something about psychotherapy and..........

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200806/secrets-psychotherapy-part-4-change-or-acceptance Secrets of Psychotherapy (Part 4) : Change or Acceptance?
What is the ultimate goal of psychotherapy?
Published on June 26, 2008 Let's start with a simple word association experiment: When you think about psychotherapy, what is the first word that comes to mind to describe what therapy is all about? Take a few seconds. Got it? For many of you, my guess is that one, if not the very first, of those words was change. But what if I were to tell you that psychotherapy is really at least as much about acceptance as change?

When Sigmund Freud made the oft-cited and misunderstood statement that the purpose of psychoanalysis is to "transform neurotic misery into common unhappiness," he was speaking of change. But how is even such seemingly modest change accomplished in therapy? So much of the changes that happen in psychotherapy parallel a gradual process of acceptance: acceptance of life as it truly is, as opposed to the way we wish it to be. Acceptance of past childhood trauma and its pervasive unconscious influence in the present. Acceptance of ourselves for who we are, rather than who we are not. Freud's off-the-cuff comment may seem cynical. But when seen in the light of his own personal suffering from oral cancer during the final fifteen years of his life, and how he stoically faced that terrible fate, it is a mature and sober commentary on the absolute necessity of acceptance. Rather than reflecting his profound pessimism about the human condition, as many mistakenly conclude, Freud's remark recognizes deeply and personally the need for courageous acceptance of physical and emotional suffering, and the high price we pay for trying to avoid or deny life's tragic aspect.

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The concept of acceptance is especially prominent in Eastern philosophy and religion, as well as in Christianity and other great religious systems. Nowhere, for example, in religious literature is this spiritual principle of accepting life's suffering more dramatically, movingly and elegantly depicted than in the archetypal image of the Crucifixion. Acceptance is key to spiritual enlightenment, as illustrated repeatedly in timeless texts like the Old Testament's Book of Job, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, the noble teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), and the Tao Te Ching. But even Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and other spiritual seekers sometimes lose sight of the primacy of acceptance. Consider this complaint of one frustrated Buddhist meditation practitioner: "I've been meditating for thirty years--and I'm still angry!" He seeks to eradicate rather than accept his anger--and this is precisely what needs to change.

Drawing implicitly from these wisdom teachings of the East, clinical psychologist Dr. Marsha Linehan (University of Washington) incorporates this paradox or "dialectic" of change vs. acceptance in her increasingly popular Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT is a highly-structured form of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a distinctive spiritual or philosophical component. Specializing in the treatment of borderline personality disorder, Linehan recognizes the need in working with these challenging patients for teaching what she refers to as "radical acceptance"-- right alongside the necessity to change their distorted cognitions and self-destructive behavior. "Radical acceptance" is the tolerant embracing of how and who one is ............go to web site to continue.................. Practicing something means working on it and I realized how much I decided to do the opposite of making what's in front of me pre-eminent, in a manner of speaking.It took me so long to accept a lot of things in front of me chiefly.Forget the brain.............just to accept that my partner is how she is got so drawn out and involved.I have to spend a lot of time alone for a while whatever that means.That's imperative if I want to live because adapting and accepting has bent me all out of shape.I have let people walk all over me at times but I learned a lot more about people that I did not and would not accept previously.In the past few years I thought I could handle the obstructions better emotionally.I never foresaw living in my partner's isolated fashion and I have always intended on spending most of my time being involved with helping people in some way that is balanced sincere and useful.In a city where the choices are limitless I found myself paralyzed by what was around me in a strange way.It seems so unimportant.I could not address a lot of things on this blog that I ought to have but I pushed myself to try and understand a wider picture.I like sympathetic people but not sympathy for its own sake.I could not describe some things in my life because its better to avoid causing sympathy from other people.Its easy to be misunderstood in the process of explaining things.Sometimes I thought it would be good to write about what was happening in my life but I wasn't sure what that was.I mean, I actually thought I should share what was going on which would be impossible.Because someone caught my attention in a way that made it worthwhile for me to do so, I cut off my attention to negative feelings about issues I had.It is interesting to me that Subjective Validation was brought up in the middle of what was happening but this bit about Picasso might explain a little bit about the mixed feelings I had.We used to like to read Andre' Breton, Annals Nin and the surrealists.Picasso was amongst this crowed and they all took a large house together in the country one summer.The wife or lover of one of the famous painters was also a painter but she had unusual brain wiring and I guess she was peculiar.Perhaps she annoyed Picasso but one day when she went shooing Picasso and the woman's husband decided to hurt her irreparably which they did.Every day when she went out they would perfectly alter her paintings.Soon she went crazy and gave up painting for life.They didn't tell her and had no thought about the repercussions for her.After reading that I have been prejudiced against him while his last self portraits are easier to understand considering this.I understood the difference but I knew I had to overcome my fear of rejection and I was glad to have the chance.I was seriously perturbed by it also.I am gratified now because of it.Its clear to me that people do things and do not realize the effects they have on each other.And I couldn't see the kindness and care that was also there.I have to believe that that was true for the sake of living and sanity.I can't accept that someone could not be the general and distant way I perceive them and be that particular individual.That has become very important to me because I don't want to die thinking otherwise about them because the experience was very significant.So I protect my feelings so I can continue to grow with the situation without having false ideas and emotions about something I'm not sure of.I can take this good will with me wherever I go in the world and I also can't help feeling the fallacy of negative thoughts in the face of my perception of this person.Wherever I can sea a type of subjective perception of a natural perfection of self in another I have to opt towards giving them the benefit of any doubt.I can see myself such that I can understand my mis-perceptions through the being of another.....