Image- Coleman/Classic Stock  

Tag Archive for ‘Psychology’

Page 2 of 18

Oui Wednesday

Published on February 2, 2011 in Quotidien. 34 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

1.  Dorothea was 100% right on. I took her dream interpretation with me to Igor’s as I knew she was right. He isn’t usually interested what any of my friends think about my dreams but when he heard Dorothea had made an interpretation he clamored to hear it. The truth is that I think Igor is a bit smitten with Dorothea(ever since he heard her first dream interpretation he has had a bit of a soft spot for her).

This is what  genius Dorothea said about the dream I wrote about on Monday:

This may be my own tunnel vision here, but I think this is related to the feelings you’ve expressed in the previous posts. To pull in another character from Greek mythology, perhaps you are feeling like Icarus — you are scared that you are flying too close to the sun. You’ve exposed your true (and lovely!) face by giving up your anonymity. You’re feeling good about living in (sunny) Pasadena. You can read these as assertions of your ego: “Hey, look at me, I’m writing this cool stuff that I want the world to see!” (for which the world is better off)! “And I’m going to claim Pasadena as mine, too!” And this makes you vulnerable.

Continue reading ‘Oui Wednesday’

Red-faced

Published on January 31, 2011 in Belette in Psychotherapy, Dreams and Quotidien. 52 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

At least I dreamt that I was. In the dream I had been out in the sun and I didn’t have sunblock on. I had remembered that I had been using skincare products that made me especially susceptible to the sun’s harmful rays. In the dream I panicked. “My face”. I somehow saw my face( in a mirror?) and it wasn’t just red it was a purplish burnt looking red. It felt permanent and that I would be damaged by this exposure. That was it, that was the entire dream. When I woke up it had felt like a nightmare. So what does this little dream mean?

Let’s start with where the dream begins: I was out in the sun. What does it mean to be out in the sun? For me, as an introvert with Irish skin, it means that I am in two places that feel a little uncomfortable in( out and in the sun) and in a place that I need to be protected from—I am vulnerable when I am out in the sun. The sun is out in the day time, when all the action happens.  Hence the sun is more of an ego state( masculine) while the moon is symbolic of the unconscious( or the feminine. or the receptive). To get too much sun is to have too much ego state. Sun is light, warmth, and generative but it can also be burning, destructive and killing. The sun is the centre of our solar system. It is symbolic of enlightenment. Carl Jung theorized that the sun was an archetype of the human concept of the Self.”

Continue reading ‘Red-faced’

Post Traumatic Mexican Restaurant Syndrome

Published on January 28, 2011 in Belette in Psychotherapy and Meaning Making. 59 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

On the way to Igor’s today my mind went to a memory that I don’t like to think about. It is a memory that I have locked off and put in solitary confinement. As that wasn’t enough to protect me from this dreaded memory I also installed locks, guards, barbed-wire and other defenses such as denial, repression and a fire-breathing dragon or two to guard against it entering my consciousness.  However today this memory got free and it surfaced into my conscious mind. At first I resisted it, but it was too strong. I relented to the memory and went on a trip in my  own personal time-traveling anxiety machine,  and went back to the day that He-weasel lost his job only two short months after moving to Austin. I remember all the details of the moment like it is a photo that I have studied and that someday soon someone will  test me on it.  ”Where were you?” What were you wearing? What music was playing in the background?” “What exactly did He-weasel say?” “What did you do after?” I can tell you all these things and much more in the most minute of detail. And I can tell you that today, almost three years later, that when I think about that day that I feel sick. Not just a little nauseous, rather full on PTSD related nausea that requires a couple of slurps of Pepto Bismo and an Ativan chaser.

As I was reliving this horrible day in my head I started to do a comparative study and tried to think of a day that might make me feel sicker—not that I wanted to feel sicker, my masochism does have its limits, I just wanted to know that there had been worse days in my life. And I could find plenty of bad days to turn to. Trust me, there have been plenty. Let me give you a sense of how many. One therapist that I saw for only one session, told me that I had too many traumas for her to process. Just her hearing my history had given her a bad case of vicarious traumatization. I tell you that not to brag (I am truly not a trauma overachiever) about my impressive trauma history but just to make it clear that I have some shit days I could call on. When I thought about the top ten traumas I couldn’t get any of them to feel worse than the day in Austin that He-weasel lost his job. This is what is really interesting. This is what made me see the significance of this memory that came to mind.  It isn’t true that there are no worse days than this one.  I think anyone would say that one’s husband losing their job is not as bad as almost getting killed. In the hierarchy of shit it is clear, obvious and indisputable that death is worse than job loss. But as much as I tried to make these other memories feel worse, I just couldn’t. For today the job loss felt like the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Continue reading ‘Post Traumatic Mexican Restaurant Syndrome’

Why I’m hungry

Published on January 24, 2011 in Belette in Psychotherapy, Meaning Making, Psychology and Quotidien. 58 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

You remember the last episode of “Belette goes to therapy” in which I was angry at X and I expected Igor to help me see my issues that were responsible for me having this dynamic in my life and instead Igor agreed that X was being an idiot and needed to get X’s ass into therapy. And you remember how after it became clear to me that I had absolutely no agency in the behavior, save my reaction to X’s antics. And you remember how post-session I got a serious case of the “I deserve a brownie”?

My friend, who is brilliant, and who comments under the name of “My friend” left a thought provoking comment on my last post. She said, “I wonder if the energy you would typically spend owning/partially owning the behavior of others was suddenly suspended before you and because that energy had to go somewhere, it manifested itself in this voice of hunger and the subsequent sense of needing to control that hunger.” This friend of mine always gets me thinking and she really got me thinking with this comment.

Continue reading ‘Why I’m hungry’

Being is a verb

Published on January 17, 2011 in Belette in Psychotherapy, Meaning Making and Psychology. 56 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I told Igor, my psychoanalyst, about my C.A.N.I. vs. N.I.B.I.H. post. And I told him about how he was right that I needed to read The Dead Mother by Andre Green. I also told him how I have been, ever since reading Green, wrestling with the idea of giving up “C.A.N.I.(Constant and Never-ending Improvement) as my sole way of being.

Then Igor said some stuff and my mind went blank. I found myself looking out his window and feeling a bit disoriented. All of a sudden the skyline didn’t look like Beverly Hills anymore. Something changed, and to my eyes, the buildings had transformed to NYC high-rises. I am sure that is significant of something only I didn’t mention it.
Continue reading ‘Being is a verb’

Freudian Express: Dreams

Published on January 14, 2011 in Dreams, Psychology and Psychology Today. 27 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “I had the craziest dream last night,” I would be in Paris right now staying at the George V, drinking champagne and eating platters of foods not found on the menu of Applebee’s. Most of the time, people that share their “crazy” dreams with me tend to tell me their dream to illustrate how crazy their dreams are and not to actually understand it. They tell me, “There was a bear, a pig and a guy who looked like Simon Cowell, only he was really my mother, and we were on the tea cup ride at Disneyland and we had to make the teacups go really fast or Sarah Palin was going to start dancing on top of the Matterhorn,” and then they look at me, expecting me to affirm their sense of what a wacky dream it was and how their dream is proof that dreams are just wild and meaningless. Instead I calmly and quietly ask them, “So, what do you make of it?” The dreamer usually looks at me like I have asked them to explain advanced physics to them, replying, “I don’t know, it’s just crazy. ” And that is usually the end of it. The dream is then discarded and no further inquiry occurs.

Read the rest of this post over at my column Freudian Sip @ Psychology Today.

Have a lovely weekend! See you back here on Monday.

As Featured on Fox News

“16 things that you never say to a woman who is childless not by choice“ Interview.

About Me

My name is Tracey, aka La Belette Rouge. I am a psychotherapist and the author of Freudian Sip @ Psychology Today. I blog about psychology, my therapy, dreams, writing, meaning making, home, longing, loss, infertility and other things that delight or inspire me. I try to make deep and elusive psychodynamic concepts accessible and funny. For more information, click here .

Have La Belette Rouge delivered right to your door

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Follow using a Feed Reader

Follow Me

On Twitter
On Facebook

La Belette Rouge for the Amazon Kindle

Subscribe to La Belette Rouge for your Kindle at Amazon.com

Belette Rouge’s Tip Jar