Usually we imagine that true love will be intensely pleasurable and romantic, full of love and light. In truth, true love is all about work. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wisely observed: “Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in my life, they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure was more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work …” The essence of true love is mutual recognition – two individuals seeing each other as they really are. We all know that the usual approach is to meet someone we like and put our best self forward, or even at times a false self, one we believe will be more appealing to the person we want to attract. When our real self appears in its entirety, when they good behaviour becomes too much to maintain or the masks are taken away, disappointment comes. All too often individuals feel, after the fact – when feelings are hurt and hearts are broken – that it was a case of mistaken identity, that the loved one is a stranger. They saw what they wanted to see rather than what was really there.
True love is a different story. When it happens, individuals usually feel in touch with each other’s core identity. Embarking on such a relationship is frightening precisely because we feel there is no place to hide. We are known. All the ecstasy that we feel emerges as this love nurtures us and challenges us to grow and transform. Describing true love, Eric Butterworth writes: “True love is a peculiar kind of insight through which we see the wholeness which the person is – at the same time totally accepting the level on which he now expresses himself – without any delusion that the potential is a present reality. True love accepts the person who now is without qualifications, but with a sincere and unwavering commitment to help him achieve his goals of self-unfoldment – which we may see better than he does.” Most of the time, we think that love means just accepting the other person as they are. Who among us has not learned the hard way that we cannot change someone, mold them and make them into the ideal beloved we might want them to be. Yet when we commit to true love, we are committed to being changed, to being acted upon by the beloved in a way that enables us to be more fully self-actualised. This commitment to change is chosen. It happens by mutual agreement. Again and again in conversations the most common vision of true love I have heard shared was one that declared it to be “unconditional.” True love is unconditional, but to truly flourish it requires an ongoing commitment to constructive struggle and change.
disclaimer that i’m deeply critical of Psychiatry and i’m also not addressing issues of access/affordability here, but if you can find it, voluntary, individual outpatient therapy can be incredibly helpful, even life-saving. here’s what i’ve learned to look for in a therapist:
an explicitly political framework: mental illness is a social phenomenon–socially caused, socially identified, socially experienced, socially treated. it is the systems of power to which we’re subject that make and keep us “sick.” especially if you experience greater marginalization or oppression, this understanding is essential in a therapist. no hyper-individualization of mental disorders. therapists might say they have feminist, lgbtq-focused and/or social justice oriented treatment approaches… in the real world, this is a good sign.
roughly similar age, or same generation: i think this helps even the power imbalance somewhat. a much older therapist can feel (and act) more like a parent than a peer. also, graduate/clinical training has gotten better over the years, so a younger therapist is likely to have benefited from that evolution. and, millennials in the field are generally more aware of issues of power than like an older gen x or boomer (generations are fake and this isn’t always true but…)
active participation in your sessions: it shouldn’t feel like old school psychoanalysis where you’re laying on a couch rambling about your life to a bearded academic. a therapist should offer ongoing affirmations, reflections of/on what you’ve said, suggestions, questions, etc.. they should seem interested in collaborating w you.
adaptable w treatment techniques: they might practice cbt, dbt, act, mi, emdr, or any manner of acronym, but you want someone who adapts their approach to you, rather than trying to squeeze you into their preferred technique. clients’ needs vary. therapy isn’t just a cbt lesson or whatever, it’s a reciprocal relationship, and therapists should have the skill and openness to honor that.
a certain je ne sais quoi: there’s a chemistry factor in the therapeutic relationship that can’t always be accounted for rationally. do you feel like this person gets you? do you look forward to seeing them, even if the work is hard? do they feel like an ally in your struggles? is it mainly awkward or does dialogue flow? do you feel safe? there is no perfect therapist, but most of these answers should be yes. if they’re not, you may tragically have to go back to the drawing board
Actress Maria Schneider & her girlfriend, Avis Rental Car heiress & photographer, Joan Townsend, look out from the window of a mental hospital in Rome, 1976.
Schneider had walked off of the set of the movie Caligula and checked herself into the facility in order to be with Townsend who was already a patient there.
countervisuality 