Greetings folks, In some recent posts, I have referred to a book I have been re-reading lately after it has sat on my bookshelf for years. James Hillman, a respected Jungian psychoanalyst, author and lecturer and Michael Ventura, newspaper columnist author and screenwriter wrote: We’ve had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse (1992). There is a passage in the book that I believe speaks to the idea of acceptance. I have often noticed certain threads from people who bemoan the fact that they are LGBT, that it’s a hard life and that they wish they weren’t so different from the mainstream. I would like to offer a fresh perspective on this problem. The book is written in different formats, sometimes as dialogues, sometimes as letters between the two authors. Here’s a dialogue I found relevant: Ventura: You know, we keep circling the basic premise of American life, which has infected therapy, namely, “Everything is supposed to be all right. If things are not all right, then they’re very, very wrong.” Hillman: So what happens to the pathos, the pathology of our lives, “that which can’t be accepted, can’t be changed, and won’t go away.” Ventura: You live it out. Hillman: That becomes a devotion. A service. What else can you do? ...What else can you do? And that’s human limitation. That’s what the Greeks mean by being mortal: it’s to be tragic. [They go on to talk about the need to “live it out” or to “take the weight”. They also make a distinction between rebellion and subversion “against the man” which they consider necessary, and the futility of rebelling against the gods (of fate). “But the gods don’t go away”] Hillman: You can move to Nirvana, but the Gods find out where you go. I don’t know if the Gods love you as the Christians are told, or even if they are very interested in what you decide to do and worry about, but they sure don’t let you off easy. In Italy, editors called one of my books The Vain Flight from the Gods. You see, they get to us through our pathology, and that’s why pathology is so important. It’s the window in the wall through which the demons and the angels come in. Ventura: They don’t love you but they don’t let you get away. Sounds a little like family. Hillman: “Called or not, the Gods will be present.” Jung had that saying in Latin over his front door. Carved in stone. So we may as well serve. Willingly. That’s how I understand the human will, it just means to do the stuff you have to go through willingly. I am gay. No matter how I maneuvered to avoid that fact, called or not, this fate is mine to live through. It’s not something I can change and it won’t go away. In this sense, the only way to accept this properly is to devote myself to this fact, to serve this “non-normalcy” (it is not a pathology) because I feel “called” to do so, and to let the demons and the angels fight it out in the battlefield of my psyche so that I may live a more authentic life in the community that has chosen me.
That sounds more like resignation than acceptance to me. To me acceptance is striving to be the best person I can be with these gifts. You realize that yours is the path less followed.
I like this part of the dialogue most of all. So many people are concerned with normalcy, almost as if it's analogous to conformity. There's so much impetus to blaze one's own trail, yet the trail taken and end result need to be fairly conventional. I don't like conformity. When you're not packaged in a readily identifiable way, it seems to cause some people discomfort. I've often wondered what breeds nonconformists and, on the other hand, what causes people to be consumed with conformity.
It's great that for you, acceptance means embracing what you can't change. My thread argues the case for those who are less than thrilled about it. Hillman and Ventura are making the case that this "pathology" is what makes one unique, and, in a sense one is duty bound to honour it. The authors make the case throughout the book that psychotherapy, the generally white, middle-class, establishment psychotherapy, is caught in the trap of "adjusting" people so they can cope, the psyche hates that, and, in revenge, it makes you boring, or, if it still likes you, it gives you another "problem" to deal with. They argue that psychotherapy is still necessary but needs to find the language that is suitable to the life it is addressing, to enable it to become its own eccentricity.
Hi, Acceptance you give yourself, the only thing others can give is openness. I believe in being gay you must rely on yourself for affirmation as it will be slow in coming from society. Tom
Interesting thought. And there may be quite a bit of truth in that "adjusting to fit society" thought. It's not just therapists who are potentially guilty of this. One also could blame the school system. I now wonder if I'm not better off not having found cheap therapy. Although it would be nice to have the multi-month stretch of seemingly non-ending depression end...
According to Hillman, the purpose of therapy is to make the suffering be felt. Depression is often an absence of emotion or feeling, a numbness. Therapy then is a means of lifting the repression of these feelings. It's not about growth, it's about who you are and who you have always been. Good therapy should be a discovery of the things that are painful to you now and to feel them fully. If you are in therapy for depression you need to continue, but insist that it leads to feeling.
In my case, there is no therapy. I looked into the possibility not long ago. It wasn't just in hopes of solving my depression, but also the reported experiences of others here who had found therapy had really helped them in many ways. But I had no luck finding a cheap option, and more immediately pressing demands on my time came up, so the project got shelved for the moment. Like so many things shelved for the moment, the moment has stretched on and on longer than initially anticipated.
Hi, I have thought a lot about the angst and depression many feel here. The reason is being gay never gave me angst or depression. Ways in which society could oppress me gave me anxiety but I never felt broken or ashamed over being gay. I have come to an understanding I am happy with. As a child I was tradgicly shy. I never got reward or affirmation from others. Nothing they did I most likely had a hint of Aspergers. Since there was no positive feedback loop for seeking the approval of others I had to learn to be self affirming. It made it possible to be a geek and loner. I did things well to seek my own approval. Because many seek the bulk of approval and affirmation from others anything that blocks that outside affirmation or is thought will block outside approval is pushed down. This leads to internal conflict and stress that then can lead to depression. So I believe I did not suffer angst or depression because I am a self affirming person, who does not rely on others for approval. A characture of this is Dr Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory. He seeks only self affirmation. Makes him bullet proof to society.
