Tag: Chasing Backwards

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA – WHAT IF YOU CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED? by Art Smukler, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Childhood Trauma, Psychiatry, Self Examination, Writing

The mind is beyond sophisticated, but a little misguided. When events are too upsetting, it deposits the painful memory or feeling in a place that won’t disturb daily functioning, the “dreaded” unconscious.

Sounds great, right? If you don’t know it’s there, how can it bother you?

Wrong! The hidden memory can still send out subliminal signals that can cause nightmares, panic attacks, depression, anxiety etc. The symptoms are often so disturbing that you finally call your doctor who prescribes sleeping pills, tranquilizers or antidepressants so you’ll feel better. For a while, you do! Then it all creeps back.

“I’d like to refer you to a psychiatrist,” your doctor says.

“A shrink!” you say, more than a little insulted. I’m not crazy!

One tough, Italian guy, Joe Belmont, a 1st year medical student, who just happens to be the hero in my novel, Chasing Backwards, is in an even worse predicament. Whoever killed his mother and uncle are now trying to kill him, and the only way he can save himself and his girlfriend is to find a way into his own unconscious. The key to the whole mystery lies in his past, and Joe has no idea what lies buried in his own mind.

So unlike Joe, who has only days and himself to solve the problem, you can schedule a consultation with a psychiatrist or a therapist like a normal person. By now you recognize that it’s not just some intellectual or philosophical need. You’re sick and tired of feeling miserable and are ready to do what it takes. Figuring out what’s hidden in your unconscious is not psychobabble, as Joe in is his pre-psychological-minded days called the whole process. Psychotherapy is a treatment that can help make the unconscious problem conscious. Once you know what’s really going on, because now it’s out there for you to examine, you get the opportunity to deal with the issue and really feel better.

Please feel free to leave any comments and observations. If you were able to figure out what happened in your past, how did you do it? Did Joe Belmont’s experience mirror any of your own? Did understanding your own unconscious help you to have a better life?

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DO YOU BELIEVE THAT DREAMS ARE FILLED WITH MAGIC? by Art Smukler, author

by artsmuklermd, posted in Psychiatry, Self Examination, Writing

A patient, a bright college-graduate who was just beginning psychotherapy for depression and anxiety, dreamt that he was traveling deep in the ocean in a submarine. There was a light on the front of the submarine, but it was still too dark to see what was ahead.

The patient said, “The dream makes no sense. I was never in a submarine. Where could it be going?”

“Any ideas? The psychiatrist asked.

“None.”

“Any thoughts about submarines or trips?”

“Not really. Except that in the dream I was pretty nervous.”

“About what?”

“Just nervous…”

After a few more non-productive attempts at getting his new patient to explore the meaning of the dream, the psychiatrist commented, “It seems like you’re fearful of the upcoming journey.”

“What journey? I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“I’m referring to the journey into your own mind.”

The young man just stared at the psychiatrist and shook his head in awe. “It’s so obvious, now that you said it. Why couldn’t I see it?”

“That’s what our journey’s all about. For you to see what’s hidden within you, and for you to use that information to feel better.”

Dreams range from the amazing to the mundane. They can help uncover years of repressed rage and love; or just be a simple memory of what happened the previous day. The mysteries hidden within the mind are accessible through the process of psychotherapy and self-examination.

For a writer, dreams can be the direction that will lead a novelist to spend years writing a novel that no one but himself might read. Yes, the wish for wealth and greatness may be there, but to spend so much time on an endeavor so fraught with failure has to be driven by the deepest of passions. A passion so deep that even a submarine might not reach it. And maybe it shouldn’t be reached.  Just the magic of creativity is often enough.

The magic of the dream is that it touches our core, tantalizes our psyche, but keeps us safe. It is our mind’s way of dealing out information in a way that we can handle, gently and carefully. On the other hand, nightmares never feel gentle or safe. But sometimes we might need a two-by-four to wake us up and do what we need to do to improve our lives.

Please leave whatever comments cross your mind.

Keep dreaming and writing! Don’t forget to subscribe to Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.