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Today I went into therapy determined, yet again, to finish the whole thing off.
What was this, the third time I tried to get out? The fourth? I'm not sure anymore. All I know is, Ms. Analyst is not letting me terminate - or disembark, as I more kindly/gently call it - without a fight.
"I'm disembarking at the end of the month," I told her this morning. I wasn't messing around. She wasn't going to draw me back in. Keep me on the couch. Imprison me further. Not this time.
But 45 minutes later she had kept me from leaving. Yet again. How does she do it? I come in convinced that psychoanalysis has reached the point of diminishing returns. Such little else can be asked. No more can be expected. I need to take the tools I've gained and apply them in the outside world. Without you. See ya. Thanks for everything.
Not so fast.
Probably four times now since I began analysis, I've tried seriously to disembark from the process. I call it "disembarking" BTW, because I think it sounds a lot less final and grim than the industry standard term. Termination=death. The psych industry could use some branding help here.
But somehow, Ms. Analyst always pulls me back.
"You've shown progress," she says. But she doubts its validity. It's duration. It's actuality. My shifts happened too recently. I haven't really changed. Just gotten cocky. I did something right and now it's because I think something's really different inside me. But she doesn't believe it's different enough. My last reported transformations took place too recently. I can't prove I fully understand my problems. Or that I understand me. I haven't proved it to her. Not yet.
And O what dreams will come when I can.
She lays out this doubt. I absorb it. And she makes me sure I'm not sure anymore. Not yet.
When can you really say when? "You're good to go" - at what point does your analyst go ahead and confirm that? Agree that your work together can come to a close? Guardian angels can become prison guards in analysis. Are we clients or captives?
-- Mr. Analysand
