The Whole Story

People always say, "If I knew then what I know now...."

Unfortunately, you didn't, and it's impossible to fix that. What's done is done, you can only move forward. What you can change is other peoples' experience. No one else has to go through what you did.

This has been my experience in the mental health field. Don't get me wrong- I still love the knowledge, the clients, and everything I've learned. However, did anyone tell me I'd have to buy a metro card, travel an hour, and work for free for 400 hours while paying for my own analysis (at $100-$150 a session) and ridiculous fees for classes year after year? Sure, I should have known better, but I didn't. I just wanted to get a degree in a field about which I was passionate.

I think psychoanalysis is a dying art. It's dying relatively slowly, and it's doing so in a beautiful and graceful manner. Researchers and others in the field will tell you that talk therapy works. That it has the highest success rates. That is one of the best attempts one can make at successfully feeling better. Downside being that it takes time, patience, uncertainty, and... yep, money! Not that medication and psychiatrists don't, but insurance will do wonders.

Yet, I still believe in analysis, and I want it to thrive. Most of all because if not, I did all this for naught. My colleagues have done all this for naught.  That's a lot of naught. After all, the certificate program at my school is currently at least 10 years. That's about 1/3 of your career, 1/9 of your life, and that's if you make it through quickly.

No one told me that.

Here I am. No job, no money, and no certainty as to where I will be in my next 10 years. Best case scenario, I either do the certificate program and get involved with the referral service, in which case I can make a few bucks, and move onto a private clinic once I, presumably, get my license. Or, if I don't want to sacrifice all that time, I can find a safe job at a clinic or hospital. Not bad.

Worse case scenario, either a client staples my hand to my chin and forces me to watch him eat my goldfish... or I have a mental breakdown and check into a mental ward.

In the meantime, I'm struggling to pay for my required analysis sessions and tuition, I am struggling to stay motivated, and I am struggling to keep my eyes on the prize.

I don't have a solution to this yet, I don't claim to know the answer. As, part of life is surviving and tolerating those frustrating bumps in the road. One more year of school, though. That's my mantra: One More Year.