The impulse to work with the unconscious is the desire to see the source of one’s suffering, dissatisfaction, frozen life development; the desire to feel more brightly yourself and the world around you, to become closer to your own “I”. And the understanding that a lot depends on ourselves, on our way of feeling and thinking…
But can we fully “work through” our unconscious and free ourselves from its power? No, it is impossible, and most importantly, there is no need. Another important thing is to make your story good enough for yourself. And on this way to know your “I”, your own inner world, to make contact with it, learn to enjoy this inner work, development and discovery of yourself. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to study everything to the end. We cannot fully process what is misunderstood, rejected, frightening or painful. We cannot completely revise our life history and start from scratch. The main thing is that we have the strength to boldly go through life, set ourselves new tasks, accept a new burden of responsibility, not be afraid of challenges, accomplishments, conflicts…
Only by rethinking and processing everything that happens to us, puts pressure on us, we become stronger – deeper, thinner and sharper we understand our “I”, inner and outer reality. And we find harmony with our unconscious, realizing its infinity and realizing that at any moment something that we did not even suspect about and for which, of course, we are not ready at all can arise from it.
The unconscious is a bottomless ocean. And we can swim perfectly in its waters if we convince ourselves that we are in a pool: there are no waves or marine life there, the depth is predictable, and the water is chlorinated … And this can go on for a very long time, especially if our defense mechanisms work well. But once frightened by the “monster” that appeared from the depths, we will no longer go into the water. Or you will have to spend a lot of time to plunge in after all – he approached, touched, ran away … This is how they work with resistance in psychoanalysis: the patient seems to remember something a little and immediately “ran away”, “closed”. It makes sense to do the same with fears and defenses: respect them, do not force yourself to do what is not yet possible, understand that what is revealed to us is really unbearable …
In order not to notice what scares us, we put a blank wall in front of us, which we can look at for hours and … see nothing. But at some point in psychoanalytic work, the understanding comes that in fact this wall is just a way of not noticing what is behind it. And then the outlines of the door appear in the wall… While it is closed. At the next stage, we decide to slightly open this door. And then we slam it shut, because a monster “crawls out” from there … Movement towards inner truth is a long process, colossal inner work. Therefore, psychoanalysts wait patiently for the patient to be able to see another reality. We never know when this will happen: when the ability to “swim” over the abyss will come, knowing that monsters lurk in the depths of it, and not being afraid of our own fear.”