Analysis And Growth

With psychoanalysis, you are analyzing yourself but you are not improving yourself. Improving is done through much different means.

The project of psychoanalysis is to look back in the past prior to getting any kind of trauma. The problem is that what is re-created that way is the state of mind of a child, which one becomes then quite permanently as a result of following this approach. In many cases the correct thing to do is not psychoanalyzing oneself or re-creating a previous state but rather growth. That is not achieved through self-analysis but through self-improvement.

Clearly there are times when traumatic events would stunt or misdirect growth. However getting past the trauma is only part of the solution. Real effort is made in actually pursuing real growth; and that is a part of the situation that many involved in psychoanalysis fail to see.

A person who comes from the position of psychoanalysis will therefore be expected to remain childish. He would be re-creating what he had been as a child without growing past it. And that does not affectuate in people a real betterment.

Is psychoanalysis worthless? In some cases it is necessary. Once again, there are all sorts of things that happen to people that stunt or misdirect their growth. However it is only the first part in such situations. The second part is actually growing as a person.

Now there are claims that some traumatic events create things such as the antisocial and the narcissistic personality disorders. The people who believe in this frequently claim that such people are bad and can only be bad whatever they do, particularly that they are likely to be cruel. This attitude is of course very cruel in itself. To demonize someone because they have had something bad happen to them is beyond injust. Anyone can choose to act rightfully; and anyone can choose to act in an ethical way, whatever traumatic events they have had in their lives.

So that while it is valid to be conscious of what happened to you as a child, it is not valid to remain a child. Rather real growth and real improvement must be pursued. Analyzing the problem is the first part of the situation. The next part is moving past the problem. And it is in this that true improvement is actually achieved for the person.