Last night at my group therapy session, I had a shocking realization. (I’ve often thought that instead of its current title, my poetry “book” should be called “My Shitty Epiphany.”)

I’m very much in touch with all the pain I’ve experienced as a result of that rape (I prefer not to call it a “molestation.”) — but I discovered that I’m not at all in touch with the good things I let myself miss because of this.

Last week’s session felt like I made some real progress, and I noticed two changes as a result — first, I was really testy with almost everyone around me, and second, I felt much closer, felt much more warmth and affection, for my girlfriend, K.

The crankiness does not surprise me — when you start dealing with buried anger as I am, a little may leak out when you stir things up. But the wave of love and affection? Have I been burying those feelings along with the anger all these years? My sense of loss is almost palpable here — what other things have I allowed myself to miss, or not allowed myself to enjoy because of all this buried anger, fear, guilt, and grief?

Therapy has been something I did to avoid pain — now it may become something that opens the door to joy. That’s a very different thing.

It’s one of the seminal books in analysis and therapy. I really found it full of insights and recognitions, both pleasant and unpleasant. I’m not really one for “self-help” books — most of them strike me as boring reading for self-absorbed people — but this one is really different.

One of the most striking things about the book — and I’ve heard this as well from other people who’ve read it — is the shocking sense of recognition you get as you read it. It’s like she’s met certain of your friends and family members and is describing them specifically. Of course, this isn’t true — it’s simply the universality of her insights.

It has faults, of course — most of them stemming from when it was written. Horney spends far too much time explaining how she differs from Freud — perhaps revolutionary when she wrote it in the 1940s, but a little tedious now when people aren’t so enchanted with Freud.

Also, her almost exclusive use of the male pronoun, while grammatically correct, tends to fall strangely on modern ears.

Still, the book is well-worth a read — I plan to reread my copy. Highly recommended.