I should cling to what I consider the truth. I think diplomacy on my side would be too riskful.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief. I also help my patients make sure that they make decisions (and live) according to their stated beliefs. I help my patients to maturely face the difficult choices that are already staring back at them. Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. It will lead you to a new love, a treasure of the heart.ĭivorce is the time of difficult decisions. Then your vulnerability–your ability to love–will become your strength. I teach my patients and my students to honestly express their feelings in psychotherapy and to express them appropriately outside of it. The solution is to learn to be entirely honest with yourself. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. To comply with societal norms, people lie to themselves and others about how they feel. Third, divorce is traumatic, but society does not allow people to freely express the full range of feelings that they experience in divorce. When psychological protection of love and marriage collapses, even though Id’s demands remain unconscious, these unsatisfied demands cause suffering–anxiety, anger, and hopelessness. Love and marriage offer psychological protection for the Ego against the suppressed, yet awesomely destructive, irrational sexual demands of the Id. Second, love and marriage are the sublimation of our most powerful drive–the sexual drive.

When this cornerstone crumbles in divorce, intolerable pain results. The divorce is so destructive to the psyche for three reasons.įirst, love is the cornerstone of humanness. INFLUENCES: Charles Darwin, Franz Brentano, Eduard von HartmannĪPPROACH TO WORKING WITH PEOPLE GOING THROUGH DIVORCE:ĭivorce is the most painful experience people can go through because we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love. EDUCATION: 1881 – University of Vienna, Doctor of Medicine

Buried Alive by Franz Hartmann