How far can you run from your own mind? – Page 8 – Inside The Mind of a Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist uses his intellect and intuition to diagnosis and treat a patient. Theodore Reik, a Freudian era psychoanalyst called the intuitive part, Listening with the Third Ear. It means getting beneath the surface of what someone is saying, feeling what he feels, what he doesn’t feel, and being able to decipher that his words may contradict what he’s actually feeling.

The logic of the unconscious, the part of us that is not available to conscious thought, has different rules than the logic of everyday life. A patient may insist that his father is a wonderful man, but then why does he forget his birthday, have an angry father-related dream, or a negative slip of the tongue?

Our intellect and the logical part of our brain (the left brain) is often at war with the intuitive and creative part (the right brain). Observing the war, both sides of it, is important. It gives us the chance to examine the invisible part of the iceberg that supports what is visible to the world.

We can all benefit from using our Third Ear. Knowing what we really feel and think is essential to being at peace and having good relationships. If our Third Ear is undeveloped, get to work! Take time to let your mind wander about issues that you suspect are troublesome, jot down your dreams, and don’t push away a feeling that gnaws at you. What you learn may be a clue as to what’s really going on in your unconscious.

It is work making the unconscious accessible to the logic of the conscious mind. It is work worth doing. Having a strong, functional Third Ear can change our lives. Thanks!

To hate your parents, really feel it, is against the judeao-christian ethic, society, and our own inbred belief system.

In my psychiatric practice, countless patients have spent many hours “discovering” how they really feel about their mother and father. Even the most obviously abusive, alcoholic, and violent parent often remains immune to justly deserved hateful feelings. The parent who puts up a good front to the world, but in the privacy of the home is critical, distant, unempathic and devaluing is often more complicated to unravel.

How can you hate the person who gave you life and who you were dependent on? It feels immoral. It’s also crazy-making to know on one level that you can’t stand to be in the presence of a parent and at the same time doubt your right to have those feelings. Without our parents we wouldn’t exist. Often a patient or friend says, “I don’t hate my father. I just can’t talk to him, don’t want to be around him, and wish he’d just disappear. If I never saw him again, it would be okay. But…I don’t hate him.”

Well, how about EXTREME DISLIKE, which to me sounds a lot like HATE. If our parents have earned it, we have the right to our feelings.

In Chasing Backwards, Joe Belmont, a 24 y/o medical student who just learned his mother was killed, struggles with these feelings as he’s being interviewed by Detective Barneggi.

I glance back out the window. The light patterns are hypnotic, cars barreling down Vine Street, streaks of yellow and red swirling about in the darkness. Where will I bury her? What the hell do I do for money? I close my eyes and involuntarily shiver. What kind of asshole thinks about money at a time like this? I grip the coffee mug and picture heaving it through the plate-glass window.

A major bonus about getting in touch with hateful feelings is the possibility that when the hate is dealt with, there is the possibility that love still exists.

Thanks!