On My Greatest Accomplishment This Year, and Affirmations

"You're not responsible for others' feelings." This is one of the most important things I learned this year, and I learned it from my new and amazing therapist, Dr. E.R. I think I did a good number of things this year that helped me grow. I facilitated four private discussion groups with a group of Korean-Americans to talk about identity-related issues, and through which I got to intimately know an amazing group of fighters. I explored a great deal with my art, through various mediums and subjects, leading up to facing what has been the greatest challenge through my self-portraits: myself. I finally got a certain kind of validation that I'd needed and sought all my 30 years of life. But I would say that the greatest among them is in finding Dr. E.R.

After unsuccessful attempts in the past, I had given up on finding a good therapist for me until I tried again this year. Through a great new program as part of Erik's insurance, I gave another go through two more before I found Dr. E.R. The first was Dr. S.L., who is a deeply compassionate Christian first-generation Korean soul who has helped many a young Korean-American in finding their peace, but, unfortunately, did not get me. The second was E.B., a white man who, when I told him I'd faced governmental discrimination, responded that he had to pay for maintenance and insurance when his parents loaned him a car in high school and that I therefore should not compare myself to anyone. I should have had an alarm go off in my mind when he started off by laying out his methods and told me what a busy, busy man he is.

To count "finding the right therapist" as an accomplishment, I realize, is a little silly. This aim is potentially more dependent on external factors than ones based on merit, and still isn't really an end in itself. Still, the process of finding the right therapist for me as been as painful as dragging oneself through a bed of nails, so that going through it alone merits remark. Ever since I've opened myself up to the idea several years ago (look, therapy is a western concept, okay?), I'd get the sinking feeling every so often, while exhausting myself and those around me with my burdens, that I need to find a therapist. But apart from the times that my insurance situation when I was in graduate school made it a moot point, the idea alone would fill me with dread. The prospect of having to dig up everything all over again to explain to a new person, when twice it had already proved fruitless... And when it didn't work with the first two this year, it felt like my life was on hold again.

Apart from that she is, simply, highly competent, what I appreciate most about Dr. E.R. is that she is a very self-aware individual, which is most evident to me in the way that she holds back. She is very intentional about holding back in her facial expressions, in what she shares about herself (including her own thoughts and feelings), and in what she hears from what I say (carefully stripped of personal assumptions that may arise). I sense that her holding back is informed by a critical understanding around her role in our relationship, her visible identities (a white person), and the country that we are in (one that undermines racial minorities), which in turn allows me to feel like I can speak comfortably with her. While she notices, observes, analyzes, shines perspective, or suggests, I feel that she is attuned to precisely where I am with a level of presence with me that I have found to be rare.

Dr. E.R. played a key role in my obtaining the validation that I had sought that I mentioned above, about two weeks ago. I have spent a lot of time spinning around in circles looking for it. I have sought it from a lot of misplaced hopes and wrong sources. It held me back quite a lot. The matter that I sought to resolve for so long will no longer haunt me starting next year, and this alone is enough to make finding Dr. E.R. the best thing that happened to me this year.

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Having that said, there is another related matter that I thought would be interesting to share about here. I find my brief encounter with Dr. S.L. to have been insightful for my growth, too, and perhaps might provide some perspective to others.

Dr. S.L. is an extraordinarily kind and compassionate man. He pushes himself very hard to be present for many ailing people in various capacities (full-time therapist job, part time adjunct lecturer, several volunteer positions). He is accomplished, knowledgeable, and easy-going. To be clear, I have nothing remotely negative to say about his character or practice, but only respect and admiration. I am very grateful for the five or so sessions that I have had with him. He has helped many in his capacity in much, much more dire situations than I, and I'd be happy to refer him (or Dr. E.R.) to anyone for whom he sounds like a good fit.

What I wanted to share about is rather about a method for healing that I noticed with him and in other places, and, upon reflection, why it didn't address my needs for reasons that might provoke thought in others. It became quickly apparent to me that Dr. S.L.'s primary method for healing seemed to be to affirm my negative experiences or feelings. Dr. S.L. would both genuinely sympathize with and affirm these. To be clear, I absolutely think that there is a need for all sorts of affirmations everywhere in the world, constantly and without reserve, from the time we are born to late in life. However, it was not productive for me given what I sought.

I associated his affirmations with a certain state that I had learned to move past from. It is related to the way that I perceive Korean society handles negative emotions. There was a time when I felt that I needed permission to be angry or express other negative emotions when in the company of those higher up than me in the social hierarchy (ex. elders, etc.). These would normally be dealt with through adequate spaces for these feelings to be let out --among friends and such equals. Finding the right social context or situation is everything when one is respectfully mindful of unloading one's own difficulties. For immigrant families, who are left so alienated in a foreign country due to linguistic and cultural gaps, these opportunities can become scarce. When I had had a lot of negative feelings and experiences while growing up undocumented without any outlet for them, Dr. S.L.'s affirmations would have served very well.

When I was seeing him this fall, I had already learned, particularly through political empowerment, that I am free to be angry for any perceived injustices, that there is nothing shameful about being sad or lonely at the face of what is often a cruel world, that I had consumed a lot of self-blame for failures due to a greater system of inequities, etc. The problems I brought forth weren't problems of lack of affirmation or sympathy for unexpressed or unaffirmed negative feelings. They were, I suppose, just problems that I was struggling to resolve on my own, and could benefit from help in identifying where my personal conceptions or mental/emotional state could use guidance or perspective.

I think back to these sessions with Dr. S.L. and realize that his aim was to eradicate the negative emotions, and to do it through affirmations --that I am not alone, that he sympathizes, that (between us in our safe and private online portal,) my feelings are totally justified. This is why after he affirmed my feelings, and I constantly felt that nothing had changed and this wasn't working, I sensed that he was asking me, "what, then, are you trying to accomplish here?". I did not have a ready answer then.

What I sought was not to regard these negative emotions as an end in themselves, as things to be addressed in and of themselves, as things to be stomped out. I believed these feelings came as a secondary effect to greater forces outside of my control, and that the work is in how I regard the cause(s) of these feelings. As one example of how I dealt with such emotions in the past, given examples above due to political systemic inequalities, I had in the past been an activist. This most definitely helped my feelings of self-blame and self-hate as I asserted before the federal government that they had systematically denied me opportunities by using me as a scapegoat for political gain. I sought for ways to regard and address the greater things in the world we inhabit within what is in my control.

I have shared that I received a validation with Dr. E.R. for something crucial that I had needed all my life. Dr. S.L. had just as much material from me to deduce the same from me. What Dr. E.R. did was simply note to me that I had been denied this validation, and to tell me that this seems to be where I have been stuck. Dr. S.L. tried to provide the validation for me himself, even role-playing as the person who should have originally given it to me, without quite naming what the issue is the way that Dr. E.R. did. What Dr. E.R. did was to identify the problem for me, and trust me to find a solution to what has been identified from whatever sources I found to be fit from my own understanding. In this regard, she allowed for the focus to continue on the source of the problem, and for me to find the validation in the broader world that exists outside of our video chat portal (I got it from a very helpful book). She had certainly affirmed my negative feelings, too, but noticed that it wasn't enough.

I am not contrasting their approaches to say that either of them was right and the other wrong, or that one was better than another. The two therapists simply use different methods, both of which I am sure have worked for many different people. As a result of both great therapists' work, I have now realized something about myself and what I seek for in my own therapist. I hope my reflection might help others in effectively finding what works for them.

(Note: Upon request, I am more than happy to refer anyone to Dr. S.L., or Dr. E.R., if either of them sound interesting to them. Both of their services are conducted via teletherapy with minimal video set-up requirements.)