START HERE: The meaning of Bert

A Monkeytraps reader once asked me to explain what Bert — this odd gumdrop-shaped gorilla — stands for.

“He’s my inner monkey,” I wrote back.  “He stands for the part of me that tries to control stuff.”

He stands for that part of you, too.

The essential fact about Bert is that he wants control he can’t have.  It’s what drove him into therapy, and what makes him like everyone else.

Mostly he wants to control his emotional life, how he feels inside. And he tries to do it the way all control addicts do: by controlling people, places and things.

It doesn’t work, of course.  So here he is.

Another reader asked about Bert’s therapist and the theory behind his approach.  I wrote, “Bert’s Therapy tries to show how four basic ideas behind Monkeytraps might be applied in a therapeutic setting. Those ideas are

1. Human beings are addicted to control,

2. This addiction causes most (maybe all) our emotional problems,

3. Behind all controlling stands the wish to control feelings,

4. There are better ways of handling feelings than control.

“As for technique, Bert’s therapist is neither fish nor fowl. His approach combines psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral and Gestalt elements, depending on which alternative to control he’s trying to teach at the time.

“Sometimes he’ll urge Bert to detach from his feelings in an attempt to teach him to surrender (the spiritual alternative). Sometimes he’ll urge Bert to uncover buried feelings in an attempt to practice responsibility (the emotional alternative). And sometimes he’ll urges Bert to express himself more fully to other people in attempt to develop his capacity for intimacy (the interpersonal alternative).

“The techniques may vary, but the goal is always the same: to help this monkey heal himself by reducing his need to control what either can’t or shouldn’t be controlled.”

love,

~ Steve

PS:  Readers interested in Bert’s origins can find them described in these Monkeytraps posts:

Bert’s born  

Bert’s born, part 2

Bert’s mission

Bert is nuts