AndroTherapy SF

One of the ironies of most counseling and therapy nowadays is that it is constrained by the rules of Political Correctness. Political Correctness is a set of rules for speaking and thinking. No matter what you experience or think or feel, these rules tell you what the right attitudes are, the right words, the right thoughts. Anything that contradicts the rules is swiftly and harshly condemned. And so is the person who breaks them. Political Correctness infects the psychological world at all levels. This is ironic because when Sigmund Freud, the most famous of the founders of this new discipline, set out to investigate human psychology, he broke and contradicted some of the most powerful rules of his place and time. He talked openly and in detail about sex. In our culture we hear and speak about sex all the time. In his, it was a deeply taboo subject. Very much Politically In Correct. Part of the point of therapy is getting at the truth. And especially at truths that we&

The masculine and the feminine have different needs and different ways of responding to problems. I'll bet a lot of men can recognize this scenario. With over 6.6 million hits on YouTube , it seems to have struck a chord...or a nerve.

A Jungian analyst down in LA opens his professional site with this: Why do we choose partners who fail to meet some of the important needs in our life, even though there was something about them that caused us to deeply love them initially? Falling in love is an overpowering experience. To me, it is one of the most easily accessible signs of the reality of the unconscious, showing that we are often in the grip of forces we neither understand nor control. When, with time, that ecstatic and tumultuous state subsides, it becomes clearer who the beloved idol really is. And every one eventually reveals feet of clay. What sometimes happens then is that instead of the idealizing obsession we had in the beginning, we switch gears and what strikes us most are flaws. It's almost all we can see. Qualities that once drew us in now put us off. This change of view can feel deeply disappointing. Or even like betrayal. But it's usually the case that our own projections and deep needs

A thought-comet that flashed through my brain this morning. All men in our culture have a problem with their sense of manhood, but it shows itself in different ways.  Straight men, because of their intimate connections with the opposite sex, are likely to be confused about it.  Gay men, because of their status as outsiders to the larger tribe of straight guys, are likely to avoid the question altogether. But in both cases, it's an issue they can't run away from. ----