Recently, I read an article by a local psychologist on the issue of closure. It was entitled "The Illusion of Closure" (Dr. Michael Abramsky). In it, Dr. Abramsky talks about how the notion of achieving "closure" about a particular issue is a lot like the joke about Chinese food: "You eat and an hour later you are hungry again." For Abramsky, "mental closure is always transient". As a Buddhist meditation teacher for 25 years, Abramsky minimizes the need to understand the past in order to authentically move past it. Using Buddhist Monk Pema Chodrun's description of the search for closure as "looking for a reference point", Abramsky states that reference points are "standard constructs of the rational mind" and "seeks explanations and understanding; these are the foods that satiate the rational mind." Yet as the Chinese food joke exemplifies, you satiate one part of your mind and it ultimately triggers additional issues requiring more time and attention.
Rather than focusing on self-explanation, Abramsky suggests that we learn to flow with the moment. "Closure implies a permanence that does not exist; seeking the illusion of closure is a path toward more suffering."
A lot of what Dr. Abramsky has to share on this issue makes logical sense. We all know that pain is inevitable in this life...though suffering is truly optional. Think about someone you know, right now, who has driven you around the bend with their inability to move past what happened to them (insert event, time frame of event, nature of trauma here). Yet, this is how unresolved trauma rolls. We don't know what to do about getting better because we don't know what to do about getting better.
So what's the treatment plan when we have clients who are chronically anxious, depressed, traumatized, obsessive, and/or self harming? Abramsky's plan seems to heavily focus on the adoption of a spiritual world view which embraces the cycle of pain and suffering as something we can never really do anything about other than accept it. To flow with it. To embrace it and sit with it. To transcend it.
I don't know about you, but getting our minds right about what we struggle with mentally truly does begin by knowing what we believe about human existence and why we're even here in the first place. If all of this around us is just a figment of someone else's imagination...if we have no point or purpose for being here other than to live and die and be forgotten once we are dead...then we are being both selfish AND arrogant to believe we deserve a good enough life. It is what it is ladies and gentlemen. Eat or be eaten....on any given day and in any given moment. There is no point to anything. We just are here...and one day we'll be gone. Live with it. Accept it. Move on.
That's one spiritual world view that does work well enough for many...until one realizes that we are much more complex beings than our animal, vegetable, or mineral counterparts.
To heavily or exclusively focus on achieving enlightenment, going with the flow, daily mindfulness, and all the rest associated with Eastern philosophy and teaching to move past traumatic life experiences, in my own opinion, the equivalent of pursuing denial with a capital "D". Not that these skills aren't helpful as part of the healing journey in anyone's life; they are. But they are not the be all end all "answer" to achieving optimal mental health. We DO need to understand what happened to us and why....so we can learn to change our thinking, change our feelings "patterns", and change our associated patterns of dysfunctional behavior.
One of the best books ever written on overcoming trauma is "Surviving Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. In it, Gonzales presents several real-life cases involving individuals who moved past what any of us would consider horrifying circumstances. As the book presents, there are several things we can do and practice to move past what has plagued us without getting stuck or caught up in the same cycle of suffering and repeated suffering over the course of time. We may never get over the significant traumas we have experienced in our lives, but we certainly can learn to move past them.
And when we have learned how to move past what we have struggled with because we don't feel as (insert uncomfortable feelings here) as we once used to...we HAVE experienced a form of authentic closure. Which is a good thing.
Until next time...
Rather than focusing on self-explanation, Abramsky suggests that we learn to flow with the moment. "Closure implies a permanence that does not exist; seeking the illusion of closure is a path toward more suffering."
A lot of what Dr. Abramsky has to share on this issue makes logical sense. We all know that pain is inevitable in this life...though suffering is truly optional. Think about someone you know, right now, who has driven you around the bend with their inability to move past what happened to them (insert event, time frame of event, nature of trauma here). Yet, this is how unresolved trauma rolls. We don't know what to do about getting better because we don't know what to do about getting better.
So what's the treatment plan when we have clients who are chronically anxious, depressed, traumatized, obsessive, and/or self harming? Abramsky's plan seems to heavily focus on the adoption of a spiritual world view which embraces the cycle of pain and suffering as something we can never really do anything about other than accept it. To flow with it. To embrace it and sit with it. To transcend it.
I don't know about you, but getting our minds right about what we struggle with mentally truly does begin by knowing what we believe about human existence and why we're even here in the first place. If all of this around us is just a figment of someone else's imagination...if we have no point or purpose for being here other than to live and die and be forgotten once we are dead...then we are being both selfish AND arrogant to believe we deserve a good enough life. It is what it is ladies and gentlemen. Eat or be eaten....on any given day and in any given moment. There is no point to anything. We just are here...and one day we'll be gone. Live with it. Accept it. Move on.
That's one spiritual world view that does work well enough for many...until one realizes that we are much more complex beings than our animal, vegetable, or mineral counterparts.
To heavily or exclusively focus on achieving enlightenment, going with the flow, daily mindfulness, and all the rest associated with Eastern philosophy and teaching to move past traumatic life experiences, in my own opinion, the equivalent of pursuing denial with a capital "D". Not that these skills aren't helpful as part of the healing journey in anyone's life; they are. But they are not the be all end all "answer" to achieving optimal mental health. We DO need to understand what happened to us and why....so we can learn to change our thinking, change our feelings "patterns", and change our associated patterns of dysfunctional behavior.
One of the best books ever written on overcoming trauma is "Surviving Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. In it, Gonzales presents several real-life cases involving individuals who moved past what any of us would consider horrifying circumstances. As the book presents, there are several things we can do and practice to move past what has plagued us without getting stuck or caught up in the same cycle of suffering and repeated suffering over the course of time. We may never get over the significant traumas we have experienced in our lives, but we certainly can learn to move past them.
And when we have learned how to move past what we have struggled with because we don't feel as (insert uncomfortable feelings here) as we once used to...we HAVE experienced a form of authentic closure. Which is a good thing.
Until next time...