Who would study psychology unless they had some issues?! Chapter 560: 543: Childhood Trauma

Chapter 560: Chapter 543: Childhood Trauma

The “Psychoanalysis” school is the first systematic, theoretically supported branch of modern psychological consultation and psychotherapy.

Many of this school’s theoretical knowledge and techniques have been deconstructed and integrated into those familiar fraworks in psychological consultation, even becoming akin to “common sense” concepts.

This results in a sense of disconnection.

When learners discuss the techniques of the “Psychoanalysis” school, they either address thods like “Transference Analysis,” “Deep Defense chanism,” and “Reconstruction of Past Experiences,” which seem fundantal and almost unnecessary to systematically study, as most who have learned about consultation know a bit about them;

or they delve into advanced techniques like “Hypnosis,” “Dream Interpretation,” and “Subconscious Dialogue,” which are so profound as to seem sowhat esoteric.

In the recent session, Nan Zhubin instructed the visitor to relax their body and freely imagine the first parent-related event that ca to mind, utilizing the “free association thod” technique from “Psychoanalysis.”

A technique that appears very basic within the “Psychoanalysis” school,

the “free association thod” is the core and most iconic technique of the “Psychoanalysis” school. This technique requires the visitor to relax as much as possible, letting go of conscious control and speaking forth everything that cos to mind—thoughts, feelings, images, physical sensations, mories, or word fragnts—without selection, judgnt, or embellishnt.

No matter how trivial, absurd, embarrassing, painful, or illogical these contents may seem.

Simply put, it asks the visitor to “say whatever cos to mind.”

While this sounds simple, its deeper function is to analyze the visitor’s talked-about free association for fixed patterns, recurring thes, contradictions, emotional changes, pauses, slips of the tongue, etc., in order to understand the subconscious’s structure and dynamics.

Implenting this requires a certain level of skill from the consultant: firstly, to let the visitor relax entirely, bypass the visitor’s defense chanisms, and at the sa ti, to provide comprehensive attention to all expressed information, including speech rate, tone, intonation, and emotional revelations.

This represents both a foundational elent and an advanced application in consultation.

Currently, the first thing the visitor freely associates with is a recent dream of theirs.

In his narration, many key elents erged, including his father, a kitchen knife, pots, a red background, etc.

The intense unease the visitor expressed during this retelling is also a key point worth noting.

With a lingering gaze, Nan Zhubin observed every detail of the visitor.

…

He noticed the visitor furiously furrow their brow and continued narrating: “In this dream, I was always running, and my father was always chasing .”

He maintained the use of the term “father,” using such emotionally detached language to lessen his emotional involvent.

This can be seen as the visitor’s defense chanism activating.

And this defense chanism has been present throughout his prior expressions.

“I rember at first, I was running very fast, and my father couldn’t catch up with , but later…” the visitor’s eyes squinted, “he directly threw the knife, and that knife flew towards my back.”

“When the knife was about to hit my back, the scene suddenly blurred, and everything disappeared.”

“And then, it was like a loop, I appeared at the starting point, I ran, he chased; he threw the knife, everything disappeared before it struck my back…”

Although the visitor was describing his dream, perhaps due to the ti that had passed, the details of the dream had been generalized and simplified.

At the sa ti, the elents presented by the visitor were quite straightforward, with almost no particularly abstract special images.

Thus there was no need for dream interpretation techniques at the mont.

This recollection of the dream is more like the visitor getting into the state through the “free association” technique, laying the groundwork for subsequent narrations.

After finishing the dream, without waiting for Nan Zhubin to speak, the visitor opened his eyes on his own and made eye contact with Nan Zhubin.

He twisted his lower face into a rigid smile: “Uh… Teacher Nan, about this dream, I think it might be related to so of my past experiences… you know, from when I was a child…”

Hearing the visitor’s speech begin to break irregularly and beco hesitant, Nan Zhubin nodded and guided with a question: “Do these experiences also involve your parents? Can you tell about them?”

The visitor naturally had the desire to vent, but due to the nature of the topic and his emotions, he triggered a bit of a defense.

Under Nan Zhubin’s supportive guidance, the visitor quickly nodded.

—nodded several tis.

It was as if he was repeatedly affirming a part of himself, encouraging himself.

As the visitor exhaled deeply, his entire back and neck sank into the sofa.

“There are… two things.”

The visitor said: “The first thing happened when I was very young. It should have been in elentary school, but I forgot the specific grade; I think it was second or third grade, or maybe even earlier. At any rate, it was when I was old enough to rember things but was still quite young.”

The visitor’s tone turned wistful: “At the ti, it must have been so kind of festival, as our house was full of relatives, and everyone gathered together to eat.”

“In the rural area where I grew up, there’s this tradition that during major festivals or on the elderly’s birthdays, they gather everyone together. To put it nicely, it’s called ‘setting up a feast.'”