“I think therapy is making me depressed” Gia announced. Gia’s relationship has drifted away, and she is left abandoned, alone. Depressed. Whatever is thought about Klein and her depressive position there is a period of therapy usually about 18 months in when the mist lifts. Some cannot reach this point. 
But Gia has. The point when she gets an inkling that all is not what it seems. The awareness dawns that she lives in repeats trying to soothe her pain. Even the intellectual noticing of these forces is dynamic. The real relationship is to maintain the aloneness that cannot be soothed. She cannot go back with this knowledge. She cannot go forward afraid of the new unknown.
Gia realised that the point of her relationships is to attract the gap and non-committed. She has done this a few times that the evidence becomes irrefutable. She begins to feel the loneliness and emptiness, rather than avoid – so that acting out these feelings in a relationship becomes less effective.
But her psyche has layers of defenses to protect her. It senses that she has made a part discovery of its inner workings. A breached defense. So her psyche tries to retreat further back into the shadows: the depression.
Not having interest in her work and friends Gia’s psyche creates a kind of cocoon in the hope that the old story will return. She has stopped going out, feels fatigued, and spends time in bed. The body has to recuperate. The psyche discovery has given the body a blow. The body shuts down when allowed – to try and recover.
One notable UK therapy organisation took pride in its data recording where the client’s feelings scores went down: noting a treatment success! Counter intuitively it can be that we have to get worse to get better. Like an old skin that is shed creating vulnerability. While we feel our way into a new skin. To emerge with a better more authentic breathable skin of protection.
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2024
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