Articles and psychological notes

“The best ruler is the one whose existence is not noticed.

Somewhat worse is the one to which the people are attached.

Even worse is the one that the people are afraid of.

And worse than all rulers is the one whom the people despise.

The people are the basis for the rulers. They are low – the basis for high. Therefore, rulers who elevate themselves do not have a strong position, because they do not consider the people as their basis … ”

Lao Tzu

If you think of this ruler as the “King in the head” which is our mind, it is easy to draw an analogy where the people are a metaphor for the body and feelings.

When he knows how to perform his function and truly serves  a  creation, care for an integral system, does not exalt himself and does not identify himself with the foundation, then the psyche moves along the path of development, as well as a wisely built policy of the state.

If our mind begins to play its games and reproduces total and sole power, according to the establishment of the Ego in the rank of a god, the whole person discovers a violation of harmony in the hierarchy.

If I afraid  important part of myself, it create anxiety, loss of support, depression, apathy and despondency. Creative ideas cannot be realized in such an inner atmosphere. A person acts from the position of “need” and “should”, more then  from a free impulse. The body is clamped and constrained by fear, and  suppressed feelings.

But what struck me most about this quote – worst ruler is the one whom the people despise.

And how precisely this idea express on the internal dynamics of the psyche. After all, if I despise in myself the one I had to follow and rely on, then I am in chaos. There is no structure inside me that centers the processes, which gives a vector and directs the creative flow. Moreover, any attempts to create something are devalued and scolded. There is no creation, only self-destruction remains.

I do not have a short answer what to do if you find in your head a king whom you despise. But I hope this post will give you the opportunity to look in this direction and perhaps see the reason for the recurring problems. Let me just say that in my personal history, it took several years of therapy to build my system in a harmonious order. In some aspects, work is still ongoing.

The scope of my interests has always affected both – psychology, psychotherapy, and various religious and spiritual practices that allow you to experience alternative states of consciousness. I have always tried to find a middle ground somewhere and not to fly away completely from the material base of our psyche, but at the same time not to get stuck in exclusively materialistic concepts.

I often use one metaphor for people who are looking for a transcendental experience. Imagine that your psyche is a house. In it, the first floor represent the basic states, emotions, contact with the body, a structure that helps to live in the material and social world. The second floor represent spiritual development, connection with the “higher”, here it is possible to experience transpersonal experience, spiritual revelation, existential experience…

If we devalue what is happening on the first floor of the house, are too lazy to clean it up, study how it works and jump immediately to the second floor, will happened an expansion of consciousness to an unprepared psyche that does not know itself. In a moments of revelation it seems to us, that we have comprehended all the laws of the World, but sometimes we become more than ever further from ourselves, from those parts that seem simple and mundane. Then I hear at integration sessions this kind of expressions: “I am not my body”, “it’s all a game of the mind”, “everything is meaningless”, “we are all one, it means that I don’t exist like a person” , “I want such a life, but it’s pointless to want this”, “why be angry? I understand everything, therefore I must / must accept” … When we continue to analyze all these ideas and gradually I try to return a person to the first floor, it turns out that there are elementary gaps in contact skills with their feelings, devaluing a lot, criticizing and controlling important vital impulses. It turns out that traumas have been living there all this time, which make themselves felt despite the fact that several ayahuasca ceremonies or sessions with mushrooms or other psychedelics have been completed. All these missed or repressed moments in the long run leading to depression, apathy, anxiety disorders and psychotic episodes, in the worst case, the debut of schizophrenia.

I say all this because any approach to the psyche must be thorough and holistic. Since we live in this material world, where we have a body, emotions, social connections, this basis must also be taken into account. The skill of working with oneself makes it possible to integrate the psychedelic and spiritual experience at the deepest level, while maintaining the joy of life, interest in it and the adequate functioning of the psyche. Yes, personality is the result of adaptation, but if a person decides to renounce the world, “dissolve” personality, then this is the path of a monk, which, as a rule, very few people choose.

For you and me, the practices of an expanded state of consciousness can be a huge breakthrough, change our lives, expand our perception, help resolve long-standing traumas, and free us from many illusions. But it should lie on a solid foundation of basic self-knowledge.

Human = body, emotions, mind, spirit.

Emotions apeir without our control, we can only direct or suppress their energy.

Very often, a habitual scheme for a person to cope with emotions only at the expense of the mind and its strategies. The mind is trying to find a logical way to avoid or resolve the tension that the emotion causes, from which avoidance schemes, rationalizations, endless dialogues in the head with the person who offended, an attempt to scroll through the option “what if I would have done differently?”, attempts to find reasons “what’s wrong with me”… In most cases, the mind can relieve tension by being aware of what happened or why I feel this way and not otherwise. However, this does not give a complete release of tension, and with a strong shock, thoughts are born that cause even more experiences, the mind becomes more and more active, the circle closes and it can all go up to panic attacks.

If we connect our body to this circuit, the situation changes strongly. Firstly, the very contact with the body already allows you to shift the vector of attention from the endless stream of thoughts and return to the reality of the moment here and now. Plus, it becomes possible to be aware of breathing and notice that it is clamped or intermittent… Take a deep breath, sigh, try to breathe free cyclical breathing. This simple move has an instant effect, where there is space for attention to notice what feeling I cannot bear to touch? And try not to run away from it in your head, but to live as a process of the body, without piling it up with concepts and ideas about your own inadequacy, someone else’s injustice and a bunch of other ideas. Try to study what happens to the body when I experience this or that feeling and regulate exactly bodily states. Breathing practices, running, sleeping, massage, yoga, body therapy, martial arts, sauna, pool…

When an emotion, a feeling passes through the bodily channel, this energy is distributed, realized and does not burden the mind with excessive tension. And then the thoughts are clearer, the obsessive nature disappears from them, we are generally much more relaxed and sober in our judgments.

If you notice a burden of repetitive thoughts, most likely there are a lot of unexpressed and unconscious emotions in your system that you are trying to cope with only at the expense of the mind. Try turning on the body component. If it’s difficult to do it yourself or you don’t understand how, contact a psychologist who will help you form such a skill.

Vertel A.V.l and I wrote an article that reveals the topic of active imagination. For me, this is a very valuable work and collaboration, because it allows you to deeply dive into the understanding of the nature of this phenomenon from the point of view of philosophy and analytical psychology. In everyday life, we often do not distinguish between fantasy and active imagination, although at the root these are very different processes.

“In line with psychoanalytic problems, namely from the standpoint of the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung, active imagination has nothing to do with “fantasizing” (in the everyday sense). Active imagination (imaginatio) should be taken literally: as some kind of real ability to create images. As opposed to “fantasy”, which means only an invention, a sudden flash of an idea, a whim, that is, a kind of non-existent thought. Active imagination (imaginatio) is the active reproduction of internal mental images – this is a real feat of thought and thinking. This is not a weaving of aimless and groundless fantasies, similar to the construction of castles in the air, but an attempt to comprehend the facts of inner life and present them in such images that corresponded to their true nature “Vertel A.V., Krylovetska I.I. The Problem of Imagination and Fantasy in Analytical Psychology and Philosophy K.G. Jung [Text] / Philosophy of science: traditions and innovations: scientific journal of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. – Sumi: SumDPU named after A.S. Makarenko, 2019. – 1 (19). – S. 79-88.

This passage from our article allows, at a minimum, to indicate the significance of active imagination as an act of the psyche, seeking to integrate the material of the unconscious through the creation of images, and not a cursory contemplation of attempts to satisfy a frustrated need through fantasy.

I would like to give an example here to help you distinguish between fantasy and active imagination, because without experience in this matter it can be quite difficult to do this. Even when it seems to you that you are allowing events to unfold according to your scenario and you are supposedly in the process of active imagination, it is important to track your emotional reactions to what is happening in the images as well. If you do not have a natural reaction to “strange events”, such as surprise, admiration or fear, then there is a high probability that you still perceive the image as a fantasy, as something unreal, while imagination is a process of interacting with absolutely real structures of the psyche, presented in figurative form. I will give an example from my own material. During the session, I saw myself as the captain of a ship on which there was no crew and all responsibility lay on him for managing the ship. At some point, a storm began and I experienced horror from my own impotence and from the probable speedy death. At some point, I was literally overwhelmed by this feeling and the reality that this will happen, there is no other option. And at some point I made an enormous effort of will to take the helm and make an attempt to fight to the last even in such conditions, because there is no one else. At that moment, the necessary transformation took place, which would not be possible if it were just a fantasy. My involvement in the process, the feeling of a really inevitable development of events and the need to make a decision, was a sign that it was just an active imagination. When fantasizing, I would have a calm position and rather a feeling that this is still not real, which means there is no real danger. As if you can switch off from the process at any moment and this will not have significant consequences for the state. So it is the full immersion and participation that allows you to live a symbolic life, and not play it.

1. That wolf lives, whom you feed.

2. It is impossible to know your feminine aspect without including the masculine aspect in the study and vice versa.

3. In the transaction “child” – “parent”, “child” cannot resist the figure of “parent”, “adult” must infiltrate to settle this comunication.

4. Your whole essence is to strive to overcome internal limitations. It is worth learning to trust the unconscious, the images and dreams that it offers.

5. If you have already been at this point, then you have the resource to go into it much deeper than the previous time.

6. The process of individuation begins with the encounter with the Shadow. If you are not afraid of the Shadow, then this is something that has already been integrated by you. The deeper the Shadow is worked through, the stronger the Ego (Inner Adult) becomes.

7. If we try to supress strong feelings hoping that there will be no consequences, this only leads to the accumulation of strong tension in the unconscious. It is impossible to remove the energy of repressed emotions from the psyche. You only choose to face it now or later.

8. In the childhood schema, the source of self-esteem is often found in an external authority figure. It is necessary to direct all forces to return it inside. This is a voluminous work with attention and feelings, which returns self-worth.

9. The strength of the internal controller depends on the intensity of the emotional trauma experience. By learning to work with feelings, the old defense circuits naturally weaken and it becomes possible to create a new one.

10. The truth is liberating. If it does not liberate, then this is not the whole truth.

To the question of requests like: “I want not to feel this”, “I want to stop worrying about this and that”, and a variation of “I want not to be bothered ..”

You need to understand that in psychotherapy there is no task to turn off your feelings to a particular issue. This would be counter-healthy in relation to the psyche and an adequate psychologist would not agree with such a request. There is no task to turn you into an emotionless robot. The psyche most likely already falls into dissociation enough, if the request sounds like that.

And the situation is that a traumatic situation causes a strong emotional reaction, which, for some reason, you could not fully live and respond to and that is why it still worries you. (I will not go into explanations at the level of brain physiology, you can read Van der Kolk’s book “The Body Remembers Everything”) The simplest and most infantile reaction to an unpleasant feeling is repression. But we want to push it out, so it is not bother anymore, but the psyche is arranged differently and you can’t merge everything into it in a row endlessly. Either some obsessive thoughts will start to come out, then dreams, then compulsive actions, or in extreme cases, the body will begin to give out reactions through diseases very brightly and unpleasantly.

We want everything to be easy, especially as it was when there was not so much suppressions, without particularly strong consequences. However, over time, the cumulative effect makes itself felt. The cup is overflowing and you can either go into hard denial and aggravate the situation, or finally meet the dragon of fear and still react to your feelings.
And this is where the psychologist becomes your ally. It provides all kinds of tools that will help you go through this process as productively, safely, with bonuses as a result and with the ability to integrate experience, so that you can then do this work yourself without him or her, relying on your mature structure. And then, you don’t have to run away from terrible symptoms for years and wish yourself nothing. It is thanks to the ability to live the entire spectrum of emotions your palette of the picture of the perceived world expands. Life becomes brighter and more fulfilling, your support and ability to cope with more complex tasks and situations develops, you less avoid the emotions of other people , which allows you to go into deeper contact, self-confidence, wisdom and acceptance appear.

Usually, the request about “not feeling” is heard by clients who have just come to therapy, so it’s clear that it would be difficult to formulate otherwise when you still don’t quite understand how the psyche works. In that case, I would suggest shifting the focus to “I would like to learn how to deal with ‘these’ states or feelings”…

1. There must always be a reliance on the truth. Even if you know that now it would be appropriate to say words of support, but you do not feel the impulse, this will not give the proper result and will only strengthen the client in neurosis. Speak honestly, without masks, about yourself and your feelings. At some point you are an example for your client, so you should not produce lies.

2. I’m not in the entertaining position. Even if a person pays for sessions, this is primarily his need to understand himself. If the client is waiting for initiative and entertainment, this is an infantile position to shift responsibility.

3. Must be a request for the session. If not, then dedicate time to finding it, otherwise the unconscious will be thrown in all directions and I, as a psychologist, will not have a guide, not to mention the structure of the client himself.

4. It is very important to avoid from personal projections, to monitor  and clear them surgically . I can build 1000 great hypotheses and none of them will be about the client. Nobody canceled personal neuroses. A high level of acceptance and knowledge of one’s own Shadow is needed to minimize error.

5. Emotional and physical contact has a huge impact. The dry analysis has outlived itself long ago. Lively, attentive communication is better than any theory.

6. Not you are the main director of the process, but a healthy part of client’s psyche, that strives for development. You create the space and you have the keys. Which doors, when to open and in what configuration the unconscious opens. Minimal intervention, yet subtle attention allows you to start the best healing process, the most harmonious, even if you are working with resistance. This approach is very free from pride and a sense of power over the reality of the client.

7. It is important to feel that you are holding space. Even if your client is a very authoritative person who has seen a lot of things in their life and is 2 times older than you, they came to a specialist whom they had already chosen for some reason. If you merge into self-doubt, it will only strengthen their parental position and control. You may not know something or feel confused, which you can talk about, but the interaction should remain from the mature part.

8. It is very important to believe and transmit faith in the progress of the client. They may doubt themself. Their psyche is most likely a dark forest for them, in which there is a lot of uncertainty. If you believe in its sanogenic potential, it gives the client the opportunity to maintain this connection.

9. I often ask my unconscious to help me in my work. When I feel stuck, complicated and my mind doesn’t save the situation, I turn to intuition. If you have a strong connection, most likely the result will surprise even yourself.

10. If you feel that at some point a dislike for a client awakens due to your personal biases, it is important to consciously move into a meta position. We all carry a certain set of overt and shadow traits, and some combination may not be personally close. However, it is very important to perceive a person as a whole in a working process. I always think that for all their life situation, they coped very well with adaptability. I admire the strength of the spirit inherent in a person.

Body-oriented psychotherapists often talk’s about contact with the body. But what is it exactly? In many ways, this is work with attention, which in the normal mode of life, usually, focused on mental processes, bypassing what happens to the body.

Below, the main components that reflect contact with the body:

I am present with attention in this moment and it is directed inward.

I am aware of sensations: pressure, heat, burning, tingling, tension, pain, trembling, vibration, tickling, cold, stiffness… I feel the impulses of the body: sexual arousal, the desire to shrink, open up, win, hit, make any movement, laugh, yawn, scream, howl, smile, stretch, tighten muscles, relax …

I feel and observe my breath, allowing myself to breathe in and out more and more freely. I can feel tightness in my breathing and after, expand my breathing pattern.

I can track how this or that feeling lives and is reflected in my body and with the help of breathing I allow it to open up. This happens again due to attention, free inhalation and facilitating exhalation.

 I react in time to changes in my body. If I experience stress, I feel how my body reacts to it and I can help myself with breathing. I react in time to the appearance of symptoms of the disease and try to provide myself with physical and psychological help.

I feel my boundaries and can give feedback to another person if he crossed them. I know where is my comfort zone.

I respond in time to the needs of my body. This primarily applies to proper rest, nutrition and physical activity.

 I enjoy sex. I can relax, I allow myself to realize the bodily impulse in sex. I feel and can name zones where there are pleasant or unpleasant sensations.

I love my body, I appreciate and accept it.

If at some point you have tracked the problem area, then at least working with attention on your own, you can begin to change strategies, attitudes, and actions. For deep work, turn to body psychotherapy.

Kind of a dark abyss often appears in the images of my clients. It feels like endless blackness, something huge, disordered, little understood and frightening.

Usually contact with it causes severe fear, sometimes stupor, fading. You feel that you are infinitely small in relation to this «ocean», which can be accompanied by impotence and apathy.

This symbol reflects the essence of contact with the unconscious. This kind of image can appear at the moment when a person for the first time looks very deep into himself, or at a time when there are a lot of suppressed feelings, or when a new facet of experience, that was not previously available to consciousnesss ,is revealed .

If you look at the black hole, that the rabbit from «Alice» invites into, it looks absolutely intimidating. And our psyche draws the most bizarre and terrible scenes, probable dangers lurking inside. Just like when we were kids, we fantasized about monsters in the closet by projecting our repressed fears.

However, having jumped into this hole, we surrender ourselves to a certain internal  state, where the controller weakens, and we rely more solely on trust in this very unconscious and intuition.

And on the other side of the hole, Something opens up. And this Something becomes obvious to you, and from this its property changes from the infinite abyss into something  completely concrete.

Even if it may be huge, immense at first glance, it will have outlines. And then, step by step, this abyss reveals a picture of our unlived emotions or memories, impressions and fantasies, needs and feelings. When we begin to see at least a step forward there, it becomes possible to take this step and no longer freeze in horror in front of the unknown.

There, something interesting, something very difficult, something even routine work awaits us. As a rule, the meeting with Leviathan is still far away, so there is time to strengthen the Ego through such inner work.

But the first important step is to jump down the rabbit hole. A frequently conducted part of the therapy is devoted precisely to gaining a sufficiently specific resource for such a step.