January 2021 – Therapy: Vehicle of Transformation

We continue to struggle, digging deeper into the muck of death, yet we can see light in the distance. We are now in 2021 between light and darkness. We have mounting deaths nipping at our heels as we try to stay safe by hiding, while each of us has our own brand of haunting risks to deal with.  But wait!  The vaccines are tantalizingly close. What a strange reality: liberation so close while we fend off death closing in on the other side.

We are in constant emotional crisis swinging from one mood to another. We feel a sense of constriction, what Reich called character- and body-armoring: the feeling of being in a vise grip – tight necks, tight shoulders, constricted in our belly, closed in, accident-prone, tripping, falling, twisting knees. We lack balance.

Loneliness stalks us, an extreme sense of isolation; sheer pain as we are limited, the pod tightens and we so miss friends and family. For all of us are adrift in the swelter of light and dark. Is liberation coming soon?

In my second book to be published in 2021, Psychotherapy Solution in Troubled Times: Create a Better Life Now, I suggest that professional guidance can help us balance this myriad of feelings. Here is a passage:

Therapy: Vehicle of Transformation

Therapy is a stabilizing, focused path that ensures transformation if you stick with it and take it seriously. As you can see from the examples above, you can enter therapy through the easy access door marked CHOOSE THIS OPTION – a choice to take full responsibility for your life through self-examination, honest assessment, and willingness to face into the darkness and expand to meet the lightest of feelings. The process defines a course of development that takes you beyond your current status quo, entertains a multitude of options and deepens your experience with the mysteries your life may offer.

The other option you might end-up with is crashing through the therapist’s door headfirst! (Frisch, 2021)
© 2020

What do I mean by headfirst? We can be sent to therapy by friends and family because we are out-of-control: in emotional crisis, argumentative and nasty, addicted to food, alcohol, gambling or other unsavory pursuits. We may be overcome with anxiety, and depression which overwhelms. Panic attacks are recurring. Insomnia reigns. My point is to enter psychotherapy through the door of choice; realize you have a choice and don’t wait until your life collapses.

The current circumstances are putting us all at the brink – professional psychotherapists included. We are at our wit’s end!

Whether it is the politics that continue to hound us up to the finish line or other horrible news that bombards us as we shelter-in-place, enough is enough!