Triangles, Differentiation, Communication

– I ran into this when I was there at NIH. I had one guy, he was a big shot scientist. He comes in with his wife, and it became very clear that he wanted to dump her off on a psychiatrist. So he was ready to get a divorce and marry his girlfriend. I smelled a rat. Pretty early about them. And all I was gonna do. I was clear what I was gonna do. I’m not going to assume responsibility for that wife. While he absents himself. That’s all I said. Yeah but if he finds another therapist to do it, fine. But he ain’t gonna find me. So I’ve gotten real keen about these things. And I didn’t agree to take on any more family generation problems. Because they wanted to pawn it off on me. But, boy there’s a whole bunch of those. And you know there’s a lot of this in the schizophrenic world too. These would be families that want to pawn off the patient onto you,if you agree to see them indefinitely. So they go free. And I try very hard not to get into that. In other words, not to agree to see anybody in individual therapy. Because these people are real clever to get themselves out of it. And I just don’t. I tell people when I started that I reserved the right to, at any time, tell them what I will and I won’t do. But, I don’t let them. I tried very hard not to let them pull any tricks on me, like they’re using on the patient. But those families will do in the therapists. You know I like a good family like that. You can exercise your own wits about somebody else. Well, I don’t know what to do with codependency. You see, there’s a– it’s funny that that concept came into existence through alcoholism. That’s the first place I heard about it. And it’s in every family. It’s in every family. No matter where you’re gonna stand. There’s somebody else gonna stand with you. And if you don’t have a, more than a triangle, usually you start a triangle. Because whenever you have a triangle, you have to either stand alone or you stand with somebody. If you stand with somebody, that’s codependent. And the other side you died. If you have a large family, you’re gonna have to split up into at least two groups. There each side is codependent. So I don’t like to get into the business of who, where somebody stands, you know. I would, um– In other words I just don’t like the concept. If you took one big family, a goal for any one family member is to become the most differentiated. Which is always whole differentiated person you can become. Its been mine since way back in– Then how do you do that? How you do it when the family’s quiet? When you don’t have to be working on it. So all these words apply. So I’ve talked about maturation. And it’s a good word, it’s okay. I put in some words this morning about where differentiation came from. And at that time I was trying to put every concept into biological models. So the therapist for the future would have a place to latch onto it. So that’s why I used differentiation. But maturation is okay. Maturation is okay because it can dip into physical, physiological. And when you use actualization, you’re just touching on the psychological. Way back about 1952, I was so, you know I, did that one. I got so involved in that research and spent so much time thinking about it. I remember at the end of a day, I’d be worn out. And then I’d go home. I’d dream about the damn thing. And often I would dream up good answers. And I would say, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming. But hang on to this answer. I thought if you can kinda come awake, well I’m still hanging on to that answer. That’s when I was trying to use that old subtle analytic technique for remembering dreams. And then I’d suddenly come awake and goddamn its just gone. So then I found that if I just take it easy, give me a few more nights in there, And the next night I almost remember. By the third time I’d get it. And that’s what I meant by encouraging your left and your right brain to do work for you. Many know I’ve used that darn thing. Now there’s another way to think about it. I’ve done that in trying to get away from feelings in writing. And after all, I’m vulnerable to feeling things too. And I can get so involved in the feeling, I can start writing about something and say I’m in about age that between 54 and 59. And I’d get so involved in that. And I’d get so mad at people. You see, I tried never to get mad at people that tree me. because the poor bastard is just doing the best they could. And I just made a decision, I ain’t gonna let their best get me down next time. But I’d get mad at ’em. So, I’m always trying not to get mad at ’em. So I could end up getting so mad at NIH that I could choke the bastards. And then I’d say, here you go again, you’re about to get yourself unuptight. Unuptight, they were just calling the shots the way they saw them. In other words, I would get so involved in the detail, that I’d miss the big picture. So I would be working hard to make myself see the big picture. And I’ve used that as a technique to help me see the big picture. And I’d get so caught up in detail, that I miss it. Because when that happens, I’m missing the big picture. But I’m wide open to being caught up by feelings. And I’m gonna try to do something about it when I get caught up by the feelings. If I’d sit at that typewriter and keep on writing, it’s gonna be feeling stuff. I don’t want it. So I’ll try to go take a nap. Often I’d get distance from it by taking a nap. I’ve developed techniques. You know there’s another one I’ve used. Since I’ve been involved in 1981, when I started that series of aneurysms. So I’ve had three major operations for aneurysms. But anyway, by the following year, I was in biofeedback for myself. And boy if you wanna get into a rat’s nest, just get into biofeedback. Because anything you try to change, it’s got 10 reasons why you can’t change it. So you’re in a position of switching this to that. And is it worth it? Which is a good experience for anybody. But I’m still going through that. Which would be, how do you go about getting beyond feelings? Because biofeedback gets into feelings too. And I’ve had people that have used biofeedback instead of trying to get beyond feelings, therapeutically. And it doesn’t work. And that does help you to be a little bit more objective about feelings. But that doesn’t automatically transmit itself into becoming more differentiated. Becoming differentiated is just a simple little task. of finding out where do I stand on something? And of having the courage to stand there. The second step is the big one You can run down, run up and down. Like running the music scales. And I sat here. I said horsefeathers. Sign your name to it. You’ve got the courage to stand there. Because when you get the courage to stand there, somebody’s gonna shoot you. And when you say what you stand for, somebody’s gonna use their pop gun on you. You better believe it. So, being differentiated means spending time to know what you believe in, and having the courage to stand there. You know the first time I ran into that was in Topeka, Kansas. I was working away. At this and I was feeling, And it was a real honest to goodness feeling. That if I ever discover specifically, what I believe about psychiatry, I will be kicked out of the profession and never let back in it. And this was an honest to God feeling. Said, buddy you better take it easy. And go around believe what you’re supposed to believe. And don’t get yourself kicked out. And then I thought, son of a bitch, I’m more important. I’m gonna say what I think. And you know, every time I made somebody mad, they shot at me. I had one gal one time said, it’s hard to hit you, you’re a moving target. And I would say, I’m gonna keep on moving if I can. But that was an honest decision. If I’m gonna take a chance on that. And you know, years passed and I wore out my good name in Kansas. I even wore it out at NIH. But then, I began to accumulate such a wonderful new bunch of friends. I didn’t give a damn. In other words, if you follow differentiation along, you will part company with some of those who don’t see it your way. But if you keep going, you will work your way into another group. And then your pledge made that change. I wanna put this one in and then we gonna end for the day. This is what I used to do with the kids. All kids, especially young kids, end up seeing things in the dark, you know? And what do you do with that? And having all kinds of ideas about monsters. My goal was to make it possible for them to express it. So I used to have a meeting of all the kids and talk about these things. And they absolutely loved it. And then it got to be a contest with them. They would go into this business about who could communicate the most outlandish stories. And they liked that so much that they began to invite their friends from the neighborhood. So we used to have these friendly meetings directed at who would have the biggest nightmares. And I used to say, that’s your imagination. That ain’t no nightmare. And they said, I’ll prove it, it’s a nightmare. Ain’t a nightmare. Well go home and have a good nightmare. But I used to have a good time with the kids with that. I think that that kind of thing is helpful. Well it gives kids a chance to express what is, I don’t think that it is so much unconscious material, which is expressed in psychoanalysis. As it is, kinds of things that you wouldn’t tell ordinary people. That you wouldn’t tell people who would react to it. I think I had a group set up, in which who could tell the most outlandish story got the prize. And you couldn’t tell one the group wouldn’t accept. I think there’s something to that. I’m not so damn sure. I’ve tried that a little bit in family therapy, with a husband and wife. Ain’t nothing wrong with trying it. And that the one that could tell the most outlandish story about the marriage, got the prize for today. you know, I started that back in NIH days. I was just fooling around. And I thought, I can’t make this bunch of people tell me good stories. But I can do one thing. I can tell the most outlandish story about any one of them. In the meeting. And I’m gonna start every meeting off with an outlandish story about somebody at the meeting. Oh, I just do this as a matter of course. And it always started people having outlandish stories about me. But I like that one. And you know also at that group, they were outdoing each other, to tell outlandish stories. Now that’s one trick I did at NIH. So I better not let anybody discover something about you. See that all these secrets wagging their tongues behind the scenes. And somebody’s always got an outlandish story about you. Anyway, that was a I think we need to do more about that. Because too much relationship in the family is impaired by a one spouse reacting to what the first one says. And the first one says, I wouldn’t react if you didn’t put feelings into it. Always the one with the most feelings blames the other one having feelings. If you could put some kind of a feelings be damned in it. I’ve been working on that one