A possible therapeutic approach...

Cognitive, intellectualized understanding of what to do in order to achieve better mental health (i.e., "I need to be more disciplined", "I need to become less reactive", etc.) - all with its foundations in a more CBT approach, can only go so far.

In furtherance of that, to cognitively be aware of the “path”, but to consistently not meet the path’s goals, leads to reinforcement of the negative introject, the inherited dogmatic belief system of: “I know what to do, but yet I fail.  So I am a failure.  This, once again, proves that I am no good.”

Getting to the origins of the psychological ruptures, in all its myriad forms throughout the arc of ones life, leads one to more viscerally understand that our negatively introjected belief systems were truly forced upon us.  A psychic subjugation. An emotional inheritance that goes back generations.

This ‘a-ha’ process is no small feat.  It requires time and steadfast exploration - it requires a progressively learned trust via the therapeutic milieu, to allow for greater and greater vulnerability within the safe space of the patient-therapist dyad.  This can be facilitated by a variety of somatic therapeutic modalities, in concert with talk therapy.  Greater levels of free association and verbalized stream of consciousness occurs.  

The unconscious becomes conscious.

Repressed memories slowly come to the forefront of consciousness.  And the emotional relevance of known memories/experiences is seen with greater self-compassionate clarity.

We can then release the bonds/tethers/chains to that inherited belief system (Gabor Mate calls it “bad programming”).  And in the same way that during our formative years, we viscerally introjected the bad object (as a survival mechanism), we can now viscerally experience it as not originating within ourselves, but outside of us.  

We viscerally understand the parenting object as psychologically flawed due to their own emotional inheritances.  We reclaim, or more to the point, truly claim for the first time, our agency and our potential, free of bad programming. 

A patient of mine calls it “shedding”; I embrace and love their interpretation of it!

And each of us can interpret it however it makes sense for us. Regardless, it brings about a freedom to choose other behaviors and responses that have no ties to toxic inheritances, but to authentic self love.  The “healthier psychological best practices” that in the past we understood to be the "right" thing to do, but felt daunting, intimidating, & inaccessible  - they are now viscerally known to be the do-able thing.  With the unconscious tethers removed, we are free to consciously do the healthier act.  

We embody perfect imperfection, free of shame and fear.

As such, Victor Frankl’s quote carries significantly more relevance: 

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”