Therapy

About the blog

   Does anyone understand how a person could sit down on a stranger's couch and work through the most difficult things they have in their lives?  I mean do they know what goes on in the mind to allow that to work?

   I can't imagine doing this when I try to put myself in the same situation.

   My thoughts are private.

   Whether they're boring, stupid, or weird (and they are) makes no difference.

   If they were interesting, complicated or cool (and they are not) it also makes no difference.

   But no matter what kinds of thoughts they happen to be... how can we explain the therapists couch?

   Some might prefer to have a therapist's itemized bill explained better.  But that's not what this blog is for.

   If you've read the Theory you're aware a potential explanation exists - though it's far from proven.

   There's still something missing for it to explain the relationship between the patient, the therapist, and the unconscious part of the mind.  Here's a simplified list of the questions:

• A person has issues between the conscious and unconscious parts of their mind that can't be resolved on their own
• A person goes to a stranger to work out the issues between the conscious and unconscious parts of their mind
• The stranger does not intermediate between the conscious and unconscious parts of the person's mind.
• The stranger is only a presence in the room that intervenes only when absolutely necessary and never, ever directly between the conscious and unconscious parts of the person's mind.
• The stranger only intervenes in the form of asking questions and only a certain type of question so not to influence the process in any way
• The stranger then bills the person for an amount of money that seems disproportionate to the service they provided

    OK, maybe we will end up looking at the itemized bill.

    It wouldn't be difficult to write entire books to explain the process but I'll try to do it in less.

• The unconscious part of the mind requires it can trust (even when it applies to the conscious part of the same mind) to some level before an issue can be resolved
• Notice I didn't say the unconscious requires some level of trust from the unconscious.
• That would be backwards.
• The therapist fills a role similar to a referee or neutral party in a negotiation.
• It's an independent trust relationship
• They can be trusted not to interfere or influence the process
• They can be trusted only to provide a nudge if the process gets stuck
• All the work of identifying and resolving the issue(s) is performed by the person's mind.
• The whole mind
• The unconscious part of the mind (the unconscious sub mind)
• The conscious part of the mind (the conscious sub mind)
• Hypnosis is the actual mechanism when the issue is resolved in the person's mind.

   Given that explanation it might be helpful to mention that hypnotism can be used to interfere and influence without trust being required.  There's other post's written about treating the unconscious part of the mind like it's the whole mind.

   I haven't met anyone who's advocated that without having their own agenda for doing so.

   For the itemized bill... it would take an economist to explain supply and demand and charging as much for something as someone else will pay.

   By the way...  are we still missing our economists?

   Those would be the only rationale people left in the country.

   They can be identified by the jumping up and down, waving hands back and forth, and screaming bloody murder.