Feeling desire, feeling alive

“I want to understand her… I’m afraid of losing her.” Relationship issues commonly arise in therapy. The scenario goes something like this: a young man comes into therapy sharing desperate distress arising from his relationship. He describes feeling alternately connected and disconnected from his girlfriend, and he is confused about the disconnection. He talks about feeling an intimacy with her that was unlike any other he’d experienced; however, those moments of emotional intimacy quickly dissipate when he felt her suddenly withdraw from him. Whenever she withdraws, he feels abandoned and subsequently absents himself from her. He does not understand her behavior and feels he is on an emotional rollercoaster. He says that he never quite feels that their relationship is on stable ground.

Couples work typically raises questions about communication, about how expectations and needs are being articulated in the relationship, and about the fundamental assumptions each person makes about the other—assumptions that often are not questioned, assumptions that create barriers to meaningful intimacy. All reasonable issues. However, I am also aware of the powerful desire for erotic and emotional intimacy that is being expressed. And yet, equally powerful anxiety about desire is being expressed at the same time. In these moments, I often wonder if the girlfriend was experiencing similar desire and anxiety. It often appears so. Indeed, desire and anxiety create conflict which then shapes many relationships.

Desire is fundamental to being human. We all experience desire, and our desires have many objects. We constantly live with desire. Desire is our growing edge; as such, desire often destabilizes us, particularly as we reach for that which we want. Desire is often erotic, and our experience of erotic desire for one another is probably the most challenging for us; it exposes us as people with needs. We often feel vulnerable when we feel desire. Hence the anxiety that arises when we feel powerful desires. And when we desire something that would appear to be forbidden, our experience of anxiety is likely to be amplified. Indeed, we are often NOT comfortable with our desires. And we are not comfortable feeling vulnerable. So, we defend against our desires—both consciously and unconsciously.

The desire for erotic and emotional intimacy is an experience most of us feel deeply. We desire to be known by another person, and yet we fear being known fully. We desire a sense of connection, and yet we fear connection and often withdraw from it. Intimacy asks us to be vulnerable—to be open to the unknown, to be open to the possible. Intimacy asks that we give up some of our defenses, our need for control and learn instead to risk being vulnerable and share control.

The dynamics of any human relationship are complex, especially our most intimate relationships. Most of us enter relationships with preconceived notions about how relationships are supposed to work. We carry the baggage of our past relationships into the present; for better or worse, our past relational experiences impact how we approach our present relationships. But more important, we also bring our desires (and anxieties) into the relationship.

Over the years, it’s become clear to me that being able to identify one’s desires, understand them, accept them and manage them are keys to healthy relationships and healthy living. Psychotherapy is, of course, known for helping people deal with their anxieties, but it is not as well known for its ability to help people live with their desires. This is unfortunate because that is what psychotherapy is really all about! (One of Freud's most important insights centered on his understanding that fears are really wishes--desires that have been repressed.) Getting in touch with, understanding, and accepting one’s desire(s) is one of the most life-giving, life-affirming aspects of psychotherapy. Learning to be vulnerable, take risks, and take responsibility for one's desire is similarly life-giving.

Indeed, to feel desire is to feel alive.

Finding Forgiveness

I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who remarked, “I’m not a very forgiving person. I thought that I was, but I realized that I hold onto resentments and carry on arguments in my head with people who I feel wronged me. I really hold onto grudges, and I’ve got a lot of them.” As he said this, I thought of several clients who identify forgiveness as a recurring challenge. Forgiveness is often a theme in psychotherapy, although it is rarely named as such. Many people enter therapy seeking forgiveness for themselves, or, more often, seeking to find a way of forgiving others for the wrongs they’ve experienced.

Therapists rarely directly speak of “forgiveness”, although it is a tacitly implied goal of much of the work. The word carries connotations of religious mandates, ethical and moral imperatives, and sentimental feeling; these connotations occlude the processes that characterize meaningful forgiveness. In actuality, forgiveness is very hard work—and it is work of a very high order. Forgiveness is often essential for transformation and well-being. But forgiveness is elusive.

What does it mean to forgive? In one sense, forgiveness involves a kind of letting go. But I think this is too facile an understanding. It’s been my experience that forgiveness is actually a kind of integration. Forgiveness is a process that involves putting a particular moment and situation into perspective, grounding it in time, creating space and distance so that you can see the moment’s many facets, feeling the feelings, developing an understanding of all these dynamics and their impact. More significant, I think that forgiveness involves a fundamental kind of acceptance: accepting that your sense of self is now changed, and understanding that your changed self in turn changes your relationships with to others, especially those who have wronged you. Forgiveness is so very difficult because it must emerge out of relationships where there has been an abuse of power, where relational expectations have been betrayed, and where one’s sense of self has been, in some profound way, violated.

Ultimately, forgiveness is something of a paradox: only when the traumatic violation has been worked through and a sense of self is re-established can a person let it go.

Trauma is an extraordinarily complex experience. The physical and psychic wounds inflicted by trauma often run very deep and impact virtually every aspect of the person's subsequent life. The impact may be so severe that forgiveness may seem impossible. It certainly is too much to expect that meaningful forgiveness can happen quickly. Indeed, many years of carefully attentive therapy—therapy that invites uncomfortable feelings to be felt and aired, therapy that seeks to understand the layers of impact, therapy that strengthens and supports a new sense of self as it slowly emerges—may be required before a person might be ready to even consider forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not the same experience as justice, although they share a common goal: to make right, to reconcile. And forgiveness (and justice) is very different from vengeance which is more about reconfiguring the balance of power in one’s favor and exacting a price.

Forgiveness is very hard work. Many people experience years of anger, resentment, rage, anxiety, and sadness before finding the ability let them go—if they ever do. Many of us tend to cycle back to our experiences of hurt and find ourselves, like my friend, carrying on angry conversations in our minds with those people who have wronged us. Doing so may signal that we have not been able to forgive in a meaningful way; then, there is more hard work to do.

Forgiveness takes time. It requires a readiness to change our perspective, a willingness to redefine and understand ourselves in view of what has happened to us.

The work of psychotherapy is the work of transformation. Sometimes meaningful transformation may require forgiveness. Psychotherapy can create a space for us to have our feelings—anger, betrayal, rage, sadness—work them through, develop a new perspective, and find acceptance. Sometimes—not always—therapy can help us find the ability to forgive. (Indeed, let it be said that there are times when forgiveness is not possible. Then, a different kind to transformative work is in order.) When we are able to finally experience the gift of forgiveness, our lives can be transformed, and we can develop wholeness and health.