By now mostly everyone agrees that President Obama made the "right" choice in firing General McChrystal last week.
It feels so good to fire someone!
In fact, people have been known to love to fire their spouses, their bosses, their employees, even their therapists. If you have ever had the pleasure of firing someone, then you know it will often energize you - for the moment at least.
But how do we know whether it is a "good" or strategic move to fire or whether the firing, done in a moment of explosive anger or some other emotion, may not be a good move at all?
Here's one marker: when it has been determined that the person with whom we are involved is not interested in our thoughts and feelings, then it may be a good time to end the relationship.
This is tricky because not every relationship can or should be about our thoughts and feelings. Often it is about a particular task. Still, the task is always set within a context of some larger sense of respect and thoughtfulness.
In the case of General McChrystal it seemed he was unimpressed with his commander-in-chief from the start. According to reports, after the President met with him, the General referred to the meeting as a "10 minute photo op." It is difficult to know in hindsight what came first. Was it that McChrystal did not respect or take an interest in his boss' position first? Or did that develop only after he felt the President did not value him or his mission. After all, why allot only 10 minutes with your star general, the one you have charged with an incredibly important mission?
Even though the President is far removed from most of us and most of us do not decide on matters of national security. We are the chief executives of ourselves and we are in charge of our own security. We do hire and fire people who are close to us and to whom we have entrusted ourselves. For example, many people think of their therapist as their general at least in the sense that he is an important part of their functioning while in treatment. Consequently, firing your therapist might feel to some as though they are firing a general. Yet, there are times when such a move is in order.
People often ask when they should "let go" of their therapist.
Obviously it depends on the situation and highly variable factors. I can share that most often people seem more interested in getting rid of a feeling than they are in eliminating the person. Think about it: we don't like the feeling we get when around certain people and rather than find out more about the feeling, it's far easier to get rid of the person.
When people are no longer interested in the feelings that inevitably come with a particular human connection, the relationship needs to go. It is not a question of whether the parties involved are "good" or "bad," useful or not. It is a question of whether they are interested.
Everyone -- patients, spouses, therapists, patients ought to work with someone with whom they share interest and respect.
