"Until we stop ourselves or, more often, have been        

        stopped, we hope to put certain of life's events "behind us"

        and get on with our living. After we stop we see that certain

        of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will

        pass through them again and again, each time with a new

        story, each time with a greater understanding, until they

        become indistinguishable from our blessings and our

        wisdom. It's the way life teaches us to live."

           Our fear is that pain will grow bigger and bigger until it is equated

            with the whole of reality.  The terror of the feeling that there is no

            escape adds to the fear of pain.  It is the intensity of fear that gener-

            ates a hatred of  pain.

            Psychotherapy counters such tendencies by bringing attention to the

            way we process or fail to face pain.  In psychotherapy, pain is investi-

            gated interpersonally.  We strive to find an emotional language to

            describe and transform the experience of pain.

            It sounds counter-intuitive to recommend learning to observe pain.

           Won’t focusing on the experience of pain make it worse? Actually, just

            the opposite is often true.  Pain becomes unbearable to the degree that

            we actively fight against it.  Denial of pain creates impasse.  Hatred of

            the often shameful feelings that seem to arise around painful experi-

            ences only compounds the sense of helplessness and fear.

            Psychotherapy … makes possible the special conditions necessary to

            begin to observe pain and to gradually transform the experience of it

            by tolerating and describing it.

                                                                                     - A Fruitful Harvest