Saturday, March 6, 2010

A Bit Of Reclamation

I had a client recently talk to me about how he is re-claiming an essential aspect of who he is, an aspect that he has been ashamed of, and that he has tried, for many years, to bury, or deny, or cover up with an assumed persona. The shame he has felt regarding this foundational dimension of his personality is in part the result of a rather abusive fundamentalist religious upbringing, the hell fire and brimstone variety, which although he could never truly accept it, still it had a profoundly formative effect on his relationship with himself. He has felt, all of his life, in some inescapable and horrifying way, BAD, or perhaps even evil - the orthodox terminology is, of course, sinful. Hopelessly sinful.

Now that he is in the process of learning to truly appreciate and even love himself - not egotistically, but with a genuine caring and kindness toward himself - he is becoming able to re-view his past, his family, his culture, and to begin to appreciate some of the qualities of this culture that are indeed central to who is really is, while at the same time, he is becoming able to separate out those aspects of his past that have been injurious, and to not, as it were, throw out the baby with the bath water.

Re-integration. Discernment. Healthy psychological and emotional - and, yes, even spiritual - boundaries.






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