Healing Takes A Good Long Time..

A psychoanalytic colleague shared an NPR interview with Oliver Sacks in which he talked a bit about having been in therapy practically throughout adulthood, its relevance, and meaning: "Dr. Sacks you've been in psychoanalysis for 46 years with the same analyst. Do you think this has anything to do with your seemingly healthy mental well-being? Dr. Sacks replied: 'I think my analyst knows me very well and I think he likes me, which helps me like myself, and that's something that has not always been easy for me to do.' "

I remember a voice in dream telling me, "Healing takes a good long time." This transformative message came from the unconscious many years ago when I first began treating trauma survivors. Pressure was being exerted within psychology to treat people quicker, get them stable and feeling better, then discharge them from care. The unconscious was clear, via this dream, that quick and out  therapy is simply not the way of soul and that I am not to practice anything other than soulful psychology. 

A psychodynamic colleague and scholar at NYU shared with me his soon to be published paper on psychological companioning. Some patients have the need to be seen through in their healing process for a long time, a very long time, some for lifetime. As noted with Oliver Sacks, there is relevance and meaning to engaging our healing process and realizing that it is a life long process that may benefit from a lifetime of care.