Counseling

Counseling is a really tricky thing to deal with properly. First of all, you have to find someone whose belief system is compatible with yourselves. I think the best experience I had with a counselor was when I was getting divorced from my 2nd wife. The court insisted we both have counselors because we were fighting over custody of our then 5 year old daughter.

I chose a counselor that was an MFT and this lady was close to retirement and had been raised a Catholic. This was helpful to me because I had been raised with the concept of Transubstantiation and not everyone in the world believes in this. So, even though I hadn't been raised as a Catholic she had the mystical part down of turning blood into wine and the turning Christ's body into little wafers people eat.

Though to me it means something very different than this you get the basic physical idea of converting one thing into another thing.

It's much the same as a child is converted over time into an adult. Or a person who is unenlightened becomes enlightened over time.

So, I needed a counselor capable of grasping this concept. I did not want or need and atheistic freudian, for example.

I needed someone at least like a Jungian who was Freud's student. Carl Jung came up with concepts like the "Unconscious" I believe and got really into symbology.

If you are interested in Jungian psychology you should read, "Siddhartha" and Narcicus and Goldmund" and other works like "Damian" and STeppenwolf" by Herman Hesse who was a patient of Carl Jung's.

I found all these books also including "Magister Ludi and the Glass Bead Game" very helpful in understanding myself better. I found "Steppenwolf" too upsetting for me at the time though to read because I couldn't deal with my anger very well in my early 20s. My anger either made me want to commit suicide or harm someone else and since I am a priest like person I would be more likely to kill myself as a way of protecting others than harm other people.

But, all that at this age (66) isn't that meaningful anymore to me. I don't have the anger and angst directed both at myself and others like I once did in my early 20s.

Now, I see all humans including myself as victims of the human experience here on earth and as such I feel compassion for us all. We all suffer living here on earth together.

God Bless us all.

So, Counseling with the right person compatible to you (and your significant other) might help your lives go more smoothly. However, try not to bite off too much at one time so you can maintain an equilibrium as you come to understand yourselves better.

As you work out your problems one by one you are going to change a lot and one has to be very brave to face all the damage done to each of us growing up. The people who raised you likely did the best they could. However, we all grow up damaged in various ways. Life isn't perfect so we all have to do the best we can. And then we have to help the next generation and the next and the next as long as we are alive.

Good Luck with counseling.