Freud's Psychoanalytic Couch - Preserved at the Freud Museum, London

This feeling isn’t new.

I have been measuring this weight aka doing some stock taking to see how things have changed since our last session . Back then, I was in a sticky situation and trying to juggle a lot. After a couple of sessions, I opted to remove some things from my plate and though it took time, things got better.

And it was all good until it wasn’t and I didn’t know it wasn’t until I ended up in hospital…and so here I am, a day before my therapy session, trying to calm these butterflies as I anticipate the process ahead. 

Scenes from my Spring 2023 Semester -  Reading material for my Counselling Strategies class

Beside stocktaking, I have also being going through my class notes (any other psychology students out there trying to psychoanalyze themselves). This past Spring semester I took Personality Theories and Counselling Strategies.

The Personality Theory class took us through various theorists from Freud/the Neo-Freudians and to the Humanistics and the Behaviorists (anyone know if there are African theorists?). We learnt everything from therapy a la Freud aka laying on a couch to things like Horney’s ideal vs real self image and Roger’s incongruency - and the role therapy plays in bridging the gap. 

Roger was also a prominent figure in my Counselling Strategies class when we learnt about the four things that make therapeutic relationships work. In that class we also learnt that the progress of therapy sessions relies heavily on the person coming in (the client) and the stage of change they are in - Precontemplation, Contemplation, Planning, Action, Maintenance, (Relapse or) Termination.

Dr. AB, the Counselling Strategies Professor, did an amazing job outlining the healing process (which he likened to a lightening bolt. We go a couple of steps forward and a couple backwards and it is only in hindsight that progress is seen) and constantly reminded us that the client is an expert of their issues and the therapist an expert of the process.

I feel like I was in the action stage last Fall and based on the academically successful semester I had in the Spring (made it back to the Dean’s list), I can say that I might have gotten into the maintenance stage then somewhere along the way, gotten off the rails.

In therapy speak, this is relapsing. 

Contrary to popular belief, relapsing is not just for people battling addictions, it is for everyone. 

Despite this knowledge, I struggle with the word. 

It has some sort of violence to it...and maybe that violence, as imaginary as it is, is what is making me anxious tonight. Is what makes me anxious every other night before I get back to therapy. 

The beauty of it now, is that I know that the lightening bolt that is my healing journey cannot be what it is without the back steps.

I also know that my work is not to think about the process and the easiest way to get to the finish line but instead be open and ready to do the work that will help me move from one stage to another. 

And if for whatever reason I move backwards, relapse, I also now know that that too is part of healing.