“Meltdown” by Dr. Bill
It was a warm sunny late June day, 1991. Robin and I were close to finishing our certification training in Imago Relationship Therapy, a very powerful and effective process for counseling couples. All was going well and I was eager to complete the certification requirements and incorporate Imago therapy into our couples counseling.
By late afternoon we were looking forward to a great dinner after the session concluded. That’s when it happened.
Please understand, I was an accomplished therapist, having been licensed 14 years earlier. I was not prone to anxiety or depression and considered myself generally calm and resilient. I thought of myself as the epitome of equanimity.
That’s why I was so caught off guard by what came next.
The trainer announced still another exercise, this time a role-playing exercise useful for couples in understanding how past conflict and trauma impacted their present relationship. It was a parent/child dialogue, a structured exercise where partners role-played a hypothetical exchange between parent and child.It was just another academic exercise — or was it?
Suddenly it hit me, I was slammed with an overwhelming sense of dread. The room felt smaller. I couldn’t focus. I was sweating, I urgently needed to go outside and get some air, and I needed to go now!
Panic attacks are often an inside job. It can be a 10 on the Richter earthquake scale on your inside and go unnoticed by others on your outside. I acted nonchalant and proceeded to exaggerate a yawn saying to Robin: “You know, I’m kind of tired. What do you say we sit this one out? I need a break.”
Robin, being the excellent therapist she is, wasn’t about to buy into my avoidance. She looked at me and calmly stated: “No, we need to do it. You need to do it.” My escape plan was failing. My distress was intensified.
Now I was in full-blown meltdown. A past I had neatly tucked away came flooding back full force. defenses were down. I was a vulnerable 10-year-old all over again.
I know what my clients are talking about when they say they are “triggered,” and flooded with powerfully uncomfortable emotion. it’s usually not about what’s happening in the present. It’s about denial, repression, and avoidance. Sometimes it’s about trauma that you you’re afraid to revisit. It’s about all the stuff that’s never been resolved— until something triggers a flood of memory and emotion.
I grew up in a violent alcoholic home, perpetually on guard and unable to relax for the first 18 years. By the time I was a therapist, it was all resolved, neatly packed away and no longer bothersome. – or so I thought!
I had told myself: “No big deal, I got through it and I’m fine. It no longer bothers me.”
Guess what? Denial, repression, and rationalization aren’t just archaic Freudian concepts. They are real every day ordinary defense mechanisms, even affecting a veteran therapist who thinks he has nothing left to resolve.
Then again, life is full of surprises.
That meltdown was a breakthrough. It needed to happen, and it was the beginning of real recovery from childhood trauma. Recovery does not take place by burying and denying emotional pain or trauma. Avoidance keeps you stuck.
While quite painful, my meltdown was also quite educational and therapeutic for a therapist who thought he had it “all together.” I got through that day and now I’m beyond that kind of reaction when reminded of my childhood. I’ve grown.
We shouldn’t run from triggering experiences. They’re an opportunity to gain fresh understanding of what’s going on at a deeper level of our psyche, things that may have an extraordinary effect on what we think, feel, and do in our conscious present. They impact us in ways that greatly impact our work, our relationships, and our quality of life. and they constitute an extraordinary opportunity to grow and heal.
Parataxic Distortion, Transference and Countertransference
Whenever you find yourself reacting to something with a reaction that’s way out of proportion to what’s actually happening, you can bet it’s not so much about what’s happening right now as about past events. One way or another, we all get wounded and we all have a tendency to associate what’s happening at present with old wounds. In psychoanalytic language this is referred to as “parataxic distortion.” It’s often out of conscious awareness.
Therapists also talk about “transference.” That’s when the client or patient attributes qualities to the therapist that really have to do with past relationships, literally transferring past feelings, conflicts, and attitudes to the therapeutic relationship. Similarly, “countertransference” is when the therapist responds to the client’s transference in a reciprocal manner. For example, if a client is childlike and relates to the therapist as a parent, it’s transference. If the therapist responds in a similar manner, but in the opposite direction, acting parental toward the client’s child state, it’s countertransference.
These phenomena happen all the time with couples, usually without their awareness. Here’s a short story to illustrate my point:
Matt wondered why he sometimes reacted so sharply to Beverly’s requests. After all, her requests were quite reasonable. She was always working around the house and sometimes requested help. She might ask him to sweep the deck or put away the dishes from the dishwasher. There was always plenty to do and she needed help keeping up with it all. Why then did he feel so annoyed when she made a request?
Insight came one Friday morning. Matt was working at his computer composing a letter that was fairly urgent. Beverly passed by and asked: “Have you taken the trash out yet?” That was it. A simple request. Yet, Matt felt rage. His thoughts reflected his anger. Why can’t she leave me alone? Can’t she see I’m busy, why can’t I have any time for me without being interrupted? Matt found himself on the verge of voicing these thoughts out loud but caught himself before reacting.
He thought: Wait a minute! What’s going on here? Matt remembered Beverly commenting numerous times that he had reacted angrily when she asked him to do something, and she had said his response was hurtful! It’s not how I want to be, thought Matt. Why do I get so angry? It’s just a request.
To understand why Matt’s emotional reactions to Beverly’s requests are over-the-top and way out of proportion responses to what are simple and reasonable requests, it’s necessary to understand Matt’s childhood.
Matt’s mother seemed always irritated by her son. Almost every time she saw Matt she would give him something to do, and it was often something time-consuming and meaningless. If his mother was present, Matt really had little time to himself, time to do what he wanted to do. His mother would constantly invade Matt’s space and take him away from what he was doing. Consequently, he grew up with rage toward his mother, but rage he could never express. Now whenever he’s interrupted and asked to do something else, the same rage surfaces.
It’s parataxic distortion, and it happens one way or another to all of us. Understanding the deeper meaning of a strong emotional reaction can be vital to a relationship.