Jewish Musings, Tuesday 5/7

[lee058]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.



Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda (hopefully)?

Holly

Lee

Louise

Lynne

Peachy



And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Today's topic: Therapy.

I think of therapy as being uniquely Jewish; not just because of its founders and well-known writers in psychology, but because of how it works. Therapy delves into the mind, heart and soul of the individual. Judaism questions all of these, as to what makes people themselves.

I've been in therapy for a long time, and it has helped me enormously. My therapists have almost all been good at asking me questions that have helped me figure out my motivations, ideas and plans for the future.

The combination of medicine and talking have been life savers. Before these, I was a mess for too long. Since then, I am more relaxed and able to look at my life's questions.

I'm glad that health insurance now treats therapy like any other medical visit; it used to be very expensive, and now is more affordable. For those who don't have insurance, there are doctors who work on a sliding scale, and I think that is a good idea.

Please don't feel that you have to share anything to intimate, but if you want to talk about your experiences, feel free.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[gazelle18]

I have had three bouts of therapy, once in my early 30s, once in my 40s, and once in my 50s. Each stretch of therapy was very helpful. Therapy helped me to understand why I felt as I did, and why certain actions (like over-eating, wallowing in depression) followed those feelings. I don’t think of therapy as having cured anything, but I do view it as having helped to ease symptoms. I am definitely more content in life now than I was as a younger adult. One reason is maturation, and the other is therapy.

[louise]

I never thought about therapy as being a Jewish thing but perhaps you have something there especialy as there is, I believe, a stereotype about Jews being neurotic, isn't there? You know, that Woody Allen type thing. And it is very  like us to look into ourselves, to analyze, and to question, so why not with a professional? Anyway, I am a big believer. I have been in therapy for many years and it has changed my life several times over. My only problem is, as you all know, my therapist is the love of my life. (yes, I know this is not realistic).

[hollygail]

The first time I tried therapy was during my undergraduate years. I don't remember what I was dealing with, but I went to a school counselor. He saw me two or maybe three times and announced that he had to start charging me (maybe it was school policy or something). I explained that I had no income of my own, that my husband was working to support us and wasn't earning a lot, etc., and he told me I could get a part-time job. I figured he had zero empathy and never went back to see him.

Many years later, my step-son was going through quite a bit of crap. His therapist (this time, a psychiatrist) wanted to see the family too. That didn't last long either. One time (one of the very first times we saw him without my step-son present) I told him my step-son hadn't changed and was still dealing with the same crap as when he'd started. I said he needed more than just seeing this doctor once a week, like maybe a residential program, etc. The MD got terribly insulted by this evil step-mother and I stopped talking. Three sessions months later, I listened to the same words come out of his mouth that I had told him three months earlier. We did as he suggested (which had been my own suggestion three months previously). I did go, however, to a psychologist under his supervision for a few months myself and figured out some of my own mixed feelings about my mother, so that was good; and my relationship with the psychologist ended on a good note (no "bad taste in the mouth" like with the MD who'd taken our money for counseling my step-son). (This was with DH#2 who died later of a heart attack and of whom I've spoken before.)

I have lots of Jewish (mostly female) friends who are in the shrink category (varying degrees, varying practices). I did know that most of the more wildly practiced versions of therapy were "invented" (sorry, I'm sure that's the wrong word, but I think you know what I mean) by Jewish people (most of the names I know of are of male practitioners). I don't know the percentage of practitioners have been (or are) Jewish. I never thought of therapy/counseling as a "Jewish" thing either.

[peachymom1]

It never occurred to me that therapy was a Jewish thing, but it certainly does make sense, given that we are supposed to treat ourselves with care and respect, as made in the image of God. It stands to reason that this would include our minds as well as our bodies - our whole selves in all aspects.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis (z"l) established a paraprofessional counseling center at our synagogue back in the 1970s, before I became a member there. He felt that there was a need in the community for low-cost therapy, not just for the Jewish community, but for anyone who needed it. The counselors are all highly trained and are monitored by licensed professionals. When I first went into counseling, I was in college and barely had two pennies to rub together, so I went to this counseling center because it was somewhere familiar, and connected to people I knew and loved.

I went into counseling because I had awful feelings of jealousy and rivalry with a close friend of mine. I tried and tried to resolve things with her, but they only got worse. I was in so much pain that out of desperation, I made an appointment at the counseling center. That counselor changed my life. I learned to let go of my feelings of shame. I learned that since I never felt loved by my parents, I'd been looking for substitute parents ever since my parents divorced, and that's where the trouble came from with my friend (I'll call her L). I had a beloved person in my life (about 12 years older) whom I had unknowingly made into a parent substitute, and when L met him, she unknowingly did the same thing. That made L and me rivals, and this made me completely nuts. I always knew I had no chance of competing with my sisters for our parents' love and attention, but by God, nobody was going to get between me and my beloved parent-substitute! Yet at the same time, L and I had been close friends for several years, and I loved her. I met my parent-substitute (let me call him Q) when L had moved out of state for her first year of college. When she came back and met Q, that's when the rivalry and jealousy started and snowballed. It was pretty horrible.

I learned a lot of important things from my therapist over time, but the two most important ones are things she told me at the first session. One: Feelings are not positive or negative; they are just feelings, and I need to feel them and learn from them in order to understand and manage them. Two: No matter what kind of job my parents did as parents, I can learn to be my own mom and dad, and love and nurture my own self. I have been doing that for the last 40+ years. And I did learn to face, accept and finally release my jealousy.

When DD35 was born, I did go back to the therapist for a couple of sessions, because that darn jealousy demon popped up again. I felt jealous of my own daughter because her daddy loved her, took care of her and thought she was the greatest gift on earth. My therapist reminded me that I could nurture my own self, and she added that becoming a parent myself was a wonderful opportunity for me. I could heal myself by nurturing myself at the same time I loved and nurtured my daughter -- mothering myself while I mothered her. By the time my twins were born two years later, I'd gotten the hang of this notion and had no trouble with jealousy again.

Thank God for counseling and thank God for Rabbi Schulweis.