Matthew Bennett

Into darkest France. Last time I was in London, this tunnel under the channel did not exist. And I can't help but reflect on the change of energy from the British to the Gallic. I felt in Britain an archetype that was structured, courteous, dependable, restrained, and conscientious. But there was also a shadow... bureaucracy without adequate self awareness, paternalism, and an unspoken assumption that the individual should accommodate the institution. Some of this agrees with my American heart, and some does not. The French archetype is next. It has always felt chthonic, circuitous, sensual, revolutionary, and intense to me. There is an underground kind of feeling emerging. – at Camden Town, London

As a psychologist, the deeper question i like to ask is: what in particular do you do with your own darkness? – at Brighton, England

There's something uniquely British about closing several train stations in order to prevent overcrowding. – at Brighton, England

Getting my Pre-Raphaelite fix during my last days in London. – at Lambeth, London

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a real relationship with a real person. It is a boundaried attachment experience which the therapeutic contract demands we observe with excruciating honesty. It must happen between two sentient beings that are capable of emotions and especially shame. The therapists unique responsibility is to bring a reflective function to that relationship (whether the client has that reflective function or not), and that reflective function comes from learning to lovingly tolerate shame. Nothing you can get from an AI will provide what I wrote above, although AI can help with other aspects of therapy such as frame-shifting, psychoeducation, and identifying cognitive distortions. This is why I think AI will replace (already is replacing) therapies such as CBT and many other "evidence based" therapies, but it cannot replace psychodyhamic relational psychotherapy. – at Islington, London

The hidden motivation of depressive introjection is to continue to find a way to idealize, and therefore love, the other. As is common among children who tend to blame themselves for their parents’ divorce, the depressive calculus is that it is better to believe that “this is all my fault” than to countenance the alternative, that love itself sometimes fails. In this sense, depressive introjection serves a defensive value against abandonment anxiety, and amounts to wishfully populating the world with idealized objects who can be trusted with love. – at Islington, London

Where did i get all this trickster energy, and what do I do with it? – at Kensington, London

People with history of trauma are like holes in the walls of the universe. They allow extraplanar possibilities to leak through. – at Kensington, London

Therapist challenge: In session, don't say more than you can say on one breath. – at Kensington, London