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.