The fascinating and appalling state called abjection
There’s a psychological mechanism that isn’t very well known, yet it’s involved behind the scenes in many emotions. It plays a part in disgust, revulsion, repugnance, aversion, distaste, nausea, abhorrence, loathing, detestation, horror, contempt, weird, outrage, terror, fear, fright, panic, dread, trepidation, hatred, hate, abomination, execration, odium, antipathy, dislike, hostility, animosity, ill feeling, bad feeling, malice, animus, enmity, aversion, shame, humiliation, mortification, chagrin, ignominy, embarrassment, indignity, discomfort and repugnance, among others. Really, just about any negative emotion has this mechanism involved.
What is this mysterious power behind the curtain of so many intense, uncomfortable emotions? It’s called abjection. Abjection is what happens when there is a breakdown of the distinction between self and other. It’s necessary for your development into an independent, functioning human being. Continue reading →
After more than fifteen months of pandemic, I am fully vaccinated and will be ready to see clients in-person after June 1, 2021 at a new location. I’ll be in the office for in-person sessions two days a week. I will still be counseling by telehealth five days a week.
The New Location
My new office is at the Harvard Street Integrated Wellness Center, 18 Harvard St, Rochester, NY 14607, a residential street in the Park Avenue area of the city of Rochester. Also in the building are other therapists, a psychiatrist, a physical therapist, a nutritionist, and a couple massage therapists.
I will be at the new office for in-person sessions two days each week.
Tuesdays, 9am to 2pm and Thursdays, 3pm to 8pm
If you chose in-person counseling, you should be fully vaccinated and wear a mask while entering the building and sitting in the waiting room. We will be able to take the masks off once we get settled in my office.
Telehealth
Because so many people have found telehealth to be more convenient, I will continue to offer counseling by phone or video for all the hours of operation.
Mondays, 3pm to 8pm
Tuesdays, 9am to 2pm
Wednesdays, 9am to 4pm
Thursdays, 3pm to 8pm
Fridays, 11am to 4pm
How to Schedule an Appointment
To schedule an appointment, please use this link and, if I have seen you before, enter your email address. You will get a link to that address from simplepractice.com. Open it up, select request an appointment, and chose the type, whether an initial evaluation or individual or couple’s counseling. On the next screen, you will have a chance to select a location, either telehealth or in person at 18 Harvard St. You will then see the openings I have in my calendar. Select one and you are done.
If you would like to meet regularly and your schedule is tight, I recommend setting up several appointments at once, so you know you can get the time you want. We can always change them if we need to.
Afterwards, I will most likely confirm the appointment. I may send you a request to fill out some paperwork beforehand so that I have up to date contact and insurance information.
We have no emotion that’s not useful in some way. Everything is there for a purpose, even an emotion that undermines its purpose.
I’m talking about shame. Its purpose seems to be to help us fit in with others. Shame, and its milder version, embarrassment, comes up when you violate a social norm which might get you expelled from the group or, at least lower your status. Continue reading →
A mother enters a room with her eighteen-month-old child. Neither have been there before. There’s a few toys on the floor. The mother leaves the child with a stranger for a few minutes. The mother returns. White-coated researchers are standing behind a one-way mirror with clipboards, recording everything that happens.
The experiment has been called the Strange Situation, but it’s not a strange situation at all. It happens all the time in the natural world. Nonetheless, it’s been a very important experiment in the history of psychology. Out of it has arisen theories of attachment. Continue reading →
If you’ve been feeling depressed, anxious, grieving, guilty, or preoccupied with cravings, then you probably tried to reason yourself out of it. You’ve wanted to get your head screwed on right and the clouds cleared from your mind. You believed if you talked to somebody, they could tell you things that might help you feel better. Don’t let me stop you. I would be the last person to prevent you from thinking better, but it isn’t just a matter for the mind. Your body can help, too. Let your body help you with your depression, anxiety, grief, guilt, or craving. Continue reading →
It’s taken humankind thousands of years, but I think I finally have the answer. I know the meaning of life.
For many people, questions about the meaning of life get set aside; but, for us therapists, we encounter them every day. Questioning the meaning of life is part of the human condition, as ubiquitous and basic as walking upright and having opposable thumbs. It preoccupies many of us some of the time but is generally dismissed as an enigmatic and fruitless endeavor. It’s hard to talk about it and even harder to find someone to talk about it with, which is why people talk about it with their shrinks.
Having had so many of these conversations, I’ve stuck with it longer than most. I’m ready to tell you what it is.
You don’t have to be hyper-rational or repressed to have a hard time talking about feelings, you could be emotionally intelligent and still have difficulty. Feelings are hard to talk about. There are simple reasons and deeper, more complex reasons. The simple ones first. Continue reading →
As if understanding feelings wasn’t hard enough, we also have to understand feelings that aren’t really feelings: metaphorical feelings. Continue reading →
I heard the critically acclaimed series, In Treatment is coming back this year for a new season, so I thought I’d catch up and see what the excitement is about. It’s an unusual show that’s set entirely in a therapist’s office. I’ve avoided the series so far because, why I would want to watch therapy in my time off when I’m seeing clients as a therapist all day long? It seemed to be a drama best left for a wanna-be therapist, in the same way as, when I watch football, I imagine myself as Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
However, Josh Allen may like to watch football from time to time. He can appreciate how Tom Brady picks apart defenses. I should be able to enjoy seeing the therapeutic expertise of Dr Paul Weston. Weston is no slouch when it comes to overcoming defenses, in his own way.
The scene of episode one, season one, opens with Weston’s patient, Laura Hill, in agony on the couch. She arrived hours early and waited in the parking lot, but now does almost everything possible to avoid talking about what she needs to talk about.
Keith Wilson - Counseling 