Suffering From Illusion: the Secret Victory of Self-Defeat

The secrets hidden within our self-defeat reveal surprisingly simple and paradoxical answers. Universal childhood errors of thinking unconsciously lead us to cause our own pain by pursuing mere illusions, such as pure love, perfection, certainty, security, and grandiose power. The secretly vengeful victim role perpetuates these self-defeating strivings through the unconscious, powerful, and computer-like operations of its satisfying fantasies. We recover when we give up polarized thinking, own all inner parts, accept life's limits and pain, settle for realistic satisfactions, embrace disillusionment, forgive our lengthy folly, and accept reality as balanced and paradoxical. The secrets are acceptance, balance, compromise, deflation, and forgiveness. Born in Paris, France, Dr. Sayers R. Brenner received his medical training from Tulane University Medical School and the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio. Since completing his psychiatric training at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in 1974, he has been in private psychiatric practice. A member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, he has developed special expertise in the application of paradoxical, existential, cognitive, hypnotic, and Eastern philosophical concepts to the process of insight-oriented psychotherapy. He practices and lives in Sarasota, FL.