I think the dark made it easier for Jake to open up. It's like his 'act' that we see a lot falls away and he is suddenly more vulnerable and able to dig deep. Of course, some of that could be because Amy wasn't there.
Will she be back...I don't know. Part of me gets irritated with her because while I know she needs help and I get Paul's explanation as to why she cheated on Jake/ does 'bad' things, I still think that her sleeping with Reeves was SO weak. I mean, really. All she had to do was say, "I'm feeling conflicted and therefore I'm NOT going to do this." It isn't as though she seems particularly impulsive or out of control. If she was prone to doing things often, where she just couldn't help herself, I could understand it a little more. Again, I'm not a psychologist! It's just hard to be sympathetic for her character.
I do, strangely, like her a little better since she came clean about some of the things from her childhood - very painful. But the sleeping with Reeves bit was a huge turn off.
It is difficult to feel empathy for Amy because she is such a contained person. But her fragility i very much in evidence when she talks about her childhood. I think Paul got it right last week when he suggested that she is looking for confirmation that she is bad and that this arises from her deep guilt about her father's death.
I agree with you about the dark and Jake's demeanor after the lights went out. That's what I meant by it being an example of synchronicity.
so yes this is TV and not real life in that healing seems quickened...so jake now goes back to the source and even opens up to the fact the has been repeating patterns of his relationship with his dad, with Amy... so there is that realization. Now what? Most people take a while to break the cycle, the attraction/addiction to the pattern, the cycle, say, of attraction to that same "love" one was getting as a child (yes, love can mean emptiness in this case, a false sense of love)... my question is--how does he change? by being conscious of the choices and making new ones, which may seem dull and unfamiliar at first but then soon become satisfying? how have you seen this play out in your patients, does sometime simply the "aha" of awareness give them the juice to change (ie. getting present to it, or even the pain they have unknowingly been repeating on themselves) and for others, just day by day behavioural changes?
Once in a while the insight is enough to make change but insight that is intellectual without being truly felt and experienced goes nowhere. Most people have to arrive at that insight several times before it really sinks in.
There is a film I just love which unfortunately is not available on DVD -- it is "Lady in the Dark", and is a musical about psychoanalysis. In it there is a scene in which the central character leaves her analyst's office newly struck with an important insight and dances from shadow into sunlight. I saw this film when I was quite young and I thought that is how it would be. The critical insight would come and then presto-changeo everything would fall into place. I was chagrined to learn it isn't like that.
I have just started watching in treatment and have been reading your commentaries afterwards. Some of the week 2 entries are not there they have links to the week 8 entries .. though I would just point it out to you...
Thanks for catching that, Judy. I went in and made sure that now they all point to the correct post.
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