Life-Altering Elexir

Life-Altering Elixir

Dale Chihuly Glass Hitomi Dames Image

I’ve been writing in this blog about Open Focus, Attention Training Therapy (ATT), Metacognitive Therapy ( MCT ), Ki Breathing, and more. Though I have a master’s degree in psychology, I am not posting as an academic, certainly not from the point of view of a therapist.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

For most of my life I have been severely mentally ill. I lived a life of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As a teacher, psychologist, and counselor, I was the mild-mannered, compassionate, and rational Dr. Jekyll. But those very few misfortunate to know me intimately witnessed the psychotic, violently out of control, Mr. Hyde.

Nothing eased the mental torture, not years of psychotherapy, litany of drugs, or shock treatments. Everything in my life has been dedicated to survival. As an undergraduate and then graduate, it was my self-centered psychology major. During undergraduate years, I sat in the library searching through volumes of Sigmund Freud. If anyone, surely he had answers, but none of the reading or classes helped one iota.

I published in professional journals and wrote a best-selling psychology book with a Japanese co-author during my stay in Japan. In a parallel life, I destroyed furniture, punched holes in the walls, and other things I don’t care to share. Monster Man, victim of child abuse, and abuser. A volatile cocktail with a sometimes violent, brutal, outwardly inexplicable finale.

When I am Dr. Jekyll, I am quiet and rational. When the dark Mr. Hyde takes charge, I am violent, cruel, more animal than human. All of the years of therapy to work through early psychological trauma did nothing to prevent these episodes. Once I slip, I am overpowered and wildly transformed. Not the police at my door, not the spouse abuse program effected change. I don’t know why I have never been imprisoned or institutionalized. It got so out of control, I felt that I should not be allowed to live.

Journey from Hell

The journey from hell began in the dojo in Japan with aikido and ki breathing mediation. With this solid foundation, I created a blend of Metacognitive Therapy, Attention Training Therapy, Open-Focus, and flow. Prior to this, I had been practicing and writing about Cognitive Therapy for years. But it only took hold in conjunction within this blend of therapies.

I climbed out from the infamous “pit of despair.” It might have taken a compassionate, intelligent, and creative therapist to get me to this malleable, infinitely branching path of growth and development. But I am 80 and have never found that therapist. I have never found a therapist that helped at all.

Crazy Illness

“Certainly, this is a crazy illness. The most extravagant psychiatric imagination would not, I think, have succeeded in constructing anything like it . . . Do not suppose, however, that you will help the patient in the least by calling on him to take a new line, to cease to occupy himself with such foolish thoughts and to do something more sensible instead of his childish pranks. He would like to do so himself, for he is completely clear in the head, shares your opinion of his obsessional symptoms and even puts it forward to you spontaneously. Only he cannot help himself.” Sigmund Freud

Measure of Success

If you want to measure a person’s success, you had better go back a ways to get a base line. What were the conditions early on? What was their perception of these conditions? What is their outlook now? How far have they come? What is their definition of success.

For much of my life my goal was survival. I had serious doubts that I would survive.In my late seventies, I am thriving, not financially, but more energized, completely alive and enjoying each day of a mostly sane life. A gross understatement to say it was not easy getting here.

This blog is about about a blend of therapies that altered the course of my life: Metacognitive Therapy, Attention Training Therapy, Open Focus Training, and Ki Breathing Meditation. I welcome feedback to know how you are doing. What gets you through the day . . . this life? Can you take anything that I’m sharing and run with it?

Self-help books that help:

Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body