Ed...Thanks for the Correction...I'm Learning Several Good Things....

• Responses to First Learning about Affect Theory by Jim Duffy a.k.a. J.C.D., 2/28/97
  • (...)
    
    • Ordering the Robert Bly Tape and Advising New Dimensions Radio about Don's Book by c.h., 3/3/97
      
      

Ed, Hello. Thank you for helping me make my words match my intention, which is that we as psychotherapists may try to create an environment for healing for our clients--- but are often prevented by out-dated clinicians' norms that shame us for trying.

I mentioned in our exchange about flaming in the Anxiety Forum that I was puzzled about your style of post, and in my e-mail to you I said that because I learned (in the Adler Forum) that you are a sculptor, I think I understand you better. I see your role as a "joker" (good sense of the word) figure. Keeping people grounded. That's what good artists do.

As also mentioned in our earlier exchange, I have a mixture of shame and distress- anguish about posting at all. In my e-mail to you I agreed with your suggestion that I may be more sensitive to attack than you. I take your correction of my post about the Bly tape to have a very important secondary message for me: That actually I am too tight, and trying too hard to be perfect, and that I need to loosen up and not worry, for example, about misspelled words. I think your secondary message is accurate too. I'm working on it. (Even this post is too perfect!)

It's not easy for me to get over similar "not deserving" feelings that, in his tape, Bly says happen for him because he was ignored in childhood. This creates a familiar low esteem version of self importance that makes me vulnerable to shame and drives me to have to be perfect so I can be accepted. I used this perfection strategy when I was a rat at the Virginia Military Institute to fend off hazing: As the smallest cadet at 17 (and all of 110 pounds), I had the brightest spit-shine in the platoon, and the fewest demerits (no joke)! Thanks for keeping me and others grounded. And thanks for reading this public confession! Best. Chauncey.

No Replies