There has been another thread about fear of flying on this forum recently. I can really empathise with those who suffer anxiety on flights. Yet the few times I've flown I've loved it. I suspect it is because once the plane is in the air I have absolutely no control. There is nothing I can do and so I relax. For others that may be the cause of their anxiety or it may be something else.
On the other hand, I've tried hypnotherapy and it didn't work for me. That may be because the hypnotherapist wasn't that good or maybe because I didn't trust the therapist and resisted hypnotism. If I am resistant to therapists I am doubly so to analysts who expect to cure me. I effectively, willfully won't let the pilot take off.
Mental health is an extremely complex thing and the evidence from this forum alone is that different things work for different people. But what is vital for many of us is a sense of ownership of our recovery.
The illness-cure perception may work for some people. People may need to feel that a remedy will cure them. It won't work for me.
Many people (if not most) with mental health issues have serious parent/child issues. Understandably a deep mistrust of authority can develop. In these cases, what people need for any type of recovery is the loving care they should have received as a child but didn't receive. A loving care that you can trust is going to be there when you feel vulnerable, like a child should be able to expect from their mum and dad.
So George, you are quite simply wrong. It isn't a big secret that we've never discovered, that in my opinion is condescending.
We are struggling gallantly to recover. We have successes, we have failures. Our problems are often complex and that takes time, patience and care.
Empowerment is an important issue in mental health. Many feel that "analysts" by their very nature disempower. You only have to look at the shockingly disproportionate number of black people hospitalised with schizophrenia to ask serious questions about the analyst-patient model.
Sorry if that was a bit grumpy, I didn't sleep last night.
