Well, it looks like there really might be a helpful good talk-therapy topic, after all. Here it is:

Why does the fantasy of doing action X cause so much pain?

At the end of the day, the problem of psychotherapy is action, not thinking. But theory is impotent in the domain of action. There is no thinking that is itself a volitional body action. Thinking doesn’t cause problems; thinking can’t be “sick.” Only actions enmesh with reality, only material facts can make sick.

Neurosis is not doing what one ought to do because of great pain. Pain is the only force on the self, and is surely the original force, which creates clinging that manifests as locomotion. The yoga of spirit and matter is pain.

Biology is economical, so event association is indiscriminate, so every pain that arises also invokes meaning and fantasy. Every subtle torso pain (that is, every emotion or “somatic”) is strongly linked to a meaning, so that the two arise together. The feeling-and-meaning causes us to react with additional meanings and images, until we are submerged in a self-subsisting meaning-feeling (emotion). In reaction to our painful reaction, we then invoke a false meaning and may even adopt a false purpose or self-report, which has the effect of reducing the pain but thwarting our original goal attainment. The world, its meanings, our plans, and even our reasons are all altered in reaction to meaning-feelings that lead to panic as a pain-avoidance strategy.

It is not the action that is the problem, it is what we feel when we consider doing it. A death-response arises. A maximal terror arises. Flee now arises. Well, “fleeing” from a proposition just means you put it back on the shelf. Think about something else. Do something else.

Now, the one and only useful talk therapy topic for depth psychology (or: the search for occult causes of self-ness) is this —

Why does the idea of doing action X secret so much adrenaline and fantasies and secrete even more, which loops and makes me panic?

The answer seems obvious: because of conditioning. We expect Y to follow from X because it has in the past.

But there are many past sequences that don’t make us panic.