Actually, the last time he mentioned it he was happy with his latest therapist. But the catch is that he understands therapy in a rather different way than it's intended.
For him, the gold standard for dealing with life's indignities is having your outrageously busty friends blanket-burrito you and serve you the cocoa of Lethe, and therapists are useful as an off-brand substitute for that. He just wants someone to whine at, and it seems he has that now (or had).
As for group therapy, he's mentioned it once or twice, but nothing about what goes on there. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at one of those sessions.
Yes, this is correct.
His understanding of the role of a psychotherapist or counselor is to mother him. This is a recurring theme with Jake. He wants to be infantilized, he wants to regress to the times his mother hugged him, wrapped a blanket around him, and brought him nice things to drink and eat. He has stated this desire many times and for people other than his mental health professional. This can be understood at least in part as a
transference phenomenon. That is to say, he attempts to reproduce his mother-child relationship with persons that are not his mother. Further, his maternal need is that of a child, not a healthy adult.
The "bad" therapists were all those that refused to mother him and instead tried to use some form of psychotherapy to deal with his neuroses. There is no credible, current form of psychotherapy that entails infantilization. A desire to regress to an emotionally and materially dependent child is in fact one of his psychopathologies--it is one of his psychological problems. This problem also manifests as one of Jake's major neurotic traits, namely the refusal to become an adult. He has done everything he can to avoid adulthood:
- Full-time work;
- Gain financial independence;
- Learn to drive a car and buy a car;
- Live independently:
- Do his own shopping;
- Cook/prepare all of his meals;
- Take care of his pets;
- Complete and submit governmental paperwork in a timely fashion;
- Actively seek work;
- Complete all work as per agreed-upon time scales;
- Finish things that you start;
- Consume age-appropriate media;
- Stop using preschooler-like behavior to manipulate people. Jake's suicide baiting is the same as a child's temper tantrum;
Jake refuses all responsibility. He resists maturity everywhere he can. I too share the view that he didn't leave the gnome attic willingly. My guess is that when Rachel learned that he was referring to her as his "abuser" things came to a head. But he remains dependent on his abuser. His abuser brings him food, takes him shopping, and pays at least a part of his rent. So Jake hasn't outgrown his actual maternal dependence and he is always seeking other mothers.
The refusal to become an adult is probably at the core of Jake's psychological problems. It may be the root problem that produces his other problems. If he were compliant he could get some benefit from CBT, DBT, or ACT. For example, from CBT he could learn to not catastrophize, to not reduce everything to binary categories, and to not be so paranoid. But I think these problems are
secondary to his desire for infantilization and will reappear quickly after the CBT sessions cease. These (apparently) secondary traits all relate to a threatening hostile world and motherly protection and comfort.
I suspect that Jake requires a form of psychodynamic psychotherapy. These forms of psychotherapy address the parent-child relationship, attachment, transference, and maturation. There may be another model of psychotherapy that I am not familiar with that may better suit Jake. But I am confident that he would not achieve lasting results from CBT, DBT, or ACT.
So where do the violent fantasies fit in the above armchair diagnoses?
Jake is angry because he is not being mothered. No one is accepting his desired role as a highly dependent and vulnerable (man-)child. His mother isn't playing that role (completely) and he has been unsuccessful in finding a substitute mother. No one is going to mother a huge, fat, 6' 3" middle-aged man. One of the therapeutic goals would be to get Jake to see himself as he is, as others see him. He would also have to accept that the type of relationship that he is seeking is not what adults desire. That this desire for infantilization and mothering is not normal. This would (hopefully) eventually lead him to realize that his anger is inappropriate because his desire for a mother will never be fulfilled.
Another matter:
Jake is against the death penalty after due process but he is enthusiastic about murder and assassination of people that haven't been convicted of any crime.
