Analysis and Therapy

However, I do think that there is a difference between "Doing" therapy and "Being Therapeutic". I don't do therapy with my friends but that doesn't mean that our relationship and sharing is not therapeutic to one another!

analusis; Gr: a releasing, fr: 'back' + 'to loosen'. There is then the later Latin: analyticus, which some have stated means 'to resolve' but others have described with the more erotic: 'to set free'
this is NOT group therapy.
Several years ago I found out that a casual friend of mine had been taking lithium for years for a serious bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder. Didn't make much difference to me actually. But if he'd worn a big sign that said, "I've got bipolar disorder", well that would have been different.
This is not a group therapy. It is a gathering of people who are trying to understand something more about interaction on an internet mailing list. The upsets are there to be understood and made sense of -- not just calmed down. . . . In fact, I expect that if we keep insisting on calming down the upsets without trying to understand them, they will continue and become more pronounced.
By the way this reminds me that psychodynamic tradition doesn't focus exclusively on regression, pathology, "the dark side", although it does sometimes seem that way. Along with the "immature' defenses we've talked about (projection, projective identification splitting and the rest) there's a whole list of defined "mature" defenses which, to my knowledge, we haven't mentioned at all yet: altruism, humor, anticipation, suppression (not what you think it means!) deferment of gratification...
It's silly and annoying when someone who's never spoken to a psychotic person argues tenaciously that such folks are merely silenced social deviants etc.
One of the perils I think of 'interpreting' someone else's offense is to inadvertently become offensive yourself
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