Therapy Duo

Psychotherapy & Counselling for Individuals & Couples

Category: Family of Origin

Articles on Family of Origin

  • Relationship in Confinement

    Relationship in Confinement

    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

  • Depression, Addictions and Guilt/Shame Cycles

    Depression, Addictions and Guilt/Shame Cycles

    A Model Both Old and New

    Here’s a model that can help in understanding depression, addictions and self-esteem issues. The model’s both old and new, deriving from ancient reflective practices, as well as from Jung and beyond, up to contemporary psychotherapy.

    Although the model may not be the one answer to (for example) substance addiction (which is, potentially, a complex response to external as well as genetic and psychodynamic factors) it’s presented as an invitation to reflect on whether there’s value in it for you. And it could form part of an inquiry undertaken in personal counselling or therapy.

    depression guilt shame cycle
    Depression, Guilt, Shame Cycle

    Following through the steps in the diagram:

    Separation from Self

    Spiritual traditions both East and West have spoken for millennia, in different ways, of the “Self” – as the Ground of Being, as Source, Tao, the Divine, Brahman. In this view, our (largely unconscious) oneness with the Self is a deeply loving embrace, a primordial unity of the individual sense of ourselves with an Infinity that is unnameable and deeply grounding. It’s a sense of absolute peace and completeness.

    What can go wrong? Well, it seems that for us as baby humans, this sense of Self needs to be mirrored back to us by those closest to us in the world. We need to feel that we are loved by those figures from whom we have not yet psychologically separated: our parents and/or care-givers. A wounding of this loving embrace, the hurt of not being truly met, is enough to cause us loss of this sense of Self.

    This loss can be very deep for the infant. The infant may begin to develop strategies to make such unbearable loss bearable.  They may begin to make up an identity for themselves, one that better fits their world.  This making of an identity, as different from what is naturally ours, we could call “going it alone” (or attempting to do so), without the backing of the Self. For example, an infant could choose to not have needs, or could choose to be avoidant of contact with others. This is how psychological disorders can develop.

    When the infant or child decides to “go it alone”, they depend upon strategies of their own making for psychological survival, rather than upon the primordial peace that still envelops them.

    It’s not that the child has actually lost their ground; the problem is that they believe that it’s been lost.

    Unconscious Guilt, Shame

    This “going it alone” can be experienced by some as a contraction (the world is on my shoulders), felt so strongly (but not understood for what it is) that it causes a deep sense of guilt over what they have done – which was to deny their primordial peace and completeness. A guilt so disagreeable in fact that the individual pushes the guilt out of their awareness – where it lives an unconscious life, as an energy ready to be activated.

    The person is left with an indefinable sense of great loss; a sadness that can never be fully understood because its activating roots have been pushed so far out of awareness. This sadness can play out in many ways in the world, not all of which may look sad!

    One of the ways it can play out is as a grinding sense of shame. Where guilt says “I did something wrong”, shame says “I am Wrong”. Some practitioners use the term “ground shame” to refer to a shame that has lost all contact with specific scenarios or experiences: what’s left is just an endless “knowing” of wrongness.

    Projection

    One way out of this painful situation for the individual is via the psychological mechanism of projection.

    We can attempt to alleviate the negative effects of guilt and shame by judging others, by projecting the awful feelings as far away from ourselves as possible. We can develop an endless system of judging others and judging events in the world.

    The Victim Stance

    We end up exacting our grievances on anything we consider to be “outside” of ourselves. It becomes the song of our everyday consciousness. We learn the stance of “victim of the world”. Everything would be better if just this … (outside of me) would change. Then I would no longer be a victim of it.

    Acting out our grievances is very likely – using violence, depression, or even our sexuality, as examples.

    More Guilt, Shame

    At some level (usually, again, unconscious) we feel guilty for all this finger pointing or acting out we’re doing. It leaves us with a bad taste. We decide we’re “not a good person” for habitually doing this. Our original unconscious guilt and shame for having left Home is compounded by our actions to cover up what we originally did.

    Expectation of Punishment

    Burdened by this sense of guilt, it’s a small step to expecting that we’ll be punished for what we did. Doesn’t the whole world work on the basis of punishment following crime? On revenge?

    Fear

    So we live in fear; again, not in a fear we can necessarily put our finger on, but maybe with a lingering sense of anxiety; or with a protracted depression; or with an acting out in addictions or in an eating disorder.

    The Cycle

    In acting out our fears we undertake more projections and more judgements. How can we get clear of these habitual negativities? Only (we think) by more of the same behaviour.

    We think that maybe the “good” is out there in the drug, the drink, the food (projections). Maybe (we think) by consuming this “good” I can have back the primordial Good – that which I already had at the beginning, my original Home (which in fact I actually still have, but I don’t realise this to be the case).

    A Way Back

    In our counselling practice, our experience is that people can find a way back to Self. They can find relief from this negative cycle of guilt, shame, fear and projection. And it sometimes takes just a willingness to investigate habitual defenses to find relief.

    There’s potential magic in reflecting upon these habitual defense systems, and in bringing them to the light of conscious awareness. The shared space of the psychotherapy / counselling setting can be the ideal place for exploration.

  • Reflections on the Couple Bubble

    Reflections on the Couple Bubble

    Couple Bubble

    The term couple bubble is gaining currency in couples work. Stan Tatkin, in his book Wired for Love (which we recommend to couples) defines it as:

    …the mutually constructed membrane, cocoon, or womb that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements.

    The couple bubble is built on a set of implicit (unspoken) or explicit (spoken) agreements. What makes these agreements powerful is that they are consciously held, by both parties to the relationship. (In this way, they are different from unconsciously held agreements, in which the couple members choose to prop each other up in a way that limits both of them – the couple becomes co-dependent.)

    The couple bubble implies such agreements as:

    • Our relationship is more important than any other competing value(s)
    • I will never leave you
    • I will never upset or frighten you on purpose
    • I will attempt to relieve any distress you are feeling (even if I have caused it)
    • You are my first priority – over work, children, pets, sport
    • I tell you first about anything significant that happens (before other people).

    It can be a powerful exercise for couples to discuss such agreements together, and to come up with guarantees they could give, and guarantees they would like to receive. The very act of having such discussions can strengthen the couple bubble.

    The Young Ones

    In our individualistic careers and in public life, we are expected to be grown-up; to fend for ourselves and to not be dependent. This is the face we usually need to offer the world.

    Within an intimate relationship however, this is not the situation. Usually it’s our younger and more vulnerable selves that are in evidence, and that are seeking for connection, validation and love. Early mother/infant dynamics are alive, and basic concerns such as self-worth and self-esteem are at stake. These concerns we can bring to the couple bubble, and here is where we can experience mutuality rather than autonomy.

    It’s becoming conscious of the couple bubble that allows us to find a place for these younger ones within us; ones who may struggle even to articulate their needs using words. This is where couples therapy can be powerful, in allowing gentle conversations in a safe environment; conversations about what these younger parts need.

    To find a place for these younger ones within us; ones who may struggle even to articulate their needs using words.

    Ruptures in the couple bubble can also be usefully examined, either together at home or in couples therapy. What happens at these times of rupture? What are the feelings invoked in each of the couple members? Where do they each “go” emotionally, when the bubble ruptures.

    And what techniques and with how much speed can a rupture be repaired? It’s not a matter of never having ruptures; it’s the speed at which ruptures are repaired that is significant, and is an indicator of the health of the bubble. (Ruptures themselves are inevitable when two people agree to be emotionally exposed.)

    A Lesson from Alchemy

    These ideas have been around for some time; they appear, for example, in the 16th century alchemical Rosarium Philosophorum woodcuts. Here’s woodcut number 2, in which a couple is depicted as undergoing an alchemical process. (Nathan Schwartz-Salant draws out this situation in his book The Mystery of Human Relationships.)

    Rosarium Philosophorum No. 2

    The couple in this image are making the so-called “left-hand contact”, implying that they are connecting in a way that’s not conscious. They are probably co-dependent to some extent, being driven by situations from their families of origin in ways that could be unhealthy and/or incestuous. However, it’s the descending dove that is truly the saviour, another (higher) level of consciousness, which enables them to understand where they have been unconsciously – and so to transform their relationship (a process that is drawn out in subsequent woodcuts).

    Not Reacting

    Couples can explore areas where they are co-dependent in this way by deciding to look at their “triggers”, those moments where they react negatively to their partner’s “tone” or “negativity”. This is an ongoing practice; to decide to not react, to not do what they “intuitively” “want to do”; to hold themselves and to investigate what is going on for them. If someone can stay in emotional contact with their partner, when triggered; if they can explore the emotions that rage within them, they may come up with something new about what is happening for them, and may get an understanding of things that have been held in the shadow.

    (See more about not reacting in our post Go the Other Way.)

    The Healthy Bubble

    To make unconscious contents conscious is a way to strengthen the couple bubble. From this standpoint, it’s possible for couples to have more clear discussions about the agreements that make up their bubble. And for couples who can do this, the resulting healthy bubble may be the very thing they have yearned for since childhood.

    (Top image: Swans, 1920, Hilma af Klint)

  • Being Right and Being Wrong

    Being Right and Being Wrong

    Couple Dynamics

    Don’t come to see us as a couple if you want us to take sides and decide who’s right and who’s wrong!

    We never see couples issues as one person’s fault. They’re a dynamic between two people, and if the dynamic continues to reoccur then both people need to see their part in it. As they say: “it takes two to tango”; and we would say “two for an ongoing conflict”.

    Attack and Defence

    Most people are aware of the ways in which the armies of the world are relentlessly deployed in defence of a policy, an injustice, a religion. These are the fruits of holding a conviction. And who hasn’t also seen similar cycles of attack and defence play out in interpersonal relationships?

    Love and Hate

    It’s within intimate relationships, where unfinished injustices and the guilt of the families we grew up in can live on, that the stakes can become particularly high. We can love and yet in a heartbeat we can also hate and want the other person to experience pain. Maybe it’s the sort of pain we think they have created for us. And all this can remain hidden under a veil of self-righteousness and pride.

    This is heavy stuff! But (in our view) it’s much better to see the situation for what it is, to bring it into the light, rather than to let it remain hidden, where it can spoil the entire family.

    This is our approach to couple dynamics, whether working with the couple together in therapy, or working alone with one of the individuals who wants to bring relationship issues to us.

    Decide Why You’re Coming to Therapy

    We say don’t bother to waste your time and energy in couples therapy if you’re coming to:

    • prove to your partner (or to us) that you’re right and your partner is wrong
    • try to change your partner.

    Instead, we’re interested to see the dynamic that’s operating in the relationship. This is the (mainly unconscious) agreement the two of you have made to negotiate being in the relationship. It’s the driver for what can then appear in that relationship as cycles of attack and defence. We want to uncover the feelings and motivations for the ongoing confusion or pain, not just talk at the surface level about your last argument.

    Are you Willing to Go Further?

    We cannot fix you; and we won’t take sides. But we can help you create a healthy relationship, if you are willing to go past right and wrong to see what is underneath the conflict and pain. We believe you will find it a rewarding experience.

  • Escaping the Narcissistic Bubble

    Escaping the Narcissistic Bubble

    Narcissistic Wounding

    We spoke in a recent article about Narcissistic Wounding in the couple relationship, and how learning to withstand this wounding can be a powerful way of transforming a relationship.

    The artist Louise Bourgeois had a deep understanding of narcissism, as evidenced by the rich art works she made over many years. In these works she often worked through woundings that had their genesis in her family of origin.

    It’s significant that her drawing shown here is called Fear: it depicts the way fear shuts us down from others, creates a bubble of narcissistic and reflective defence; a closed sense of self (possibly very useful when we were children, but now just an old barrier through which others can only superficially contact us). In an intimate relationship both people lose, the defended one and the one who attempts to break through.

    Narcissistic Defence in Couples Work

    In our couples counselling work we investigate and try to understand how these bubble structures have developed, and inquire into how they no longer serve us nor our relationships. Part of our bubble defence can exhibit as a hardness towards others. To change this situation both people in the relationship need to explore ways they can be more kind to each other.

    Kindness

    Kindness is of course at the heart of many religions, and that’s because kindness works – it takes us towards real peace, rather than towards the pseudo-peace of the defended bubble. As the Dalai Lama says:

    This is my simple religion.
    There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.
    Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

    Kindness requires real forgiveness, and this, too, is at the heart of most spiritual paths and traditions. We could say its opposite is judgement. And it is often this, judgement, that we see couples focussing on.

    But how would it be to live without judging our intimate partner, to actually make an agreement that there will be no judgement in our relationship? We’ve seen such agreements work powerfully to change the dynamic in couple relationships.

    Foregiveness

    This forgiveness is not “I’ll forgive because it’s good for me”. It’s something much more foundational than this; an agreement to leave our bubble and really meet the other. We’ll have more to say on forgiveness in another post.

    (Image: Louise Bourgeois, Fear, 1999)

  • Are We Sleeping with our Expectations?

    Are We Sleeping with our Expectations?

    Sleeping with our Expectations

    Are we sleeping with our expectations of our partner? Have we made up a day-to-day story of what we need from our partner? Have we made any hidden deals with them, to make ourselves feel safe, to complete or fix an old story?

    (We’re using “sleeping” here as a metaphor for a deal or arrangement that we’ve forgotten we’ve made – it’s become unconscious.)

    And are we willing to investigate this – perhaps even to bring our unconscious expectations into the light in therapy?

    We spoke in our last article of the narcissistic wounding that can drive a relationship. And here we’ll touch on expectations (which is another lens on the same issue).

    Meeting in Diversity

    We often see in relationships that people come together out of a sense of the difference between (rather than the similarity between) the partners. Each person seeks completion in some way. Aspects of the other represent parts of their personality that are (psychologically) in the shadow; to some extent, at least, out of awareness.

    There’s nothing wrong with joining out of a sense of difference as long as this dynamic is seen and acknowledged in the relationship. What doesn’t work is when the joining is driven by an old loss that may pre-date the relationship, that is unseen and that continues to drive one or both of the partners.

    There can be a fantasy of union and a continual fusional grasping to avoid repeating the original loss.

    An Aside – Original Loss

    Much has been written on original loss and its investigation by many of the greatest minds in psychotherapy.

    Original loss is not just a lingering, painful sense of wrong done to us personally (early betrayals by our primary carers – although this can be hugely important) but also has an existential aspect: the loss of being born, of being thrust out of paradise into a world that (even in the best of circumstances) is subject to chance, luck, and sometimes relentless and difficult realities.

    And original loss has deep cultural aspects as well (the loss of paradise) – as talked about by religions since time immemorial.

    Fusional Grasping

    Fusional grasping is an evocative term used by Aldo Carotenuto. In his book To Love To Betray Carotenuto says:

    [An] implication of this fusional grasping is that in the relationship, the partners recognise each other only in proportion to the degree that each fulfils the other’s needs… It is interesting to observe that the causes of rancour and incomprehension between two partners are always the same and remain the same for years – at times an entire lifetime – without a real solution being found.

    Carotenuto goes on to say how a betrayal (such as an affair by one of the partners) can be an angry attempt by the betrayer to recognise the parts that s/he feel have been suffocated by the fusional grasping of the other – and for those parts to get mirrored by a third party.

    Expectations

    To work through the acute pain of an actual betrayal, or to work through fantasies of betrayal, can be a way of revealing the fusional grasping on which the relationship may have been based.

    This work can start with each partner in the relationship attempting to make an inventory of their experiences of the other’s expectations of them; and (sometimes painfully) working through the evidence (real or imagined) together.

    This work is valuable, for if we can be accepted only so far as we fulfil the other’s expectations, we are both imprisoned.

  • Beyond Narcissistic Wounding

    Beyond Narcissistic Wounding

    The Barbs and Wounds of Intimate Relationships

    Often couples come into therapy recounting an argument they’ve had. Each partner valiantly tries to get us to agree that their own position is correct. Well, it won’t work. We’re not there to be adjudicators. Actually, we’re not even there to resolve conflict (which may sound strange, but more on that later).

    What the couple is usually experiencing is repeated bouts of attack and defense, to-ing and fro-ing between the protagonists until exit and/or exhaustion of one or both parties occurs.

    Our approach is to stop the conflict immediately (both in the therapy room and as a strong suggestion for elsewhere). We suggest a number of simple approaches such as:

    • Only using “I” statements (“I feel…”, “I need…”)
    • Staying with feelings and sensations (feelings being characterised by being able to be described using a single word, such as “sad” or “worthless”; sensations being actual data received from the body)
    • Using the microscopic truth about what is going on inside us
    • Looking at the meanings we make in our interactions with our partner: see Staemmler’s model of interactions.

    The World of Feeling and Sensations

    When we encourage couples to enter the world of feelings and sensations, huge changes can occur. This world was usually already there, hidden from them; and it was usually the yearning of both partners to experience it and to interact from this world; but it’s unfortunately been blocked by the “bubble” of each individual’s defenses.

    In the image at the top of this article, the “pool” labelled Feelings and Sensations is shared – indicating that it can potentially belong to the “we” of the relationship, not just to the individuals separately.

    The Narcissistic Wound

    Narcissistic Wound - Detail

    When we’re wounded by our partner and the barb goes deep, it punctures our defenses, our guarded sense of self. This sense of self has been built to a greater or lesser extent in a healthy way, in order to survive the conflicts of normal growing up. The current view is that we all to some extent suffer some level of narcissistic wounding. (And it can be hard sometimes to decide whether it’s healthy.)

    So another powerful approach to working with conflict is for us to begin to get enough resilience to see the way in which our narcissistic wounding is being invoked in our struggles. We wrote in our previous article about the Dark Couple. This couple is fuelled in proportion to the inability of each of the partners in a relationship to see their own wounding.

    In other words, if we are unable to absorb the injury of the wound triggered by our partner’s barb, we give the dark couple energy; an energy that becomes redoubled if our partner fails to absorb our wounding of them in retaliation. It’s a vicious cycle of hurt and retribution (like an Old Testament story).

    Absorbing the Wound

    Absorbing the narcissistic wound comes only by admitting the existence of some vicious and unpleasant qualities in ourselves, without rebelling in defense and accusation. Can we own anything of what our partner is saying they don’t like about us (even 10% or 1%)?

    A gradual process of growth and maturity can occur for both partners as they begin to see the existence of the dark couple, and begin to be able to withstand and absorb their own narcissistic defenses.

    Understanding the Root Issues

    So back to the part about not resolving conflict. Foundational change doesn’t happen in a relationship by learning strategies for resolving conflict. That’s not to say that resolving conflict doesn’t help; it may be an enormously helpful step in soothing the couple, preparing them to do deeper work, and reducing the psychic injuries to others with whom they connect (such as children).

    But change really, deeply happens when both partners get an understanding, at the root level, of the unconscious energies that have driven their relationship. With such deep understanding, external changes (such as reducing conflict) happen by themselves – and sometimes even evaporate!

  • Revelation and Intimations of a Dark Couple

    Revelation and Intimations of a Dark Couple

    Gary Shead’s Etching Revelation

    We recently moved Revelation (image above) to our therapy rooms and it was interesting to do so – we began to notice it more than we’d done in quite a while (having lived with it at home for at least 10 years).

    Shead’s work presents powerful icons of Australia and the Australian psyche: the strangeness of the land, the kangaroo and the koala; the way we relentlessly hark back to Britain and its monarchical structure; and of course the world of the displaced aboriginal (almost imperceptible to the right of the scene).

    But what’s been capturing our attention recently is the couple in the shadow to the extreme left of the work, the dark couple.

    The Dark Couple

    A view in couples work is that every relationship has (to a greater or lesser extent) a dark couple. To call it the dark couple is a shorthand for those aspects of our relationship that we’ve agreed not to see, and that live out this unseen and unexperienced life.

    In therapeutic language, it’s also called the unconscious dyad, or the dark dyad. (In Shead’s work, the embracing couple is to the left of the scene. The left side is often associated with unconsciousness.)

    The dark couple is a consequence of an agreement, made by both parties to the relationship, to make themselves and the relationship safe; to deny the possibility (present in any relationship) of rupture and change. Ironically, this can be played out as fighting and a lack of trust.

    The problem with such agreements being unexamined is that they stifle the relationship, and for some people, stifle a lively engagement in life generally. The couple constructs a co-dependent system in which neither party is challenged, but in which new growth cannot occur. As Nathan Swartz-Salent says in The Mystery of Human Relationship (in which he takes the work of medieval alchemists as a powerful lens for understanding couple relationships):

    The union state that exists in relationships generally involves the unconscious elements of each party rather than the more conscious elements. Consciously, two people may seem to be loving and cooperative even while their unconscious dyad, which may be the major locus of the union between them, can behave in significantly different ways from the conscious image and values to which both people adhere. By its nature, the “dark” couple underlying the “conscious” couple is strange and usually unpleasant. For instance, the dark couple may be like two vicious animals locked in a life and death struggle, or as described in the Turba Philosophorum, two lovers locked in an embrace – one a human being and the other a serpent.

    Union State (Coniunctio), from the Turba Philososphorum

    Union State (Coniunctio), from the 12th century alchemical text Turba Philosophorum. (The Turba recorded an important discussion between early alchemists, in which many of the key themes of alchemy were laid out.)

    Working On The Dark Couple

    We can start to tune our eyes and ears to the presence of the dark couple in our relationships (and this applies not only to our intimate relationships, but to business relationships and those with other family members). We might begin to notice the way little give-aways occur (such as a lifting of the eyebrows when our partner responds, or a caustic comment made as a “joke”).

    The Revelation is in what, with an open attitude, we can discover. Just as in Shead’s work, there many things to be explored about the characters in the scene. What’s required is the ability to withstand the sense of wounding and injury we may encounter in seeing the darker sides of ourselves being laid bare. The danger in not doing so is that the energies contained within the dark couple subtly and gradually affect the life of the relationship and the environment of the couple; taking their toll on others, such as family members or colleagues.

    Seeing the dark couple and realising the power it holds enables us to undergo a process of realising that we may have been acting in ways that are unconscious and destructive to the relationship, all the while believing that the opposite is true.

  • I Want To Build Trust But S/he Is Not Trustworthy

    I Want To Build Trust But S/he Is Not Trustworthy

    How to Build Trust?

    We often see this: the couple want to work on “building trust”. The issue shows up in many different ways. One person may allude to not trusting the other with money, or one person might say “If I am vulnerable it will be used against me later”. And these things may have been true in the past, maybe even recently.

    We find that the way trust gets built is subtle. On the one hand it requires openness, diving into the deep end, a leap of faith. On the other, it requires real evidence that change has occurred. Let’s explore both sides.

    Openness and a Leap of Faith

    Faith is for zealots and extremists, you might say to yourself. You’re more rational about trust. And your feelings and concerns are based on real hard evidence, your past. You’ve been hurt before, right? And possibly badly and you won’t let that happen again.

    There is a problem with this attitude. Our brain collects experiences and makes meanings from them. But it’s often lousy at figuring out matters of the heart. It likes to be in control, and with the heart, it isn’t. So in trying to regain power it usually does damage. And this power struggle is painful for all concerned.

    Why does this happen? Well, we learn early and we hold on dearly to what we learn, even if this means denying what is clearly in front of us now and sabotaging our dreams and desires. This is survival mode. It’s somewhat useful early in life – learning from our mistakes or finding ways around a father’s criticism or a mother’s bad mood, for example.

    But what happens when we believe our partners are often critical or scary when upset? Then we are stuck. We reinvent (in adult behaviours) our coping mechanisms from childhood and we fool ourselves that we are being objective, protecting ourselves from the onslaught, when in fact we are missing the truth. The difficulty is that we do not want to see the truth. Our beliefs are comfortable – more than that, worth fighting for even if they are wrong.

    Somehow the brain makes up that if we act differently now, then maybe we had it all wrong before too. And we dig in deeper, not wanting to lose our sense of ourselves. Our beliefs are who we are.

    But the things that were scary in our past need not be so scary anymore. We can hold on to the fear and the belief that we will be hurt again, stronger than we can hold the possibility that we can have a new experience. Holding the idea that things could be different now is what is scary! Is there a chance that this person may be critical sometimes or may have mood swings occasionally, but that we can cope in a different way, maybe even be there to help them when they are most in need, rather than running or fighting?

    If we defend our beliefs and, when things fall apart, say to ourselves “I knew it couldn’t work” (with a mix of satisfaction of having preempted the failure, and sadness at recognising this) then we have lost a chance of things being different.

    Actuals over Intentions

    On the other hand, if there is not yet trust, then trust cannot be willed into existence. Fears and hurt will just become alienated from the relationship, to live their life in secret.

    Truth is what’s required, and truth must be communicated, even if it’s the truth that “I do not yet trust”. Real trust requires evidence that things have changed, over time. It requires evidence of the actual over the intention stated by either party in the relationship.

    Holding Both Sides

    The solution, as we see it, is to hold both sides.

    The couple needs to decide that this work is paramount, and that it is ongoing. They learn to return to openness for however long it takes for actuality to win out over intentions.

    The magic is that in so doing, the relationship becomes transformed. We’ll talk more about this in a future article, but there’s sufficient evidence that the act of working in this way, of focussing on the issues of trust and intimacy together, can itself be transformational.

    Openness and the leap of faith is not just trusting that bad things that happened in the past won’t happen again; it’s trusting that a transformational process is possible. It’s in the results of this transformational process that we really know that bad things that happened in the past are unlikely to happen again.

    The transformational process is about speaking, in a dialog of deepening truth, saying words that might not have been said or heard in the relationship before. If the couple can learn to hear those words and learn to trust that the other wants the same as them, then they can heal. If not, then old beliefs win and the relationship loses.

    Will you take the leap to openness in your relationship, while patiently holding your need for seeing the actuality of change?

    (The image above is the fourth woodcut from the Rosarium Philosophorum.)

  • 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

    Paul Simon and Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover

    The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
    The answer is easy if you take it logically
    I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
    There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
    50 Ways to Leave Your Lover – Paul Simon

    What’s the message we’re giving here? Aren’t we interested in improving relationships, in staying closer? Why do we recommend you leave your lover?

    When we are ready to hear that there is a way in which this might be true then we can be open to change. And as with many truths, it’s paradoxical. If we have the option of leaving then we have the possibility of truly staying, and staying in a new way. Let us explain.

    The Unconscious Deal

    Many of us have felt incomplete in our lives, and many of us continue to do so. Starting from our early days, we began to look outside ourselves for what it is we thought could complete us.

    This is such a valiant search, there’s such a deep desire to be whole, to heal wounds engendered possibly by family and by our world in general.

    But it’s a hard search, leading often to addictive behaviours, to drugs, disconnected sex, self-hate, self-aggrandisement, depression, over work, over emphasis on money. The list is endless. And one key element of the search can be our relationship to our lover, our intimate partner. We ask (often without even realising we are asking) “How can this person heal me, how can they fill the yawning hole within me, the ache of emptiness and wounding?” or “How can they represent something for me, something that reflects back my wholeness?”

    So our lover becomes the attempted salve for a problem that’s a terror we hide even from ourselves. What does this do to our relationship? Well, the relationship can’t be free, if it comes with conditions placed upon it, conditions that distort our interactions with our lover despite our insistence that all is well.

    And no matter how much we struggle with this and deny it, the truth is it’s a conditional love; one in which an unconscious “deal” has been made with our partner. Despite how much we might both say “No, the relationship’s fine, let’s get on with life”, cracks can’t help but show. Paint them over, buy the next house or car, go on the next holiday… but the wound remains.

    Another Way

    Another way is to begin to look at this set-up. Learn to withdraw our attachments from our intimate partner. Although it’s true that some couples need to actually split, in many cases, instead, this withdrawal from unconscious enmeshment is the “leaving” that’s needed.

    Dive deep into the wound of incompleteness, worthlessness, lack, and see this as the path to becoming whole. Discover for ourselves that what we lacked could never have been found outside ourselves, it was always waiting for us, deep within.

    And in rediscovering this truth (which we may have never consciously known) – that what we sought was in the depths of ourselves – we then have the possibility of re-connecting with our partner in a new way, free from conditions. True intimacy can come only with freedom, when we are not driven by the addictive need for the other.

    (Unexamined conditions are very different from conscious agreements that we might make with our partner. It’s the unexamined conditions that are the pollutants.)

    Leave But Stay

    So, to paraphrase, consider this possibility: “Leave But Stay”. Do the work, and when we’ve “left” the relationship, learn to “stay” in a completely new way.