Professional Documents
Culture Documents
with Clients
by Eric Maisel
Experiencing authoritarian wounding leaves lasting scars, but Eric Maisel offers useful therapeutic
insight and tips to help clients mitigate its impact.
1. What exactly went on? Let me pick one experience that still deeply affects me and try to describe it as
carefully as I can. I do want to know for certain that what Ibelieve went on actually did go on!
2. I want to think a little bit about how it might be to remember some of those terrible experiences without
having to re-experience them and without having to beflooded with bad feelings. Can I see a way to do
that?
3. I have long thought that I must be a little crazy to believe that such awful things could possibly have
gone on. But they did go on. So how can I completely let goof that feeling that I was “a little crazy” for
believing what, it turns out, was completely appropriate to believe?
If your experience of dealing with an authoritarian happened in childhood, it should be clear to you that you
didn’t choose to experience that wounding. But as clear as that truth may be, it’s still easy to feel complicit or as
if you deserved what happened to you, maybe because you weren’t “perfect.” Now is a good moment to get
clear on the fact that you didn’t choose to be abused by that authoritarian. Please pick one of the following
prompts to write on:
1. Is there some part of me that still thinks that I did choose my situation? How can I still be thinking that?
And what can I do to stop thinking that?
2. If I’m still dealing with an authoritarian today, do I have new choices to make? Different choices to
make? After all, I’m not that child any longer!
3. Because I didn’t really have a choice in the matter, I think I may have gotten it into my head that I’m not
entitled to make strong choices or maybe that I’m notequal to choosing. I think I’d like to do some
reflecting on that possibility.
1. I
want to think clearly about the ways in which I was powerless in those terrible times, primarily for the
sake of making absolutely certain that I do not blame myself for not taking actions that were just not
available to me.
2. How would I describe the power I now possess? Surely, I do possess some adult powers! How would I
describe them? And how do I use them?
3. Whatwould it take to transform myself into a “real life superhero?” And what would I be able to
accomplish then?
Exercise 6. You were genuinely afraid (of course you felt scared)
Authoritarians scare us. You may have spent much of your childhood terrified. Of course you were afraid. The
question to grapple with now is, do you still have to be afraid today? Please pick one of the following three
prompts to write on:
1. Iwant to remember what it was like to be frightened as a child, to validate that experience. I am going to
go back in memory, remember what I felt, and honor that I had those terrible experiences. But I am going
to go back very carefully.
2. I
know that I’ve lived in a fearful way and that I’ve been scared a lot in life. What can I do to feel safer
now?
3. I want to live differently. How can I live more bravely? What would such a life look like?
To say that you were wounded isn’t to speak metaphorically. Something in you got seriously injured. Maybe it
was your willingness or your ability to deal with conflict. Maybe it was your self-image, your self-esteem, or
your self-trust. Maybe it was your ability to trust others or to deeply care about others. The list of possible
injuries is long. Please pick one of the following three prompts to write on:
1. Iwant to calmly and patiently identify the consequences of that wounding. That’s the important writing
I’m going to undertake.
2. I
think it might pay off to describe some of the ways that those consequences played themselves out. This
won’t be easy, but I think that drawing a direct linebetween the wounding and the things I’ve done in life
might prove eye-opening—and maybe I can forgive myself a little in the process.
3. I
want to write about my strengths, too. I think it might be a good idea to spend as much time writing
about my strengths as my injuries.
1. I
think I’d like to describe some daily practice that will serve me as I try to shed the psychological and
emotional baggage of the past.
2. I want to create some firm-but-gentle action plans that support my intention to heal, grow, and live well.
3. I
want to write about a better, brighter future, one where I feel less burdened by the past and more
optimistic and passionate about the future. Let me write aboutthat.
I grew up with mean parents. After years of therapy, I think I’ve come to identify a kind of demon who
comes into my consciousness and does not want me to be productive or successful. That demon was born
in childhood. It somehow has to do with safety. It did not feel safe living with my parents, plus they told us
that the world wasn’t a safe place. They filled our lives with continual anxiety and catastrophizing.
Here’s how that all plays out now. My creativity starts to flow and then anxiety floods in. I tear up the
work, I tear myself down, and I abandon the project as no good. I’m also flooded with feelings of intense
dread all the time, especially at night; and during the day, I’m always finding ways of avoiding entering
my writing space. And my writing space is easy enough to avoid, as I have classes to teach, committee
meetings, a bit of a commute, and all the rest. It’s supremely easy to avoid my study. And my study is so
lovely. I wanted to write, ‘lovely and inviting,’ but it never does invite me.
Those demons. The demons have made it harder for me to keep meaning afloat in my life, they’ve made it
harder for me to keep despair at bay, they’ve made it harder for me to live my life purposes, and they’ve
contributed to my anxiety and depression diagnoses. It’s all a piece. I’ve come a certain distance in all this
and I can function, but I’m still searching for answers and I’m still wanting to finish some damned book.
I think that the bottom line for me is that the demon just won’t budge, because it is about core safety.
Maybe I have to celebrate lesser forms of creativity where the emotional stakes and pressures are lower.
An article, maybe, though articles aren’t easy either! I haven’t found ways to conquer the demons of
darkness, but I do intend to continue to work on this block through some kind of inner demon work. I
haven’t quite given up. Not quite!
John and I worked together for the next three years, chatting via Skype once a month. There were many downs,
but also enough ups that John did manage to finish a draft of a book, deal with its several revisions, send it on
its journey into the world of academic presses, tolerate the criticisms and rejections his book initially received,
enjoy the moment when it was accepted for publication, and so on. I kept reminding him, “This is the process,”
and at some point, he began to laughingly beat me to the punch and become the first to announce, “I know, this
is the process!” And throughout the process, he used reflective journaling and writing prompts to hold important
conversations with himself and deal with the demons that were never going to fully go away.
A second client was a Parisian painter, Anne. At the time we began working together, Anne was hiding out in
Provence, licking her wounds after an unsuccessful show of her paintings at a prestigious Parisian gallery. She
was barely communicating with the world and painfully wondering if she should continue as an artist. The fact
that she has sold paintings previously, that she had had successful shows previously, and that she was still
something of a darling of the art world seemed to amount to nothing. Not in the aftermath of what she dubbed
“that monumental disaster.”
At the time we began working together, Anne was hiding out in Provence, licking her wounds after an
unsuccessful show of her paintings at a prestigious Parisian gallery We chatted over Zoom. One of my goals
was to help her change her perspective. Her career certainly had taken a hit. But for her to dwell on that
“disaster” amounted to a serious mistake and a recipe for despair. Focusing on that event was only one lens
through which to look at her career. I quietly and carefully explained to her that she was fortunate to have had
the successes she had had, that this one event might or might not signal anything in particular or auger anything
in particular, and that her best path was to get on with her life and get on with her art-making—the act of which,
fortunately, had lost none of its luster for her.
I asked Anne to detach from the show results. I also asked her to invite a postmortem from the gallery owner.
How brave that would be, to ask him why he thought the show had produced no sales! She wasn’t sure if she
was equal to that. I explained that she might get “more equal” to that bit of bravery by doing some reflective
writing, maybe on her turbulent childhood, maybe on her bullying father, a famous painter who always belittled
and minimized her efforts, or maybe in a more “in the moment” way by writing about her feelings about
communicating with Claude, the Parisian gallery owner.
We chatted a week later. It turned out that she had journaled every day that week using the prompt: “Do I dare
write to Marcel?” She explained that she had learned a lot about herself in the process, especially about her
habit of fleeing at the drop of a hat. In childhood, she hadn’t been able to flee. She had been watched,
controlled, commanded, and punished for taking even the smallest step out of bounds. Now, as an adult,
because she could physically flee situations, that’s what she did—and far too quickly, she now understood.
Indeed, she returned to Paris, bravely met with Claude, and had that painful conversation. It turned out that
Claude had very little to offer by way of explanation. People “loved the paintings.” People were “wild for the
paintings.” Many expressed what Claude felt was a completely genuine desire to make a purchase. Yes, nothing
had sold. But, Anne explained to me with relief, Claude was not down on her, had no intention of reducing her
presence in his gallery, and in fact expressed his intention to redouble his efforts on behalf of her and her
paintings.
Over the months, I learned that several paintings from the show had sold for fancy prices and that her new suite
of paintings were progressing nicely. She still had to endure all the challenges that creatives must regularly
endure; but her “monumental disaster” seemed clearly behind her. “And I now have a sturdy tool in my tool
kit,” she explained. “I now have conversations with myself in writing where the part of me that wants a good
outcome can coax my wounded self in the right direction. I now have a friend who is nicer to me than I usually
am. And that friend knows all about my tendency to flee! She knows all about it—and she knows how to talk
me out of running away.”
*******
It’s likely that many of your clients have been adversely affected by an authoritarian: by a close family member
like a father, mother, sibling, or mate, by someone else close, like a mentor, teacher, clergyman, or boss, or by
authoritarian leaders and others in high places.
It’s likely that many of your clients have been adversely affected by an authoritarian
What ought you try if your client is suffering from an unhealed authoritarian wound that has produced adverse
consequences? You can try any of the tips I’ve provided, any of the tactics and strategies you routinely use, and
the writing exercises I’ve described. By working in this way, you will help increase your clients’ personal
power, aim them in the direction of useful daily practice, help them envision and plan for the future they want,
and, in the process, help them upgrade their personality, heal, and grow.
References:
Maisel, E. (2018). Helping Survivors of Authoritarian Parents, Siblings, and Partners. New York: Routledge
© 2020, Psychotherapy.net LLC Bios
ERIC MAISEL, PhD, is the author of more than fifty books and a noted thought leader in the movement known as critical psychology.
His books include
Overcoming Your Difficult Family, Rethinking Depression, The Future of Mental Health, Helping Survivors of Authoritarian Parents,
Siblings and Partners, Humane Helping, Helping Parents of Diagnosed, Distressed and Different Children (Routledge, 2019) and
Unleashing the Artist Within (Dover, 2019). Dr. Maisel is a retired family therapist, active creativity coach, and critical psychology
advocate. He writes the Rethinking Mental Health blog for Psychology Today, provides keynotes for organizations like the
International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry, and lectures and delivers workshops nationally and internationally.
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