Are you unconsciously resistant to give up your disease or pain?
In psychotherapy the word “resistance” refers to the obstacles presented by the patient to oppose the therapy process. Generally these obstacles are created unconsciously by the patient, at least in its meaning as resistance, because they come from very deep psychological layers, and the logical or conscious mind seeks rational explanations for them.
As the unconscious psychic reasons of a disease are anchored in the patient himself, he is also unconsciously interested in preserving his illness with these parts of his unconscious mind, because his disease somehow creates a form to express his hidden conflicts. At the same time it serves as a protection against the discovery and processing of psychic wounds and deep fears which are repressed in the unconscious basement.
Therefore the resistances are expressed as “masked.” In the critical periods of therapy they can appear as, for example, unpleasant feelings against the therapy or the therapist, or doubt against his efficiency, a desire to interrupt or discontinue the therapy, delay and forgetting about the session, etc. Also falling in love with the therapist has many times an unconscious function of blocking the therapy.
Another frequent resistance is expressed through patient’s tendency to reading psychology books during the therapy or at the same time consulting with other analytic therapy methods or other therapists. This leads to the alleged ability to judge the therapist, but in reality it is a stimulation of the resistance with the possibility of “not accepting” the unpleasant interpretations.
In addition, resistances are also the reason for many people to reject the analytic therapy methods, and seek other types of treatments where they can leave everything as it was before (and how they had first created the disease), because they only want to lose their symptoms quickly.
The appropriate therapeutic management of resistances is one of the most important tasks on the path to health. In every therapy arrangement (the agreement between patient and therapist on the modalities of therapy) the possibility of the appearance of resistances should be explained clearly and all patients should “make a contract with themselves” not to surrender when resistances are presented.
Source: – Werner J. Meinhold
Written by : Atul K. Mehra
