Archives note: Not clear why titled
(Hoping for change)
l$steria
Hysteria III. We think it is more about hoping for change through insight of therapies
III
I
hope these simple-minded statements do not
understandlng
looks
for
that awaits
forrnul-as
most psychological
with which to master life.
7r/,
,
fa1l under the mis-
pontificating.
Everyone
In the course of psyeho-
in the course of reading writings such as this, you come
upon insights which seem for an hour, a dayo even a week, to explain
ake
everything. Life seems simplified, if we could only do this on remark
parolems would fal1 from us like an oLd skin. But the funthat; our prob
pression fades, the fornrula is forgotten, we look back with amusement
at our eag6r hopes. And then another insight emerges, we are captured
agaln. Many have a bottomless appetite for this nenewal and grope frorn
year to year and therapist to therapist for these glistening straws. In
fact significant change seldom occurs this way, is painful-, more forced
on us against our will than hel.d brightly in our hands. And even when
change occurs there is no assurance it will remain.
e breaks through for a moment, but the old habitg, the o1d fixed
Ous
relationships close in again. Everything that had seemed fresh, different, a new world takes on the flavor and lineaments of the old. Change
ls not unusual, but hor^l keep open the door once throwr open? For the
very act of keeping it open can become work, Again we ta&e on the huntherapy, or
drum mood
of former
days so
that
we creep back gradually
into
worlds
Joyfully left behind.
Therefore
o margr that psychotherapy
it is far
becomes
as neeessary as eating and drinking, to preserve the
a way of l-i.fe,
momentura
of the days.
For others, fresh habits ean be establ-ished, o1d relationships thrown off
or broken through, and we see these people noving forward apart from us,
forgetting us as chil-dren depart their parents. Both groups
life is growth, that to
geance
of time, but
to its
own drum.
go back
tranow
that
or to stand still is to invite the ven-
one needs perhaps
forever; while the other marches
,,,
ry',
1971
L. Havens, MD