in the grip of an

old distress says things that

aren’t pertinent, does things

that don’t work, fails to cope

with the situation, and 

endures terrible feelings that

have nothing to do

with the present.

~ Harvey Jackins*

.

Of course a therapist can only guess

whether his client received inadequate 

attunement from their mothers.

.

But it is not unusual for me to meet

people who make me suspect that

might have be the case.

.

They tend to be people who seem

forever at war with their feelings.

.

Like Alan, a quiet man whose marriage

is failing because he’s so disconnected

emotionally, who works all day and

then goes home to pore over paperwork

at his kitchen table, who is so turned

inward that he can barely sustain a

conversation in session, and whose

frustrated wife complains that “even

when he’s there he’s not there.”

.

Or Bonnie, a chronic people pleaser

who always looks tired, and seems

surrounded by people who discount

or abuse her, and who worries

constantly about falling back into

the suicidal depression which

overwhelmed her twenty years ago.

.

Or Caroline, an attractive and

educated woman who keeps drifting

into relationships with emotionally

unavailable men, who spends months

trying to get them to love her, then

blames each realtionship failure

not on the man but on her own

unloveability.

.

Or Dustin, a recovering alcoholic

stuck in a ten-year affair with a

married woman who gives him

less and less time and attention,

but whom he refuses to leave

because “she’s the only woman

who’s ever made me feel like

someone loved me.”

.

Harvey Jackins’ phrase —

endures terrible feelings that

have nothing to do with the

present — perfectly describes

each of these people.

.

Each is trapped in what I call

the Kid Trance: an emotional life

dominated by how they felt

when they were helpless children.

.

The Trance is an awful place to live.

.

Its defining characteristic is a

tendency to perceive ourselves, and

treat ourselves, as we were perceived

and treated by our parents. 

.

If they judged or abused or neglected

us, we judge or abuse or neglect

ourselves.

.

And if our parents had no clue about

how to deal with difficult feelings,

we too are left essentially clueless.

.

What do we do then?

.

We retreat into the ways of coping

we discovered as kids.

.

We may disconnect and distract

ourselves from our feelings, like Alan. 

Or exhaust ourselves trying to win

love and emotional feeding, like

Bonnie and Caroline.  Or cling

desperately to someone we hope

will meet our emotional needs,

like Dustin.

.

All this keeps our agony alive.

.

“Trauma is a basic fact of life,”

writes Mark Epstein.

.

It is not just an occasional thing

that happens to some people;

it is there all the time.  Things

are always slipping away…. 

The healthy attachment of a

baby to a “good-enough” parent

facilitates a comfort with emotional 

experience that makes the

challenges of adult life

and adult intimacy less

intimidating.**

.

But for the agonized adult who never

experienced healthy attunement with

a good-enough mom, healing must

come from one of the scariest

challenges of adult life: adult

relationship.

.

More specifically, intimate relationship,

defined as one where we can be ourselves

without shame or fear, and allow our

partner to do the same with us.

.

While the experience of adult intimacy

can’t erase an unattuned childhood, it

can, more than anything else, reduce

agony. It can become a life jacket to

keep us afloat, a safe harbor to which

we can retreat from storms.

.

For agonizing adults it is often

difficult and scary to learn.

.

But without it we can’t help but feel

adrift, vulnerable to emotional waves

that threaten to drown us, “traumatizing

us again and again as we find ourselves

enacting a pain we do not understand.”**

________________________

*Harvey Jackins is quoted by John Bradshaw, in Homecoming: Reclaiming and championing your inner child.  New York: Bantam, 1990.

**Mark Epstein.  The trauma of everyday life.  New York: Penguin, 2013.

* * *

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