Self Creation

5 Psychoanalytic Therapy as the Art of Possibilities

When Anna began to overcome her lifelong pattern of compliance, she immediately feared becoming selfish and disrespectful of others. Clinically, this phenomenon appears with uncanny frequency: on the verge of yielding one trait, people tend to become anxious about falling into the opposite pattern. Patients who contemplate being less aggressive fear becoming excessively submissive, while the aloof individual becomes anxious about dependence, and the formerly clinging patient fears loss of contact. Sensitive people tend to be concerned about selfishness, and the self-centered individual, selflessness. Aggression and passivity, grandiosity and inadequacy, love and hatred, and many other human ...