He is waiting to be discovered.<\/p>\n
By me, or someone or something, but not by himself.\u00a0 I imagine him to be looking out at me from a fortified bunker where all I can see are his two eyes.\u00a0 The rest of him is protected\/entombed by the bunker–fully encased in cement.<\/p>\n
But his\u00a0“problem” \u00a0is that he is a cutter.\u00a0 He has been for years.\u00a0 And this is why his parents bring him to me–to stop the cutting that now consumes them.<\/p>\n
I don’t really imagine that his “problem” is his cutting, his self-mutilation. To him, his cutting is his salvation.\u00a0 It is his answer to an experience he has been wrestling with for a long time.\u00a0 He will clutch his salvation at all costs,\u00a0but there is a price to being saved–to having found the answer to\u00a0his riddle.\u00a0 Part of the price is that people will try and take his salvation away.\u00a0 Parents, professionals, friends will all become obsessed with wanting him to stop cutting and give up his salvation.<\/p>\n
But he doesn’t want me to discover his cutting–this is obvious to both of us, and I know that the matter is not anyway about the cutting.\u00a0 If I focus on the cutting it will only be a distraction leading to a dead-end.\u00a0 He wants me to discover\u00a0him entombed in his cement bunker, as if the cutting is a sign to look here.\u00a0 I imagine he thinks I have a key to rescue him from his bunker.\u00a0 Some magic power to see beyond the cutting to where he really is.\u00a0 He tells me that I am the only therapist he has seen that didn’t try to get him to stop cutting.\u00a0 He finds this curious and perhaps a bit hopeful.<\/p>\n
I meet with his parents.\u00a0 They are very concerned about the cutting and getting him to stop.\u00a0 I try to communicate my\u00a0perspective that the cutting is not the problem, and that in fact the cutting is their son’s salvation.\u00a0 It is his\u00a0answer to some other question\u00a0and he won’t give up his salvation.\u00a0 I explain to the parents that salvation is rarely relinquished voluntarily, instead it is clutched to with all one’s life and vigor.\u00a0 So trying to get their son to stop his cutting will be futile.\u00a0 Of course, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.\u00a0 It is similar to anorexic patients I have treated.\u00a0 The anorexic’s ability to not eat is their salvation.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that some anorexics will eventually starve themselves to death, they won’t give up their salvation.\u00a0 But everyone else, professionals, friends and family are so horrified and consumed by the wasting away of the patient that they will do anything to get the patient to eat, usually with no success.\u00a0 The patient continues to waste away.<\/p>\n
I see\/sense that the parents are dismayed by my approach.\u00a0 They want me to stop the cutting–that’s all.\u00a0 I have failed to\u00a0connect with them in a way that would allow them to see past the cutting.\u00a0 The cutting consumes them to the point that they no longer see their son–only his scarred and mutilated arms.<\/p>\n
I will not have much time with him.\u00a0 His parents will hospitalize him in a facility that they think will be able to stop the cutting.\u00a0 Someplace that will allow them to stop being consumed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cutters, anorexics, alcoholics all seem to have found their salvation–their answer.\u00a0 The problem for them is that their answer horrifies everyone around them.\u00a0 Everyone wants them to stop and let go of their salvation.\u00a0 Everyone around them can only see the destruction wrought by their salvation, not what else is there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I treat patients like these, patients who have found their salvation, I try to be careful to not become like everyone else in their life.\u00a0 I try not to want them to relinquish their salvation.\u00a0 At times this is difficult at best.\u00a0 I experience pressure from parents, friends and other professionals to “save” the patient from themselves.\u00a0 At times I will wonder if I am mistaken in my perspective and perhaps they are right.\u00a0 I should be trying to “save” the patient and stop trying to discover what I imagine they want me to.\u00a0 But in the end I know I cannot “save” anyone from themselves. I am no match for “salvation”.<\/p>\n
So what do I think this “salvation” is all about?\u00a0 What do I imagine that the cutter, the anorexic and the alcoholic are waiting and wanting me to discover?\u00a0 At times I think is has to do with wanting.\u00a0 What do I do with my wants?\u00a0 It appears that these patients have managed to erase all their wants.\u00a0 Their wants have been replaced by their “salvation”.\u00a0 They have no wants.\u00a0 In fact, the only people that want in these dramas are their family, friends and professionals.\u00a0 They do the wanting so the patient doesn’t have to.\u00a0 Which I why I try my best to not “want” anything from these patients.\u00a0 This of course drives the family crazy because they not only want me to “save” the patient, they also want me to “save” them from wanting and being consumed by the patient’s salvation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I frequently find that what these patients have been waiting for me to discover is their secret wants.\u00a0 Those enormous hungers and longing that they have buried and locked away in some cement bunker.\u00a0 Those unfulfilled, unfulfillable desires that can’t be put into words or thought about.<\/p>\n
Perhaps if I discover this, then the patient may have the opportunity to discover that secret wants\u00a0may be resolved without resorting to salvation.\u00a0 There is always a price for “salvation”.<\/p>\n
I often think of the cutter and wonder if he is still waiting to be discovered.\u00a0 We didn’t have enough time to achieve this.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Brody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He is waiting to be discovered. By me, or someone or something, but not by himself.\u00a0 I imagine him to be looking out at me from a fortified bunker where all I can see are his two eyes.\u00a0 The rest of him is protected\/entombed by the bunker–fully encased in cement. But his\u00a0“problem” \u00a0is that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}