Psychological dysfunction can always be traced to abuse. If you are depressed, if you are OCD, if you have anxiety attacks, it is probably because you have been, or are being, emotionally, psychologically, or physically abused. The first step towards healing is to stop the abuse. Here is a song by Taylor Swift to help solidify that truth for you.

Despite our idolatrous worship of the “individual,” relations are the bedrock and foundation of human experience. We simply cannot survive without relationships. We start out in dependent relationships to our parents, experience our childhood in relation to our teachers, and our peers, enter work life in trade and/or corporate relationships, and build families in a relationship with our partners. Yet for all our experience “in” relationships we have remarkably little success with them. Relationships fail at ridiculous rates and many established relationships are abusive pure and simple. Perhaps it is time to put aside the idolatry of the individual and take a closer look at the significance, importance, and operation of relationships in our progressive and modern world.

Here is a song about toxic relationships and developing the will and fortitude to say, enough is enough. Assert boundaries, expect to be treated nice, and say I’m worth the concern and the care. It is something that has to be done. You cannot heal psychological trauma, you cannot emerge from neurosis or psychosis, you cannot have healthy intimate relationships while you are still embedded in the toxic gunk of your “normal” life.

One of the biggest hurdles to successful therapy is awareness. As children we are taught to suppress our awareness, and play the game of social niceties. We learn through the years that what people want to hear is a superficial illusion. Everything is OK in our life, in our relationship, and in our childhood. Coming into therapy we often want to maintain our illusions, but that won’t work. The first step in any successful regime is an honest assessment of the environment/life you live, not as a judgment but as a way to identify what areas need attention. Here is a story that speaks about illusion, and reality. If you want to start your healing process, the first thing to do is to face the truth.