Special Theory of Relativity for Psychotherapy

Special Theory of Relativity for Psychotherapy

Years ago, I taught courses in psychotherapy and supervised residents in training and psychology interns.  I drew some conclusions that coalesced into a sort of Special Relativity of Psychotherapy.  The recent excerpt from Dr. Stein’s Individuation about first visits from a Jungian perspective got me thinking about how Einstein’s theory pertains to the work of therapy.

In 1905, Einstein “On the Electro dynamics of Moving Bodies” described that the frame of reference of an observer determines what is observed.  For example, an observer moving at a speed close to the speed of light will encounter drastic effects upon their perception of objects in different inertial frames.  Your inertial frame governs what you observe.  This is strikingly like psychotherapy.  To the Freudian and Neo-Freudian analyst, the analysis of resistance and will help expose libidinal impulses that have been obstructed by conflicts with a strict super-ego resulting in neurotic structures employed by the ego.  A Self-psychologist may seek to illuminate the connection between early relationships (and their representation as internal structures of introjects, object representations, self-object representations, etc).  The Cognitive-Behaviorally oriented therapist will apply herself to identifying negative, unproductive cognitive schemas that contribute to symptoms.  It begins to appear that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  I could go on with other examples.  One thing I concluded about schools of psychotherapy is that like Einstein’s inertial frames of reference, they determine what a therapist will observe.  (No problem provided we understand that is the nature of our discursive thinking is always constrained by our frame of reference).  

Another thing I concluded when teaching psychotherapy was that any model of therapy helps the therapist feel secured and anchored.  The result is often that the therapist can provide a non-anxious presence to the client.  In so far as the relationship is the critical element of healing in therapy, a non-anxious therapist allows the client to explore their interior life with less contamination.  In this regard, almost any philosophic stance will do.  Acknowledging this generic feature of therapy can help therapist in training (and all of us are truly therapist in training) to embrace the value of being well schooled in at least one frame of reference about how therapy ought to be conducted.  

Not all schools of psychotherapy are created equal.  In addition, the therapeutic approach that proves well-suited to one person may be ill-suited to another.  Psychotherapy is not an exact science; it is nothing like testing for antibiotic sensitivity or resistance with acute infections.  Instead, a therapist is guided by some amalgam of evidenced based science and deep intuition.  An excessive reliance on either often proves detrimental to a client.  

There is a natural inclination toward being purist in public while being far less dogmatic, and much more adaptable in our consulting room.  This is reminiscent of the difference between those poets who can write metered or rhyming verse who choose to compose free verse and those who cloak themselves in the mantel of vers libre simply because they have neither the gifts or discipline to cultivate metered or rhymed verse.  We suspect one another of being less dogmatic behind closed doors.  And why shouldn’t we; we know what we do?  

While we are striving to maintain a suitable stance with clients it is our duty to notice when we deviate.  We strive to remain alert to those deviations, to be alert for those moments when our process adversely influences the work of the client (and vice versa).  But we are never impeccable.  Instead, we endlessly seek to remove ourselves in service of the other.  

In the process of monitoring our process and its potential impact upon the other we honor Einstein’s discoveries in our own way.  We begin by reconciling ourselves to the fact that we cannot extricate ourselves from some frame of reference.  We can acknowledge that any system of ideas supports the illusion of certainty and this, it turns our, fosters in us a non-anxious presence.  We end up focusing less on defending dogma and more on present moment, mutual discernment.  We admit that in the midst of our striving toward a relatively pure theoretical stance we encounter detours; we allow others to know that the mystery of therapy can never be circumscribed by a theory, no matter how sound that theory appears.  

Ask yourself the following three questions.

1. How would I articulate my personal theoretical/philosophic stance about the work I do with clients?
2. Where do I see evidence that having a stance helps me relax enough to really be with my clients?
3. When I depart from my theoretical/philosophical stance, what causes can I recognize?

I have found the following to be true about the last question.  Sometimes, my deviations from a coherent stance occurs because I am slothful, I do not always maintain highest degree of vigilance when conducting therapy.  Mostly, these tend to be minor deviations, worthy of note but hardly exploitive or destructive.  Sometimes, I am visited by my own complexes that insert themselves in the process.  This is fertile ground for me and especially fertile ground for my client when I attend to it.  Sometimes, the client’s process is so intense that it warps the fabric of our relationship like a massive object warps the space-time continuum.  I may deviate because there seems to be no recourse for the moment but these are the most fertile realms of exploration.   

As I seek to balance all these forces I am reminded of the closing lines of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” 

Ulysses 

Tennyson 

...Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

In Arizona, Brown is the New Black: Immigration and the Other

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up. (Martin Niemölle)
Arizona passed a new law intended to deal forcefully with illegal immigrants.  the law makes it a state crime to not have an alien registration document and requires police to question persons they suspect of being in this country illegally.  Comparisons to Nazi Germany are partly hyperbole and partly true.  Let’s examine the psychological roots of this controversial law?
The Other
There are signs that the controversy unfolding in Arizona is reflective of how we deal with the other when the other looks different from us.  There is a xenophobic thread running through North American cultural paralleled by European’s growing discomfort with Muslim immigrants, or Asian’s distrust of Caucasian, western, capitalist immigrants.
Miroslav Volk, a Yugoslav theologian who admits to the difficulty he has reaching out to Serbs says that no matter what someone has done to you, you must be willing to begin the process of making your enemy your friend.
Newsweek’s (September 9, 2009) cover story titled “Is Your Baby Racist?” described the research of Birgette Vittrup out of the University of Texas has studied racial attitudes among families in the Austin area and found early evidence among infants and toddlers that they recognize racial difference.  One researcher noticed randomly assigned school children to either a group who wore a red T-shirt or a blue T-shirt.  The children were otherwise not treated differently.  Quickly, the subjects identified with the group wearing like colored shirts and assumed an inherent greater worth and value to being a member of their like colored T-shirt group.  What’s worse was the natural tendency to vilify those wearing the other colored T-shirt.
Anyone wishing to discover their own implicit bias might be interested in Harvard’s Project Implicithttps://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/ .  This 10-15 minute test may surprise you when you discover that we have implicit associations about race.
It is the tendency to vilify and denigrate the other both explicitly and implicitly that dwells in our unconscious.  It is from this oceanic realm that pogroms, ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust, and other atrocities emerge and in their collective power unleash destructive forces.  But I am suspicious of quick, easy remedies.
Fishing in a Bass Pond
The Asheville Police Department (APD) recently conducted a raid on a local nightclub frequented by Hispanics.  Reportedly they separated the patrons who looked Hispanic and proceeded to interrogate them and uncovered a number of undocumented persons.  Their professed intention was to address gang related activity.  The following week a client expressed her passion and outrage at the incident and fully expected that because I am a Cuban-American I would share her sentiment.  I did not.
First, I noted that if I took my children fishing for bass, I might consider going to a stocked bass pond where their chances of catching a fish would be substantially better.  The police were doing something similar.  By isolating the darker skinned patrons who looked Hispanic, they were improving their odds of success.  As a long-standing member of the ACLU I see enormous, substantive issues regarding constitutional protections against search and seizure.  However, I also acknowledge the efficient methods employed by the APD.  I know she was dismayed by my upside-down perspective on the incident that drew public protests.  However, I believe she was also unsettled by my unexpected reticence to let my tribal identity rule my heart and my head.  The normal response is to align with your tribe and vilify the other.  I did both and neither.

Ambivalence & the Other
Arizona’s recent legislation has stepped into the center of a minefield of ambivalent content.  Let me enumerate some of the ambivalent elements:

• We enjoy a cheap supply of labor (lower food costs, lower expenses in hospitality industry, low cost construction labor, etc) but resent undocumented workers for their downward effect upon wages.
• We accept tax payments through withholding from persons who will never collect the benefit while vigorously complaining of the drain undocumented workers place upon an already taxed social safety net.
• We proclaim the value of free trade and through NAFTA advance initiatives intended to integrate the Americas while acting toward our southern neighbors like we would toward an infectious agent that must be quarantined.
• We focus upon the surge of Mexican gangs who control drug importation into the United States while we fail to craft effective policy that addresses the demand on this side of the border that creates the market opportunity gangs exploit.
• Many Americans believe we are under siege from Muslims in our midst but it is easier to engage undocumented individuals from Mexico and Central America than it is to address other potentially volatile immigration related issues, particularly while we are at war in two Islamic nations.

The list goes on.

Take a Stand
Each of us will be called upon to fend off our tribal instinct while also honoring it.  At the moment, the debate rages over Arizona’s brazen experiment in applying immigration laws at the state level.  There are likely to be citizens in Arizona who see their state as disproportionately burdened by the federal government’s ineffective enforcement of existing immigration laws.  They may feel a tribalism about being an Arizonan and perhaps they are right, after all, what does a citizen of Arizona have in common with one from Maine (where 1% of the population is Hispanic) on this issue.
Here is a challenge you may find interesting.  Where are you noticing your tribal instinct being aroused.  Try to refrain from starting with the broadest trends that stir you to identify with your own kind, things like Brazilian, French, German, Israeli, North American, Jungian, man, woman.  Instead, bring the inquiry to a more granular level.  My company vs the competitor, my friends and companions vs those I share little affinity with, fans of my favorite sports team vs fans of this weeks opponents, people who know how to drive (like me) and those who appear deficient.  Cultivate the ability to recognize when you are being swept up by a tribal impulse to align with others like you and see if you can uncover the quality by which we exclude the other.  And whenever you can, see the folly in such dichotomies and explore the realm where you stand astride both, holding them in tension, without rejecting or inflating either.  Consider this a novel form of taking a stand, one informed by our appreciation for how psyche works.  I offer the following poem by John Milton as a subtler exposition of this blog entry.
WHEN I CONSIDER HOW MY LIGHT IS SPENT
John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.


Len Cruz, MD

Remembering, Repeating, Working-Through: Working with the Shadow

“Everyone carries a shadow”, according to Jung, “and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Being an irrational realm, the Shadow is prone to being projected so that our own inferiority ends up appearing to us as a deficiency in the other.  "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power."
In dealing with Shadow, three phases of our engagement can be seen.  In the first phase, a person is either unaware or so dimly aware that the only evidence that can be detected consists of the projected contents.  These are reflected back to a person in the form of other’s deficiencies.  Another phase consists of revealing of Shadow in its true form, that is, as disowned, unacceptable aspects of the Self.  This is a phase of recovery of projections.  An individual begins to be emancipated from the  enslavement to Shadow.  In the course of this phase the bondage imposed upon others by the projected contents is diminished.  We might compare this phase to the aroma that wafts through the air, it does not sate the appetite but may arouse the appetite for the actual victuals.  Finally, there is a phase that involves integrating Shadow into the personality. Here Shadow becomes integrated into the whole Self.  There is no longer a need to stow The Secret Sharer of our unconscious below deck.
In Freud’s essay, “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through” he offers relevant insights that can be adapted to the work with the Shadow.  In order to adapt Freud’s ideas you must overlook how his thoughts are encased in his theories of psychosexual development.  Patients, according to Freud, begin by repeating.  “As long as the patient is in treatment he cannot escape from his compulsion to repeat and in the end we understand this is his way of remembering.”
“...the patient yields to the compulsion to repeat, which now replaces the impulsion to remember.”  Substitute projection of Shadow for repeating in Freud's essay.  Where you see Freud discussing remembering replace it with the notion of recognizing and recovering the project Shadow elements.  Finally, Freud credits the handling of transference as the main instrument for converting a patient’s compulsion to repeat into a motive to remember.  “One must allow the patient time to become more conversant with this resistance (to remembering) with which he has now become acquainted, and work through it.”
What striking similarities exist between Freud’s evolving psychoanalytic techniques and the work with the Shadow proposed by Analytical Psychology.  Both render the unconscious realm as pressing itself upon life in the form of either repetition (Freud) or projection (Jung).  Both assert a critical role for remembering (Freud) and becoming conscious (Jung).  And the notion of working-through (Freud) and integration (Jung) seem to be one in the same.  Both Freud and Jung were pointing toward a cauldron of unconscious, instinctive, irrational psychological stuff that plays out to the detriment of all concerned when it remains unconscious and can be incorporated and dealt with through therapy.
Ask yourself what means you have found to work with Shadow.  How do you foster the ability to move from projecting (and repeating to do so) to recovering projections?  How do you encourage the arduous task of helping clients make the journey from repeating to remembering, from  projecting and recovering a projection?  And finally, what have you found helpful with regard to working-through (or integration of Shadow)?
References
Jung, C.G. (1938). "Psychology and Religion." In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.131
Jung, C.G. (1951). "Phenomenology of the Self" In The Portable Jung. P.147
See http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/220 for a text of "The Secret Sharer" by Joseph Conrad.
See http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/201/articles/1914FreudRemembering.pdf for a copy of the essay "Remembering. Repeating and Working-Through:

Len Cruz, MD

Mother Knows Best: of volcanoes and global warming

Global warming is a growing concern among industrialized nations.  What about indigenous people, do they worry about such man-made effects?  Perhaps indigenous people are more attune to Gaia.  As we become aware of human impact upon the earth there is a place to consider that the earth may be capable of reversing such impact in dramatic ways.

The volcanic eruption in Iceland was pouring out an estimated 750 tons of ash every second.  An estimated 26,000 flights in and out of Europe were grounded.  that represents a significant amount of carbon that was not dumped into the atmosphere.  Previous volcanic eruptions have cooled the earth.   Our destructive human influence reversed, albeit slightly, by this single natural event.

As Jungians we honor the natural movement toward integration and wholeness.  We suppose that the transcendence of opposites, the integration of shadow elements, the embrace of anima/animus to be a grand opus. Given the opportunity, a person not only heals psychologically, they will thrive and unfold themselves as individuals.

There is a certain hubris in supposing that human beings, a small portion of the biomass, should be able to impose an insurmountable stress.  Tonight Nightline featured a report about Mother Nature reminds us of just how vulnerable we really are.   Perhaps we can open to a larger vision of the destructive influences of global warming.  Just as stress upon an individual often foster psychological growth and integration, the same may be true of Mother Earth.  Mother Earth has been through warming periods and ice ages many times.  She endures.  While we may be unique among species in our ability to orchestrate our own annihilation, that does not imply that we are destroying the earth.

Just suppose Mother Earth let off a massive amount of dust into air  in order to cool her skin.  If we were living in closer relationship with the earth we could see such things as signs.  Between the indigenous person and the modern person spans a long distance.  But when a tsunami’s hit the Pacific several years ago certain indigenous people took refuge on high ground.  They knew the language that mother earth speaks.

When the dust and ash from the volcano will we listen to Gaia whispering?

To balance the alarm about global warming let’s consider the vast, unintelligible features of Gaia, our primordial mother.  Without dismissing the reality of global warming it is possible to consider that Mother Earth can adapt.  Mother knows best and we’d do well to listen when she speaks.

Len Cruz, MD

Goldman Sachs and the Cerberus Within (Greed, Envy, Pragmatism)

Goldman Sachs and the Cerberus Within (Greed, Envy, Pragmatism)

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus to see a watercolor by William Blake of Cerberus
Cerberus, watercolour by William Blake
On April 16th, 2010 Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud for betting against the very investments they were selling to others.  Upon reading the news I immediately felt a sense satisfaction that the firm that is alleged to have contributed to the debacle of housing crisis was getting what was coming to it.
It seems that Goldman Sachs was allowing an advisor, John Paulson to purchase investments that would appreciate in value when the housing market collapsed and also allowing him to choose the mortgages that would be bundled into an investment called collataeralized debt obligations. These were sold to other investors, mostly banks.  Read more about the details at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/business/17goldman.html?th&emc=th .    There was no regulation of this fledgling realm and as we eventually discovered there simply wasn’t enough actual cash to pay the insurance against the bad loans.
Imagine selling cars that you thought had reasonable prospects of exploding and killing their occupants and simultaneously purchasing life insurance on the driver because you foresee a reasonable prospect of collecting.  I had three reactions to the fraud charges and they arose in quick succession.
First, I felt my vengeful spirit satisfied.  These fat cats deserve to be charged (and potentially be fined $1 bn). They are partly responsible for the loss of enormous sums that caused some companies to fail and others to nearly fail.   Government intervention, designed to keep complete economic collapse from overtaking the US and other economies seemed necessary.  I am indignant, righteously indignant concerning the unprecedented transfer of wealth from average individuals to wealthy individuals and corporations (through taxes, bailouts, stimulus funds, and eventually long-term national debt).  All this leads me to want to see swift justice executed without mercy.
But soon I felt deep envy.  There is still a cesspool of envy in my spirit about Goldman Sachs and other firms like it.  I resent those who made obscene amounts of money through the early part of the decade primarily because I didn’t.  If I had been one of the traffickers in these investments or one of those receiving spectacular compensation, my righteous indignation would have given way to complicit silence.  At the first sign of trouble I would have wanted to be among those who were savvy to hedge their bets like Goldman Sachs did to extend the party a little longer.  The promise of glory and wealth would have enchanted me, and before long I would have been certain to feel entitled to it all.  My second reaction was to acknowledge that the vengeful side of me sometimes serves as a thin, but comforting, disguise for envy and sense of entitlement.  I met the enemy and it is me.
Then, a third perspective emerged.  It is a more sober one, a sort of amalgam or marriage of the two earlier ones.  I may be a modest transcendence of opposites.  Let’s face facts, the employees at Goldman Sachs are adepts.  They may be more adept at garnering wealth than any group of individuals in recent American history.  Therefore, I can’t imagine they didn’t have an idea that fraud charges might be handed down.  While the public has oscillated between vilifying Goldman Sachs and glorifying the company and its employees, they may have seen either situation as an opportunity to make money.    These are folks who know about mitigating risk (and apparently also how to create risk); in fact, that is part of what they are charged with.  They covered a bet they knew was likely to be a bad one while encouraging others to stay at the table and continue gambling.  My third reaction led me to pick up the phone and call my broker and ask if she thought now might be a good time to buy some Goldman Sachs.  I figure these are smart people who will find the angle that will let them earn profits, record profits, again.
Whether Goldman Sucks or not is not clear yet.  However, I appear to be a three headed beast, a Cerberus (see link above).  I stand in harsh judgment of the scoundrels who exploit the capitalist system better than I do, I envy the spoils they enjoy, and it turns out that when the psychological dust settles I am a pragmatist.  I don’t know if I will get in bed with Goldman Sachs since I still maintain Goldman Sucks but if I buy Goldman Sachs low and sell high I will be reconciled to the fact that Goldman Sucks no more than I do.
Len Cruz, M.D.