Dear Javier,

I am sorry that the stay in the clinic didn’t seem to have helped much.

How was your medical checkup? And the neurotransmitter measurement? What are the conclusions?

After my last session, I’m stuck in my past. I miss everything and everyone from when I was a kid. My family, my friends, my classmates, my teachers, my relatives, the good times. I miss being young and full of life.

What did you do in the session? It appears you went back to your childhood, but somehow remember it only in positive terms, even though you suffered pretty much as a child. But it seems you remember only the good times, and forget about the bad times, and this exacerbates your sense of loss…

What I think is one of the main problems is that you’re completely identified with the part that is helpless and feels guilty for everything. There are more parts of our personality, but you’re completely identified with that one part. In order for therapy and healing to work, you’d need to “unblend” from that part. You’d need to step back and realize that this helpless and guilty part is not the entirety of who you are. You’d need to access your true self, which is beyond this helpless, guilty part that you’re stuck in.

One quality of our true self is the ability to witness and observe all of our thoughts and feelings, and all of our parts – without judgment. So if you can observe the helpless and guilty part, but not identify with it, that would be an important step in your healing.

One of the ways to develop and strengthen the witnessing part is to stay in the present moment, breathe slowly and follow your breath as it goes in and out of your nostrils – in short, methods used in mindfulness meditation. Would you be willing to explore that more?