Table of Contents

Recent Article

We’ve just published an article on couples therapy & what to expect if you come to us to work on your intimate relationship .

It’s about a 7 minute read and hopefully should give some useful background to couples therapy in general and in particular the way in which both of us with couples.

We hope you find it useful.

Related articles

Here are some related articles we’ve written on couples therapy:

Relationship in Confinement

10 Tips for Secure Couples

Reflections on the Couple Bubble

Couples Work and the Third

Table of Contents

The Challenge

In this post we want to look at relationship in confinement, particularly for intimate relationships, and the potential dynamics between the partners.

With the difficulties of COVID-19, these dynamics can be an extra challenge, because many of us are forced to be in closer contact with our partners than would normally be the case. So points of friction, which we might otherwise have swept under the carpet (or fled from) can become exacerbated.

We’ll look at this from a depth-psychology viewpoint, which is a useful model for the complexities that occur.

The Depth-Psychology View of Relationships

The image above shows a depth-psychology view of a relationship, especially of an intimate relationship between two people (of same or different genders). Each arrow (all 6 of them) presents a form of the relationship that gets invoked.

A book could be written about the model above, but we thought we would try to distill it for the current circumstance.

(Note, as with all psychological models, they are only that, models to help us understand. Reality itself is always far more nuanced and complex than any model describes.)

These six relationships mean 12 points of relating, across the two people, only 2 of which are completely conscious (and 4 partially conscious). No wonder things sometimes go wrong!

Let’s look at the four kinds of relationship, marked 1 to 4 in the image above.

(1) Ego with Ego

Ego is the conscious sense of self – the subject of our experience. Ego is the one we present to ourselves and to others as the “real deal” (however, it may not be quite that simple).

The Ego has its “public relations” component, the persona, or mask, that we use to adapt to others and make a statement we’d like to make, that feels appropriate in a particular situation.

It’s the persona particularly that may be challenged in our interactions during unusual circumstances, such as the COVID-19 lock-down. It’s hard to be a senior executive when you must also be tutoring your kids or doing the laundry, all in the same workday.

We may have to reflect on our ego, and how the egos of the others we are living with are affecting us.

(2) Ego with our own Unconscious

This is a huge topic, one we can only skim over here. It’s the subject of all deep psychological work: How can we have a dialogue, an open two-way relationship between our conscious ego and the vast (99% at least) of the psyche that remains unconscious to us?

Suffice it to say that successful work on ourselves is the precursor and best predictor of effective work on a relationship. We can work to change ourselves; we cannot work to change the other, for if we attempt to do this we will have fallen into the potential difficulties described in (3) below.

The Unconscious has an important historical component: much that has happened to us, good and bad, from childhood onward (and prior to our birth, as collective memory) is held unconsciously. It is these historical components that can hold sway over us, and can affect the functioning of the Ego.

(3) Our Unconscious with Ego of the Other

A feature of the Unconscious is that it holds these repressed elements, as we mentioned above. Another feature is that it continually involves itself in projection.

“Projection is a psychic mechanism that occurs whenever a vital aspect of our personality of which we are unaware is activated. When something is projected we see it outside of us, as though it belongs to someone else and has nothing to do with us. Projection is an unconscious mechanism.

We do not decide to project something, it happens automatically. If we decided to project something it would be conscious to us and then, precisely because it is conscious to us, it could not be projected. Only unconscious contents are projected; once something has become conscious projection ceases.” †

Projection is a huge factor in the flavour of the Unconscious-Ego relationship, especially in an intimate relationship. We can never be without projection. But what we can do is start to become aware of what we projecting onto others.

There are levels in this: at a “micro” level we might be continually expecting our partner to behave in ways that we have programmed in from our childhood experiences with our own parents or siblings; or how things “naturally” work in society (“women do the housework”).

But at a “macro” level there the danger that the work we should be doing, we do not do: instead we project our lack in this area onto the other partner.

An example at this macro level is when a man has had a negative experience with his mother, and his feminine unconscious side (the so-called anima in Jungian language) has been wounded as a consequence.

Instead of investigating this resulting internal misogyny, he projects the  “problem woman” out onto his partner – seeing her as lacking and negative in various ways.

Another factor that comes into play here is the contra-sexual side of each of us. Often we are not in contact with this, and it can play havoc in the Unconscious-Ego interactions.

“The contra-sexual element within us is so psychologically elusive that it escapes our complete awareness, therefore it always is projected, at least in part.” ‡

So a woman may project her “Shining White Knight” onto the man of her dreams, and only too late find that he is a primarily money-focused achiever who cannot give her what she wants (which is, actually, to have a relationship with that Knight living in her unconscious).

(Note this is unrelated to the genders of the partners – it applies in same sex as well as different sex relationships: we are usually, at some level, mainly at an unconscious level, trying to work out and redeem our contra-sexual side.)

(4) Our Unconscious with the other’s Unconscious

In the example given, of the man projecting his negative mother onto women, the story does not end there.

She in turn, due to her unconscious predisposition, may “take on” this projection, feeling the very things that are projected onto her. (This is called projective identification.) So her ego response changes, as she begins to feel worthless.

However, that is probably not the end of the subject, because unconsciously she is probably bitterly disappointed and angry and will reap her revenge on her partner (again, unconsciously).

We are now talking of interactions that are unconscious with unconscious, and these are difficult to investigate, since neither party knows what’s happening! This is exactly when a third party such as a therapist can assist as they may see the dynamic playing out, because they are not personally involved (and have seen it before).

“There is little doubt that such projective identifications occur. They feel wonderful when one senses that one has come home through the agency of the Other; they feel diabolical if one feels possessed by the Other.

How many pogroms, martyrdoms, burnings, mass hysterias have scarred history, destroyed lives, because of … contamination between [the unconscious of two people]?” §

Wrapping Up

It is our intention here to offer a model for the complexities of relationships, which may in this difficult time be more in evidence.

The good news is that, often, if couples address issues they are having before there is a crisis, good work can be done in exploring some of the “skeletons in the closet”, and enabling the couple to feel relieved and better able to tackle the difficulties of the world they are facing.

As the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Iain McGilchrist says, you can take a poisonous gas (chlorine) and a dull reactive metal (sodium) and combine them chemically to form a harmless but very necessary white substance – salt!

A relationship, too, can undergo such an alchemical miracle, made from two possibly quite odd components!

If you wish are seeking to make a change in your relationship feel free to reach out to us for support.

† John A Sanford – The Invisible Partners, p10
‡ John A Sanford – The Invisible Partners, p11
§ James Hollis – The Eden Project, p54

Table of Contents

Our Inner Struggles & the Inner Realm

These are difficult times for us all with the coronavirus. We all feel the need for support, at many levels, when so many certainties about our world have dropped away. Many rely on the internet for much of this support.

And while there are practical suggestions and community groups that are doing a wonderful job, at another level people may also feel the lack of internal support – support that is available in moments of solitude, moments of family pressure, or during long sleepless nights.

So here are some ideas for internal support, that occur to us, and that we ourselves use. They are ideas to support your inner, psychological, realm; to help find ways through dark times. We hope they’re useful.

The Nekyia

In Jungian thought and in the work of James Hillman the idea of a nekyia or katabasis is explored as a initiatory rite in which the individual is invited (or compelled) to undergo difficult passages or processes that are associated with the underworld, with darkness and with great difficulties.

Examples from mythology abound: Jonah in the belly of the whale, Persephone’s time in the underworld, Psyche’s descent into the underworld to be re-united with Eros.

Hillman says (in his book The Dream and the Underworld, p47):

Being in the underworld means psychic being … where soul comes first.

So there is perhaps a way to revision these dark, difficult times as invitations to travel into the dark places within ourselves, and to explore these places. To question, What is soul for us? What resides there?

What can sustain us and what can we learn from this period in which we may not be able to get our outer world needs met – connection, control, money, desire? What can replace partying, travel, shopping or eating out in our favourite restaurant?

Traditionally, the nekyia is an initiatory experience, a process that differs significantly from a heroic conquest. Although the person undertaking the underworld journey returns, they return as a different person (with perhaps more understanding of the idea of soul). One foot may forever after remain in the underworld. Their psychological world has deepened permanently.

Ram Dass and the Witness

The witness place inside you is simple awareness, the part of you that is aware of everything — just noticing, watching, not judging, just being present, being here now. – Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror.

The witness is another layer of consciousness, one untroubled by our incessant anxious thinking layer. It is an awareness of our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. For some, staying as the witness can be a powerful practice, a way out of the maze of attachments to worldly concerns.

Although there are many awareness and mindfulness practices on the web, Ram Dass’s own Cultivating the Witness can be one of the most powerful.

G.K. Chesterton and Allowing Mystery

An approach that may have power for some is to reflect upon the fact that we are all surrounded by mysteries – ones far greater than those of which we can be aware.

There is no need for religious or spiritual beliefs here (though these are not excluded): our senses detect only a small proportion of the energy systems within which we are immersed. Although our scientific instruments vastly extend these ranges, they are merely devices for converting these extra-sensory ranges into what is amenable to the human.

We use, for example, sonar, radar, and wifi for these purposes. Dogs hear way more than we do! And telepathic experiments leads us to believe we may be interconnected at very subtle levels.

For some, to know that day and night we are surrounded by mystery, is a solace.

G.K. Chesterton wrote about this in his 1908 book Orthodoxy:

As long as you have mystery you have health.

The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

(You can read the full quote here.)

As an analogy, Chesterton speaks of the sun:

The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.

(All quotations are from G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.)

Whatever difficulties we experience in the outer world, all of this rests on a far greater mystery than we can possibly envision.

Easwaran and the Mantram

The mantram (or mantra) is a tried-and-true device for drowning out the incessant chatter of a troubled mind. Traditionally, spiritual gurus gave specific mantras to their students. However, it can sometimes be a powerful practice to take our own short phrase or sentence that provides comfort, and to repeat this quietly in times of stress. Our anxious mind takes a break, as we rest into words that soothe.

Eknath Easwaran wrote a beautiful book called The Mantram Handbook which discusses in detail how one can arrive at a mantram that is personal and powerful.

In the introduction to this book, the neuroscientist Daniel H. Lowenstein says:

From studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we know that concentrating on a short phrase will activate specific areas in the front and side of the brain. These areas, the frontal and parietal lobes, are involved in selective attention – the capacity to maintain a single focus despite the presence of distracting stimuli. In this way, the mental repetition of a simple phrase like a mantram can provide a guidewire to move your attention away from a troubling stream of thoughts. It is as though the mantram provides access to a peaceful, grounded center that puts our cravings, drives, and other immediate needs in perspective.

We recommend Easwaran’s book as a practical guide for choosing a mantram. Easwaran also gives examples of mantra from Eastern and Western spiritual disciplines, and advice on how to make the mantram you choose go deep into your subconscious, replacing anxiety-creating thoughts and energies.

Serenity Prayer

Sometimes simple is best!

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

See more on the serenity prayer on the Serenity Prayer wikipedia page.

Gratitude Practice

It is easy to miss what we can still be grateful for in troubled times. We are all an integral part of nature and respond deeply to other parts of nature – such as ever-changing clouds in a blue or a dark sky; to the beauty of rain falling, leaves on a tree (even when seen only from our window).

We can be grateful for our loved ones, for the abilities of our bodies, for the food we can still eat, for the legions of essential service personnel who are putting themselves on the line every day at the moment, to help us be safer. We can be grateful for art and for music. We can be grateful for our breath.

We can reflect on how grateful we are for these things, to not let them go unnoticed. And we can also choose to share our gratitude with others.

* From Ron’s folio Notes to a Nekyia.
** From Ron’s folio postcards from cerebria.

Table of Contents

Couples Work as More than Conflict Resolution

At Therapy Duo, in Couples therapy, we often take a psycho-educational role and offer very practical tips for resolving couple conflicts. But we are also always aware of another level operating in the couple relationships we see.

This level can be hard to pin down and define, and yet we as therapists often have a real sense of its presence and how it might be accessed further to transform a relationship. In this blog post we will try to say a little about this other level (“the third”).

The Legacy of Scientific Thinking

Culturally and educationally, society is swayed by a scientific view of things. The rise of science since the end of the seventeenth century has been extraordinary, and no-one would deny the tremendous gains that have come from this.

Science is an exacting lens on nature, a champion of the “cause and effect” paradigm (i.e. that all effects have causes, which are previous to them in time). Science has brought about amazing devices such as our computers and smartphones.

It’s interesting to note though, that at about the time of the beginning of the rise of science, another world view was dying out in the West. This was the world of (Western) alchemy, and it works in an opposite direction to science.

While science was starting to become a study of material life, and how matter changes over time (by a disembodied subject), alchemy was always a science of the soul.  Although some still see alchemy as just a primitive version of chemistry, other current thinking is that in fact they were diametrically opposed disciplines, in their intended goals, operating within two markedly different paradigms.

Science wants to (and has been very successful at) demarcating a split between subject and object. It enables subjects (people) to successfully manipulate objects (nature). Yet, with science we are at a crossroads now: this process cannot continue unabated without destroying the earth, through climate change and species extinction. We could say that science has been a victim of its extraordinary success.

Alchemy: The Other Discipline

Some commentators are now starting to look closely at Western alchemy again, and to wonder whether in fact we threw too much out when we assigned it to the dustbin of history.

For what was it trying to do? Alchemy insisted that subject and object are always linked (evidence that quantum physics is now corroborating); that soul exists as an inner life that moves by its own rules, independent of cause and effect, independent of time. That synchronicities exist, and that they order reality. And that this discipline is a proper subject for psychology (for psyche, soul).

For soul, cause and effect are irrelevant. What is deeply relevant to soul is relationships, and the quality of relationships. (These relationships can be between parts of a single person, between people, or between a person and the so-called material realm – the environment.)

For this reason Western alchemy talked at length about opposites, their combinations and their resolutions as transformative processes.

The Subtle Body in Alchemy

Alchemy liked to keep this idea of relationship living by considering the subtle body. This was the third element, the realm between two opposites (such as matter and soul, subject and object, two people in a relationship) and it had a reality as an intermediate realm.

While this may sound obscure and unlikely, it is good to remember the words of Claude Levi-Strauss on the dangers of dominant thought systems:

Every civilisation tends to overestimate the objective orientation of its thought and this tendency is never absent. (The Savage Mind, p3.)

Relationship as “The Third”

We have written on this blog in the past about the value in seeing that any couple have the relationship itself as “The Third”. (Here, for example, on The Life of The Relationship as a third entity. Or here, in relation to neurobiology: relationship itself is a third reality.)

We are suggesting again in this post that there is good evidence for taking the concept of “The Third” very seriously in couples work. We see this play out in the therapy room sometimes when two people, who have been attacking each other (and continually defending themselves), are able to “stand aside” and watch the life of “The Third”, in the room, at that moment – and for them to realise that they have this important Third on which mutually to work – which is the Relationship itself!

We in the therapy room can then sometimes all detect a change that happens; there is a sense of rightness and of hope for transformation. Which, of course, was what alchemy was all about, the transformation of opposites to form a higher state, neither inner nor outer (which science would insist be one or the other!) but of a third realm: the “subtle body” of the relationship.

…they have this important Third on which mutually to work – which is the Relationship itself!

Relationships Under Duress

We could argue that due to our very scientifically-oriented culture we are sometimes doing relationships under duress. There is potentially a large part of the world of relationships for which an effective language of discourse no longer exists. And the right words are often needed before the deeper experience can be had.

It may be better to stand back in couples work, from love vs hate, attack vs defense, good vs evil, mind vs body, left-brain vs right-brain, love vs power, and sit with the alchemical idea of essence, something that pervades all of reality and connects the opposites; something that can have real presence in couples work if it is allowed in.

Couples work could then be a microcosm of what we must also do collectively in the outer world, as we find new paradigms to save the planet from destruction; paradigms that see ourselves as part of the one subtle body of nature, rather than as subjects exploiting nature.

Schwartz-Salant on the Alchemical Paradigm

Here are two quotations from Nathan Schwartz-Salant’s The Mystery of Human Relationships, speaking of the alchemical attitude in relational therapy:

…one becomes focused upon relations, on the nature of the ‘third realm’ between people, and not on what people are doing to one another. …A major principle of the alchemical attitude is that it is not hierarchical. No matter how much one person seems to be doing something negative or objectionable to another, one still looks for the ‘unconscious couple’ the two people share. (p17)

Another major feature of the alchemical attitude is the respect for chaos. In a sense alchemical thinking parallels the recent discoveries in Chaos Theory in science….chaos has always been central to alchemy. The alchemical attitude learns to embrace and suffer chaos without reaching into reason to dispel and dissociate from it. Moreover, the alchemical attitude recognises a transcendent dimension of existence without which the process of transformation cannot proceed. (p17)

(We plan to tease out these ideas further, in future pages on the site, when we discuss the alchemical work Rosarium Philosophorum.)

The Image: Plate 2 of the Rosarium Philosophorum

The image at the top of this post is Plate 2 of the Rosarium Philosophorum, an alchemical text that was a favourite of C.G. Jung, and that describes stages in a relational alchemical process (either between two people, or between two parts of an individual).

Plate 2 shows the start of the process. (There are 20 plates.) The image is sometimes referred to as the “Left-handed Contact”, because the couple hold hands with their left hand: they are unconscious of much of their connection (a situation which can be fraught with difficulties).

We say in this situation that the Family of Origin issues that the two people have brought into the relationship are alive and activated (and are often out of the awareness of both people).

Yet, some kind of structure is already in place (the crossed branches), and a holy dove is shown descending: some kind of illumination is possible, but is not yet in effect between the persons of the relationship. There is hope!

Table of Contents

The Material World – Where and What is Soul?

Ours is said to be an age predominantly of materialism. We’ve deconstructed so many stories and beliefs and, with the aid of science, have commonly settled on the view that the world is dead matter and available for use in almost any way.

A problem is that this “use” knows no limits – it is not sustainable. It has been proposed that in forty years there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

What about the idea of soul? Is it an outmoded idea or one that still has value? This post offers some views on soul as an antidote to materialism, and as highly relevant to contemporary life.

Myth

We are used to hearing the word “myth” as synonymous for “commonly held erroneous belief” and are in danger of losing an older, possibly less comfortable view of the word. We meet this older view when we talk about, and dialogue with, the Greek and other ancient myths.

We can think of this older view of “myth” as non-material fact – as living fact, as what takes place outside of the material realm. This realm is the psychic, the poetic.

Clothed in facts
truth feels oppressed,
in the garb of poetry
it moves easy and free. (Rabindranath Tagore)

Terrible things can happen in myths, and it’s understandable that we might want to defend against the dark worlds they can present. Materialism can be seen as a defense against these realms, a way to live without fear.

There is a view that we ignore myths at our peril, because they speak of a largely non-rational, unconscious side of ourselves that leaves us ungrounded if we do not explore it. We can see soulmaking for what we do when we inquire into this side of ourselves, so that no longer “truth feels oppressed”.

Myth is story, and story can be lived through, can be a way in which soul finds and nurtures itself in chaotic life. As James Hillman says:

Platonists long ago and Jung more recently pointed out the therapeutic value of the great myths for bringing order to the chaotic, fragmented aspect of fantasy. The main body of biblical and classical tales directs fantasy into organized, deeply life-giving psychological patterns…(from A Note on Story, in Loose Ends)

The Storyteller & Trauma

Donald Kalsched, in his book Trauma and the Soul, speaks of the image at the top of this post: an Inuit bone carving of The Storyteller. Kalsched says about The Storyteller (relating to how we can work with trauma):

With one eye closed, focused on the inner worlds of dreams and the mytho-poetic images of the imagination, and one eye open, focused outwardly on the hard edges of material reality… [the carving] gives dramatic expression to the two worlds that I feel must be kept in view if a genuine and compelling story of trauma is to be told.

This reverence for the mytho-poetic realm, in the service of healing trauma, is Kalsched’s way of talking about and working with soul.

Reverie

Gaston Bachelard in his Poetics of Reverie (in the chapter Reveries Toward Childhood) makes the distinction between soul and mind:

As soon as the past is situated within a network of human values, within the inner values of a person who does not forget, it appears with the double force of the mind that remembers and the soul that feasts upon its faithfulness. The soul and the mind do not have the same memory… It is only when the soul and the mind are united in a reverie by the reverie that we benefit from the union of imagination and memory. In such a union we can say that we are reliving our past. Our past being imagines itself living again.

Bachelard argues for an imaginative basis for our lives and for the relationship to our memories. Soul is like a fabric woven from these memories into a living reverie that eschews the material, that becomes a safeguard against it – a “soul that feasts”.

Hillman and the Soul Perspective

James Hillman was a strong advocate for the recovery of a soul perspective in contemporary psychotherapy. He defined soul as follows:

By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and make differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment—and soulmaking means differentiating the middle ground. (Re-visioning Psychology)

Hillman’s middle ground lies between the mystery of ourselves and the material realm. This is the “reflective moment”, that is captured in all creative acts, no matter how humble. (And later in his career, Hillman also spoke more about anima mundi, “soul in the world”; that matter is itself ensouled.)

Ultimate Concern

Another lens on soul is that of Paul Tillich, who wrote of the concept of ultimate concern.

We can each ask ourselves “What is my ultimate concern?” and sit with the answers that come (or may not immediately come). For Tillich, this question allows a investigation into the dynamics of personal life. To have an ultimate concern was his definition of faith (which he said applied to people who were atheists as well as believers).

We all (except the very psychologically unwell) have some ultimate concern, and finding out what this is can guide us. We can see his question and the process of exploring the answer as another path to soulmaking.

Tillich also spoke of the “ecstatic”. This beautiful word encapsulates the idea of standing outside ourselves, yet still being present to ourselves. We are like the Storyteller (the carving above) who can open and close each eye in turn, getting new and different views of himself. We can make soul from both the outer and the inner worlds.

Creating Our Own Cultures

We need to create our own, personal cultures of soul. These could inhabit dark, unseen places. As Clark Strand says:

If someone asked me why I rise and walk at night, I couldn’t answer except to say I do it for its own sake, for the sake of rising and walking and praying in the dark. ..It creates its own culture on the soul. But in the last hundred years, that inner culture – that soul space – has become increasingly well lit. (Waking Up to the Dark)

We are looking for pointers – meaningful depths, and meaningful to the depths already within ourselves – whatever these might look like or whether they might potentially be judged by others. The place in which we ensoul our lives might be secret, hidden from the light of day.

Hillman And Suicide

For James Hillman writing about suicide, the tragedy of a bodily suicide might be the end result of a life in which the person defended against the multiple and progressive symbolic suicides that the psyche yearned to take, in creating a life more dedicated to soul – but was unable to take due to egoic adherences to materialism.

If these healing, multiple, symbolic suicides had been able to occur over  an extended period, then the tragic, literal, bodily suicide may not have needed to take place.

The biography of the soul concerns experience. It seems not to follow the one-way direction of the flow of time, and it is reported best by emotions, dreams, and fantasies. (Suicide and the Soul)

Play

And we must not forget play. As Hillman says (Suicide and the Soul again) “The soul imagines and plays” and “We cannot get a soul history through a case history.”

This thought is echoed in a beautiful poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. (From On the Seashore)

An Undefinable

Soul is what always remains – after we’ve dealt with the mundane requirements of commerce, with our survival and with our status in the social world.

It is the experience of ourselves as free creatures, able to turn to what draws us out into the world, into company with others, yet also into inner, possibly hidden, creative worlds – in whatever form they may take.

In our soulmaking we are attempting to express something related to an essential part of ourselves, that wants to live fully; to express an ineffable sense that we cannot ever really define, but choose nonetheless to label with that old-fashioned word soul.

Table of Contents

The Clocks Strike Thirteen

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

So goes the well-known opening sentence of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. The novel remains a extraordinary description of a future that Orwell feared and, although written in 1949, remains a future that some would say we are relentlessly approaching.

With the ubiquity of highly targeted on-line marketing, with the weaponising of social media, with fake news and the rise of radicalised global influencers, the novel remains a stark warning of where we could be heading.

Orwell’s description of the clocks striking thirteen is clever in that, although we know what this means (1pm on the 24 hour clock) the sentence is enough to jolt us into the possibility that something very different is going on, that society is matching to a different drum from what we are used to. We perhaps need to be questioning our doublethink.

A Different Drum

In the Afterword to this novel ( written in 1961), the psychologist Erich Fromm describes this different drum in detail. He writes of how we have lost traditional certainties: we can now control nature in sophisticated ways (to both positive and negative effect); traditional religions no longer hold the sway they used to over the collective consciousness; technology brings the risk of soulless automation and a diminution of the human spirit.

To Fromm, what we have lost is the possibility of faith, embedded within historical mores and contexts.

In 1961 one of Fromm’s deep concerns was nuclear proliferation; he does not of course mention climate change nor species loss. Yet these are now further factors in the bewildering sense of powerlessness and hopelessness that many people feel.

Doublethink

Much of the power of 1984 hinges on the way doublethink plays out in the lives of the protagonists. Orwell’s definition of doublethink is:

…the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…. This process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision. But it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.

It’s interesting to note that the first part of this definition is widely quoted (do a Google image search for “doublethink”, for example!) yet the second part (which appears further down the page in the original) is less commonly quoted.

As psychotherapists, it’s this second part that is especially interesting, because it’s the doublethink we don’t know we’re involved in that’s particularly damaging.

In the novel, we see the process of doublethink come to successful fruition when, over the course of his re-indoctrination, the protagonist Winston Smith comes to truly believe that two plus two equals five. And as Fromm says in his Afterword:

..if [a person] has surrendered his independence and his integrity completely, if he experiences himself as a thing which belongs either to the state, the party or the corporation, then two plus two are five, or “Slavery is Freedom”, and he feels free because there is no longer any awareness of the discrepancy between truth and falsehood.

The Threat of Big Brother

The novel ends with the following lines:

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Orwell is of course making the point that it is not all right, that Winston Smith has been so thoroughly indoctrinated and brainwashed that he is at home only with doublethink.

This is the victory of Big Brother in the novel.

Who is to Be the Victor in Our Lives?

Given the loss of traditions for many people today, where are they to turn? The solution will be different for each person who wants to question the potential indoctrinations they slip into, in order to fill the void; the person who wants to find a way to live authentically and with poise in a complex and fractured world.

The process of psychotherapy can be one such approach: inquiring as to whether we hold fake news internally. What, alternatively, is the “real news” of our psyche?

By gentle yet deep questioning of ourselves, (using such techniques as dialogue, dreams, fantasies, reflections and attending to our symptoms), we can travel a road back into the fertile soil of ourselves, from which true creativity can then spring.

Many people are now questioning the “news” by which they live their lives – questioning relationships, belief systems, commitments to systems and organisations, sexuality.

What, alternatively, is the “real news” of our psyche?

Yes, we have lost many of the collective means of obtaining a sense of belonging and may have lost societal and family bonds; and yes, we may need to depend on ourselves as individuals (rather than on a collective) to find a unique way; yet in the dialogue of the psychotherapeutic encounter we can be supported – and find we are not completely alone in our inquiry.

At the very least we may find we are less likely to fall victim to doublethink, less likely for Big Brother to be the victor.

Working with Us

If any of this strokes a chord with you, you may like to contact us to partake in a psychotherapeutic dialogue that is meaningful for you.

Table of Contents

The Irrepressible Dog

Living in the city we see daily the reverence and attention that people give to their dogs. At our nearby harbour-side dog park there’s rich energy – frivolous, wild, serious things happen between the dogs down there (and between their owners!).

Despite our lives becoming increasing embedded in the infrastructures of the city and technology, dogs seem to draw their owners into another realm.

We’re deeply connected to dogs in some ways… as James Hillman pointed out: “those incisors in our own mouths are canines”. The dog is a domesticated contemporary of the ancient wolf – yet still sufficiently natural, unrepressed and direct in its action to both please with its licks and shock with its inappropriate sniffs!

In this post we’d like to explore the dog as symbol and dogs in dreams; in our own dreams, and in the dreams of others. It’s the first post in a new blog category: Soul and Dream. We’ll post more in this category in the future.

A Living Presence

The Gestalt way with the dog as dream figure, as with all dreams figures, is to avoid defining the symbol. There’s no cooky-cutter answer to what a dream dog “means” – it’s your dog (if it’s your dream) and we can choose to see it as a living presence, within the night-time theatrical production that is your dream.

We can enquire as to why such a presence occurs, and what its part is in the drama that’s playing out.

Maybe you can role-play (or roll-play) your dream dog, see what s/he wants from you. If we take the dreamer as the holder of day-world consciousness then what other aspects of you are being constellated in your dream dog, and possibly want attention?

Jung and Dogs

Let’s also take into account dogs from an archetypal and mythological perspective. Dogs have a rich and ancient history as mythological presence.

In Wikipedia, the category Mythological Dogs extends to 76 pages, from the well-known three-headed Cerberus to the lesser known but intriguing English Church Grim.

Here’s Jung, referring to a patient’s mandala, in which three dogs run around a centre:

The dogs represent consciousness “scenting” or “intuiting” the unconscious…It is as if the dogs were fascinated by the centre although they cannot see it. They seem to represent the fascination felt by the conscious mind.

Is our dream dog “scenting” something we’re missing? …Tapping in to another way of see our current situation, a way that harks back to our unconscious wolf past, that is still a real part of us (and may be blocked from awareness by the “infrastructure” of either the City, or of our own sense of a constructed identity)?

And Jung again, on the myth of Diana and Actaeon:

The appearance of Diana necessarily brings with it her hunting animal the dog, who represents her dark side. Her darkness shows itself in the fact that she is also a goddess of destruction and death, whose arrows never miss.

She changed the hunter Actaeon, when he secretly watched her bathing, into a stag, and his own hounds, not recognizing him, thereupon tore him to pieces.

The dark dog brings about the “destruction” of the hunter. In what ways does a “hunter” attitude sometimes have to be be deconstructed, ripped apart, chewed over and assimilated in an unexpected way?

Hillman & The Naturalistic Fallacy

James Hillman studied animals in dreams for many years. He found that in most animal dreams the dreamer is trying to eradicate the animal, and/or the dreamer is seeing the animal as more dangerous than it turns out to be.

We need to remember the potential conflict between a dreamer and his/her dream figures: and wonder what the other dream figures may have to offer us, in the dream production.

Hillman used the term naturalistic fallacy to indicate the situation where the dreamer, in fight or flight, stands opposed to a natural element (in this case, the dog) in the dream, and believes the dreamer’s position to be correct …

Or the dreamer sees a dog that looks sick as actually sick, and indicating a bad state of affairs in general.

(Instead, we could wonder what it would be like to nurture ourselves as such an animal: maybe that’s what the dog part of us needs, to be taken to bed with an easy-to-read book and a food “treat”.)

A dreamer dreams:

We are happy in the kitchen, preparing a meal. Then my father-in-law says there’s an unwell dog in the lounge. We go into the lounge and a small fluffy dog is looking sick, lying down, in a huge puddle of very yellow pee. My father-in-law says there is far too much pee, and we have to look after the dog.

The dreamer’s reflections were that he was surprised that he had a caring father-in-law part of himself (that felt empathy for the dog) and that he had a dog-part at all! A dog that needed some kind of attention, a little fluffy dog that was low to the ground.

He began to see the pond of pee as a yellow traffic light, alerting him to this dog part of himself that he needed to take more notice of and nurture – a gentle part, non-complaining, but also somewhat lonely.

Moving the Dream On – Active imagination

Here’s an example of a dream where the naturalistic fallacy could have blocked a realisation for the dreamer. A fragment of the dream is as follows:

I’ve been given a gift in some kind of ritual and now have to leave a place like Versailles with the gift held close to my chest and wrapped in a blanket. But as I pass through a vast courtyard there is a huge angry dark dog as high as an apartment block barking at me. Luckily I realise it’s behind a huge plate glass window and it can’t get me. I hurry away.

Using Jung’s technique of active imagination to “dream the dream onwards”, the dreamer found that he could imagine, with some trepidation, that plate glass window being removed. He had no idea whether the dog would now annihilate him.

But instead, the dog began bounding around him, circling him with joy, it’s huge ears flapping and its huge tongue hanging out! A bit like Jeff Koon’s Puppy.

It had become a joyous god, and the dreamer realised he could be more joyous about the gift he had been given in the palace. He realised that blocking his joy meant it tended to come out as rage.

Man’s Best Friend

Of course, dogs have always been known as “man’s best friend”. In fact, for some people, a dog is their one-and-only friend. The dog as pet is loyal, playful, forgiving, holds no grudges, and is always ready for a walk!

Some people speak of the dog they had as a child as their deepest love, their truest companion. Dogs too are researchers, hunters, investigating the scents of the locale. They are pack animals too, that both lead and follow…

A woman dreamed as follows:

I am riding in a small plastic car and suddenly the car turns into a small dog. We are being swallowed up by a cave in the road and it is filled with water. The dog seems to be leading me down and into the cave and I have to hang on. I can hear the voices of other woman down there in the inky water.

For this woman the dog was a constant companion that was able to lead her somewhere she thought was dangerous, but had the voices of woman she did not yet know (but could meet as other parts of herself, parts conversant with the underworld).

James Hillman’s 5 Messages about Dogs

In his paper You Dirty Dog! James Hillman gives us 5 messages about dogs, and these are worth summarising as lenses through which we can learn more about the dogs that appear to us in our dreams. His messages are:

1 – We Touch Nature via Depression

Melancholy, the Black Dog, being dog-tired, being thrown to the dogs, continually digging up bones to find the cause of depression… we touch our animal natures in this way; we revert to the pre-verbal. The sad dog may have a treasure to give us.

2 – Dogs Carry the Ancestors

The domesticated dog can be a way for us to come to our wild ancestors, to wolves, dingoes, jackals, mad meat-eating ancestral packs. In their realms are held the terrors of childhood, of abuse, of voracious and wild appetites. Dogs in dreams are mediators for and guides into these realms of anarchy and beastly terror. Guardians as well.

3 – Follow the Ways of Nature

The dog that eats raw meat, that pisses where it wishes, that knows of no artificiality, no ideologies, no romantic love, that keeps its nose to the ground: a foil to our sometimes haughty human aspirations.

4 – Nature Loves Bones

The dog can’t help loving the bones, or anything that looks like it. Burying them, digging them up, dealing in limbs that have been stripped of essentials (flesh). Dogs can take the forensic pathologist’s view, the precise dissection.

As Hillman says, in ancient Egypt, where the jackal nightly prowled among the tombs, the god of the dead was Anubis, the jackal:

Imagine! A close relative of Anubis asleep at the foot of your bed. The dog’s delectation with bones ranges far wider than Egypt.

5 – The Bringer of Death

As we mentioned above, the dog has always been related to the underworld. Cerberus is the Hound of Hell, and dogs know when death is near.

In our culture, the division between death and life is very distinct. Life is meant to be clean and pure; hence death is seen as unclean and rotting. The dog can be the modern reminder that death goes on beneath the surface, that ageing and entropy, despite all our expensive attempts to prevent it, is the truth. In what ways are we defending against this truth, and is our dream dog actually speaking this truth?

To Finish…

We encourage you to not take fright or flight from your dogs in dreams, irrespective of what they look like and what they do in your dream.

Instead welcome them as potential bringers of another, possibly more earthy, point of view – a point of view that can extend the range of possibilities of consciousness.

References

• C.G. Jung, Collected Works Vol 9 (Part 1): Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
• C.G. Jung, Collected Works Vol 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis
• James Hillman, “Let the Creatures Be: A Conversation with Thomas Moore” in Animal Presences
• James Hillman, “You Dirty Dog!” in Animal Presences.

Table of Contents

Difference in Counselling and Psychotherapy

One of the big themes we see in Counselling and Psychotherapy with both couples and individuals is a difficulty in accepting and dealing with difference, and the conflicts associated with this.

This post is a short meditation on difference.

Sometimes Masked in Counselling

Here are some examples from Counselling that could be signs of underlying difficulties in accepting difference:

• Someone describes their situation as “I’m feeling disconnected”
• A couple reports “We have communication issues”
• A couple wonders “Are we the right match for each other?”.

Usually difference itself is not the problem.

Difference is what creates attraction, but it also creates tension. It can be what makes us complementary or the thing that tears us apart.

Usually difference itself is not the problem. The problem is that we struggle with how to handle difference. We become uncomfortable with it.

Generally, to deal with our discomfort around difference, we try to:

• Make ourselves like the other, or
• Make the other more like us, or
• Get rid of or emotionally annihilate the other.

When we change ourselves we lose our authenticity and sense of meaning.

When we try to change another to be like us we are not seeing the other wholly. We may feel threatened by their different way of thinking or being.

Not only do we see these attempted solutions playing out in personal relationships, but we see it in business and even global political situations. And countries are very ready to go to war over political/religious difference.

The Image

The image we’ve chosen above is of a carved wooden monument set in a place of honour near the house of a clan elder in Madagascar. The idea is that it becomes a focal point for acceptance of changes – important events in village life where accepting difference is required for changes such as puberty.

(The monument is in the Met Museum, Fifth Avenue, NYC.)

As the description says:

Set side by side, these figures engage the viewer with their intense expressions and deeply recessed eyes. Their subtle stylization simultaneously unifies them and amplifies what makes them different, producing an eloquent statement on the fundamental complementarity of man and woman.

As the centerpiece of circumcision rights performed to promote the virility of each generation, the couple emphasizes the importance of the male-female partnership in assuring the community’s future.

The figures’ nudity, striking in a region where textiles are a fundamental element of identity, serves to further underscore these timeless and universal themes of fertility and regeneration.

The quote suggests complimentarity is an important aspect of the life of the community. (The bolding on “different” above are ours.)

The View of Chuang Tzu

Moving to a Taoist viewpoint (and continuing our recent theme on the Tao), here’s Chuang Tzu on difference:

Fish can live in water quite contentedly, but if people try it, they die, for different beings need different contexts which are right and proper for them. This is why the ancient sages never expected just one response from the rest of the creatures nor tried to make them conform.

Titles should not be over-stretched in trying to capture reality and ideas should be only applied when appropriate…
(Chapter 18, Perfect Happiness, in The Book of Chuang Tzu.)

Chuang Tzu was interested in the issue of difference in 300 BC, and even then referred to “the ancient sages”. We are dealing with a very old concern!

Connection

The paradox is that connection can only be felt with a space for distance. There needs to be an ability to come together and to pull apart (without breaking), to feel the full range that is a healthy interaction.

Imagine there are two wholes – nothing missing: these can meet and connect and not have to merge. There can be an experience of sharing without losing anything. To know another in this way, as different from you and whole in themselves, is a powerful experience.

To know another as different from you and whole in themselves is a powerful experience.

It is enriching to learn and grow through difference. It means interactions stay fresh and exciting because the other is not like you. There is a possibility for some new insight or experience.

When there is a merging there is a loss of identity, loss of needs, and often loss of passion. Many of us like the idea of merging and feeling completed by another but the reality is that we lose sight of the other and lose our own boundaries and sense of self if we do this for too long.

There can be no real connection without the ability to see another as whole and from a distance.

Disconnection

Disconnection happens when we move too far away. Here are examples of when this may happen:

• We’ve been merged for too long and need space (which is natural) but have gone into reaction
• We have trust issues
• We’ve never learned to connect
• We fight instead of staying to learn about the other.

Boundary

In any experience or emotion it is though contrast that we know it exists. As Gestalt Psychotherapy says, experience is at the boundary between self and other.

For example, if you put your hand in a bowl of water that is exactly blood temperature then you do not know it is in water. There is no difference between hand and world (water).

And human connection is felt through our experience of the opposite. We understand joy because we have experienced sadness or sorrow.

If we can allow ourselves to understand another wholly, not diminishing their difference, and not trying to change them, we can feel connected, whole and invigorated by our relationships.

(The Madagascar Couple is at the The Met Museum. The quote from Chuang Tzu is from The Book of Chuang Tzu, tr. Martin Palmer, Penguin Books.)

Something we’ve found very useful when working with clients is getting them to tune into themselves to understand when they are getting triggered. We use the word “triggered” to identify when someone has an emotional reaction which may be unproductive (and is usually based on old patterns), in any situation, and then acts based on that trigger.

The best way to start dealing with this is to raise awareness about where the trigger comes from, what is most likely to be a trigger for a particular person, and then, of course, what to do about it.

This post is about how to notice things before they blow out of proportion and how to address them – to catch them at the beginning.

The Tao Te Ching

Continuing the theme from our last post on Wu-Wei, there’s a nice Taoist background to this. In Chapter 63 of the Tao Te Ching it says:

The difficult problems of the world
Must be dealt with while they are yet easy;
The great problems of the world
Must be dealt with while they are yet small.

And in Chapter 64:

Deal with a thing before it is there;
Check disorder before it is rife.

Starting at the Beginning…

Sometimes it helps to understand where triggers come from. Looking to the beginning of our life might be a way to uncover how we operate in the world. But for the most part we can just work with what is here now, and not have to dig to find the origins (if in fact there is even a single cause).

(This latter way of working, in the here-and-now, is more the Gestalt approach.)

Working with the here-and-now we can start with each beginning: the beginning of a feeling, the first thought that arises that is negative, the first sensation that tells us we are uncomfortable. When we get awareness around this then there is a possibility of a different action. A new choice becomes available to us.

The Picture

Looking at the picture (above) that we took in Tasmania, we see a quiet perfection. This we could say is our natural state. Many things through a life can pollute our sense of ourselves or the environment and change how we perceive and react to our world. This photo represents for us a canvas on which we project our lives and concerns.

If we take stock and can find a sense of our natural state (through therapy, meditation, art) then we can notice the disruptions to this natural state. We can watch for the changes no matter how minuscule they may appear. Attend now.

When we see the faintest ripple on the water, check in. If we notice an intrusion to the natural scene, check in. We need to do this with ourselves and, if in relationship, with the other person.

Practical Techniques

You may be interested to read about some practical ways of exploring this internally and in relationship by reading our Three Simple Sentences post and our page on Meanings and Behaviours.

Once we understand that there will always be ripples that come and go then we can attend to looking deeper and can make choices to do something different (or just let the ripples settle), rather than letting things build up or reacting too quickly.

This is a creative process and it can become a habit that is well worth practicing.

We suggest this as an alternative to working on “anger management”; an alternative to feeling disconnected, feeling resentment and experiencing a range of other problems that we see in therapy – when people have just let feelings and thoughts go unchecked and unnoticed.

The Tao Te Ching translation is by Lin Yutang.

We awoke one night at Lake Como this (Northern) summer to a powerful storm with endless rolling thunder. The air was lit with bright sheets of lightning, the rain hammered down, and the power in our apartment was cut off. This went on for hours, and all we could do was wait until morning, to get the power turned on again. (The picture above is from the balcony, the following morning.)

This waiting, this “not doing”, we could see as an example of the Taoist idea of Wu-Wei. That night, “not doing” was all we could reasonably have done.

As Alan Watts said:

Wu-Wei, as “not forcing”, is what we mean by going with the grain, rolling with the punch, swimming with the current, trimming sails to the wind, taking the tide at its flood, and stooping to conquer. (Alan Watts, Tao, The Watercourse Way.)

Couple Storms

Interactions in couple relationships are always rich, often complex, and sometimes confusing and bewildering. Perhaps we think we’re just talking… but actually we may be pushing. Or maybe we think we’re just listening… but actually we’re not: we’re defending, we’re pushing back.

And these dynamics in the couple can be lightning fast, highly triggering, and beset, also, with thunderous words.

Wu-Wei and Couples Interactions

Wu-Wei suggests an alternative. Wu-Wei suggests what we were forced to do at Lake Como: slow down, breathe, accept that any action we might take during the storm would be pointless.

How this could look, in an interaction with our partner, is hard to generalise. But it could have the same quality of “not doing”, of switching to another perspective, another way of seeing the interaction.

An Example: My Brilliant ideas!

The Problem

I regularly want to convince my partner about my latest great idea. I know how great and ground-breaking it is (as my ideas always are), so I just need to convince them to go along with it.

But we always end up in this same situation, me working hard to get my point across, to show how great this idea is. And them pushing back and highlighting the flaws in the idea and really niggling me. It’s exhausting!

So I Try Wu-Wei…

However, reflecting on Wu-Wei, I might realise that having delivered my marvellous idea it might be better to “not do”, to “stoop to conquer”; to give my partner their freedom to process my idea, in their own way, and to allow them to respond when they are ready and, again, in their own way.

Maybe this will work better. Maybe then my partner will enjoy me having these great ideas!

And What I Discover…

When I try the Wu-Wei approach, my partner doesn’t say much for a while. They say they need to think it through and will get back to me. Sometimes they come back hours later or even the next day.

But when they do get back to me, I realise they’re now quite an expert on the idea, and guess what? They make the idea even better than what I’d thought of!

I get to see that two heads are better than one. PLUS I get to see that our relationship can be creative and have great ideas, not just me.

Wu-Wei is an Experiential Way

The only way to see how a Wu-Wei approach could work is to try it. This is the experiential way: we shouldn’t be too theoretical about it. We can start simply by being open to the possibility of “not doing”, in any heated moment.

In fact, as Alan Watts says, what’s really needed is just a simple shift of perspective. He uses the example of suddenly “getting” the three-dimensional perspective in a drawing, with just some simple extra lines being drawn with the pencil.

What’s needed is just a simple shift of perspective.

As Watts says:

In line with Lao-tzu one might say “Superior Wu-Wei does not aim at Wu-Wei and so it truly is Wu-Wei.” (Tao, The Watercourse Way.)

In other words, don’t overthink it. Instead, see if you can experience it!

Zhuangzi and Emotions

The Taoist sage Zhuangzi saw the connection between Wu-Wei and emotions. This is relevant in couple dynamics.

The idea of following, of going along with, is something we can experiment with in our intimate interactions. Again, it can require just a simple perspective shift, as though from two dimensions to three, using observational tools (our awareness) which are as simple as the pencil.

As Zhuangzi says:

In the case of the body, it is best to let it go along with things. In the case of the emotions, it is best to let them follow where they will. By going along with things, you avoid becoming separated from them. By letting the emotions follow as they will, you avoid fatigue. (From The Mountain Tree, in Burton Watson’s translation of The Complete Works of Zhuangzi; our emphasis.)

Letting the Emotions Follow

Letting the emotions follow as they will is an example of Wu-Wei. If we can observe the emotions in our partner and let them be, this can help us ride out the storms in couple interactions. We can breathe through them, can enjoy the perspective shift and can stay refreshed in, and refreshed by, our dialogues with our partner.

We might find we’re actually seeking out more dialogues with them, more creative conversations and connections. As always, let us know if you’d like help with this!