MARINA OPPENHEIMER BOOKS AND BLOG

RELACIONES PELIGROSAS

Una de las consecuencias más negativas del sentimiento de soledad es no ser cuidadoso con los amigos que elegimos. Es tan profundo el temor a sentirnos solos en el mundo que cualquier persona que nos demuestra un dejo de simpatía es bienvenida a nuestra vida. Si bien cuando estamos en pareja no tenemos esa necesidad imperiosa de rodearnos de amigos, cuando la pareja se quiebra puede ocurrir que caigamos en la trampa de atraer a nuestro lado relaciones peligrosas. Bien conocidas son las estafas de mafiosos que utilizan fotos de las plataformas sociales para engañar a mujeres, en general de edad mediana y ávidas de cariño. De acuerdo al FBI el monto de estos fraudes alcanza millones de dólares. Pero no me refiero a estos casos desesperados, sino a situaciones más comunes y cotidianas. Mucha de la gente que nos rodea lleva vidas infelices, existencias sin rumbo definido y acosadas por facturas pendientes. No pocas veces el trabajo que hacen no los satisface y su matrimonio tampoco; otros tienen graves problemas con sus hijos y les es casi imposible disimular el rencor que sienten con el mundo entero. Esto me recuerda una pareja que conocí hace unos años, ambos contadores, pero grandes admiradores de Carl Jung. De lejos parecían una pareja como cualquier otra, pero de cerca no costaba mucho percibir que tenían serios problemas matrimoniales. Como nos unía el interés por la psicología jungiana, nuestros encuentros eran de lo más agradables. Hasta que, pasado un cierto tiempo, empezaron a triangularme en sus desencuentros de pareja y tuve que alejarme. El procedimiento era sencillo: él se quejaba de un incidente entre ambos y me preguntaba mi opinión; a pesar de ser mis respuestas sumamente vagas, ella se enojaba conmigo, y él le daba la razón. Ésto les permitía sentirse unidos por un par de horas. La pérdida de esta amistad no fue demasiado grave ya que nuestra relación tenía pocos meses de vida; pero tengo que admitir que yo no necesitaba otra pérdida más. Después de cada pérdida hay que volver a empezar. Mejor entonces ser cuidadosos y evitar caer en las redes ávidas de los que necesitan de otros para descargar su ira con la vida.

Irene Salazar, Gabriela Matacotta and 4 others

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One of the most negative consequences of feeling lonely is not being careful about the friends we choose. The fear of feeling alone in the world is so profound that anyone who shows us some kindness is welcome into our lives. While when we have a partner, we don't feel that urgent need to surround ourselves with companions, when we break-up we risk falling into the trap of attracting dangerous relationships alongside us. Well known are the scams with photos of social platforms to defraud women, generally middle-aged and desperate for being loved again. According to the FBI, the amount of these frauds reaches millions of dollars. But I'm not talking here about these desperate cases, but of more common and close to home situations. Many of the people around us lead unhappy lives, aimlessly defined existences harassed by unfinished businesses. Not infrequently the work they do doesn't satisfy them, and neither does their marriage; others have serious problems with their children and it is almost impossible for them to disguise their ill feelings towards the whole world. This reminds me of a couple I met several years ago, both accountants but big fans of Carl Jung. From afar they looked like any other couple, but it didn't take much to detect their serious marital difficulties. Since their interest in Jungian psychology was real, our encounters were very pleasant. Until one day, when after having dinner together, they started triangulating me and I had to walk away. Their procedure was simple: he complained about a misunderstanding between the two of them and requested my opinion. Although my answers were always as vague as possible, the wife became angry and the husband allied with her. This way I was transformed into the scapegoat and they felt united for a couple of hours. Since this was a new friendship, its loss was not significant for me; although I have to admit that I didn't need another loss in my life. After each loss we have to start over, so it’s preferably to be careful and avoid falling into the voracious nets of those who need others to unload their anger at life.

MI PASADO, una poesía en tres estrofas

WITHOUT A GUARDIAN ANGEL LIFE CAN BE TROUBLESOME

Although I was born a Catholic, I don’t believe in institutionalized religion. I agree with Krishnamurti when he says that “Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.” In other words, each one of us has to create his/her own view of the world and transcendence. A gigantic task, no doubt about it; but as luck would have it, life gives us a hand in this endeavor. In my case I realized that, without the assistance of a guardian angel, some of my life events would have ended very differently.

It was the year 1976. My parents had gone to spend the summer at a house they had built on the Argentine coast. I was in Buenos Aires and had not planned to go anywhere because I had just started a new job. Suddenly, for no reason, I felt the need to go visit my parents; on Friday afternoon I asked my boyfriend to be my copilot. On Saturday morning we left and, after a five hour drive, we arrived to my parent’s house. That evening my father suffered a cardiovascular syncope and the doctor urged us to take him to see his cardiologist in Buenos Aires. So we did, but during his medical consultation my father had another attack and died at the hospital without regaining consciousness. If my guardian angel had not incited me to travel, I would not have seen my father for the last time.

This was in 1976. In 1977 I emigrated to the United States, which I would not have done if my father was still alive. It was in the United States that I built myself the life I had always wanted to have. What transpires from these events and many other events in my life is that when we watch closely beyond the surface, we can uncover an order that goes beyond coincidence and luck.

DEPRESSION PSYCHOTHERAPY GROUPS FOR CLINICIANS

This book includes eight sessions with information and activirties. It is a fantastic tool for clinicians who run groups for severely depressed patients.

LIFE WITHOUT MUSIC WOULD BE A MISTAKE. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Friedrich Nietzsche once stated that without music life would be a mistake. I have

to admit that it took me a while to understand the real meaning of his quote. Until one day by pure chance I listened to the music of a Mexican composer, Ernesto Cortazar. Although I have always been a fan of classical music, especially Mozart, alone in my house during the COVID outbreak for some reason Mozart was not what I longed to listen to. Perhaps the life stage I am going through needed something different, more in tune with who I had been and who I was. Being divorced and alone due to social distancing, I needed to reconnect to the beginnings of my journey; to that time of my life before all the tests and the trials. The first day I listened to Cortazar I felt like he had composed his music just for me: it spoke to me of the country I had left behind when I was still young, it reminded me of my youth, of my family of origin and of what my life had been before the challenges that came later. Listening to those notes transported me to that place in our heart where we are never alone because we are connected to our starting point. It was then that I understood what Nietzsche meant when he spoke about music making us feel valuable, loved and deserving a meaningful journey. Needless to say, Cortazar has become my daily companion, when I write, when I walk the dog, when I sit in my apartment balcony with a glass of wine. His music helps me understand how my life has traveled the perfect road despite sometimes feeling lost and hopeless. In a few words, music always reminds me of who I am. Definitely, music is a window to transcendence.

PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION: A COUPLE’S WORST CHALLENGE

Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein coined the term projective identification in her work ‘Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms’ in 1946. We can say that projective identification is a defense mechanism that allows us to unload on another person those issues that are too problematic for us to acknowledge. The term identification is used because the victim of the projection ends up believing that the projected issues are really hers. An example will explain better how this psychological mechanism works. I remember one patient of mine from when I was still in private practice, who had a very difficult relationship with his mother. The mother was severely narcissistic, so much so that growing up my patient too developed a narcissistic personality disorder. When the time was right, he chose to marry a woman with a dependent personality disorder; in addition, she suffered abandonment issues due to her insecure attachment to her mother in childhood. Since my patient was unable to confront his mother about her sense of entitlement and her permanent criticism, the easiest way for him to deal with these issues was to project them unto his wife, and as a result criticize her instead of his mother. As a result, the wife became her mother-in-law replacement as well as the recipient of her husband’s unresolved maternal dilemmas. Being codependent and afraid of being abandoned, the wife did not react to the psychological attack from her husband; when he accused her for being arrogant and critical (his mother’s personality traits), she became convinced he was right. Unfortunately, being my patient severely narcissistic, none of my clinical interventions ever worked. Every time I brought up his unconscious anger against mother, he denied it and criticized me. Time went by and one day the wife decided to start marital therapy. Since I had been her husband's therapist, she chose another clinician for couple’s therapy; I felt relieved. After some months had passed, I decided to make a follow-up call to my patient. He told me that the couples’ therapist had suggested that they have a family session with his mother so that he could honestly reveal to her his life-long resentment and get rid of it; otherwise, the marriage would be over. Unfortunately, my patient’s anger towards his mother was so threatening that he was unable to face her in a family session. Divorce ensued. Now let’s remember for a moment Socrates dictum: “A non-examined life is not worth living.” Why? Because instead of owning our unfinished businesses, solving them and becoming wiser, we deny them, project them, and in the process ruin other people’s lives. (Let me add here that by not solving his unconscious issues, my patient will continue projecting them unto every partner he meets, and marital happiness will forever elude him.)