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Is there a good way to break up with someone?

Breaking up with someone is hard to do. Often we feel a degree of ambivalence about our own emotions and our instinct is to both find the easiest and fastest way of ‘just ending it’.

Whilst this may seem seductive, the easiest and fastest way is often more likely to cause conflict and to leave us feeling ‘unresolved’ about the ending.

I believe that it is possible to end a meaningful relationship with another whilst holding ourselves in mind and essentially being ‘selfish’. I often refer to being ‘selfish’ (with a small ‘s’) in my consulting room as being the act of first and foremost holding ourselves in mind whilst not dismissing another’s experience.

Even good things must end

The first step in holding ourselves in mind is to bring an end to the relationship. If you have made up your mind then this represents a ‘hard boundary’ and is not one that can be negotiated.

The second step is to think about how you want to feel after the break-up. This is another step in being selfish in that you are thinking about your own sense of integrity and self esteem. If you are ending a relationship with someone you have cared about and the ending is a ‘no fault ending’ then it is unlikely you will feel good about yourself if you simply ‘ghost’ them.

Accepting different emotions

If your partner is not expecting the relationship to end, it is likely they will have a very different emotional response to the news than yours. Whilst this may feel uncomfortable, it is entirely natural and providing they do not verbally or physically attack you nor try and make you feel responsible for their emotions, they are allowed to have their emotional experience.

I would suggest that relationship endings should always be done in person and in private. It can be tempting to create distance when initiating a break up – such as ending things via text message – but this is far more likely to cause a ‘messy’ ending than by meeting with the person. By meeting in private it gives you both the opportunity to say what needs to be said and importantly feelings to be felt, without the discomfort of strangers witnessing your relationship coming to an end.

When we are uncomfortable about delivering a message that may hurt another, we can have the tendency to try and ‘soften the blow’ by using gentler language, however, this can backfire as the person receiving our message may hear this as a sign of hope and fail to recognise that the relationship is truly over. Clarity is ultimately kinder to you and your partner.

Being compassionate does not mean staying when you want to go

You can empathise with your partner’s feelings of shock, hurt, disappointment and sadness without backtracking on your decision or making yourself ‘wrong’. Remember, they are entitled to their emotions and you are entitled to yours.

I would recommend being boundaried with the time you spend delivering the message and thinking about where the balance lies between delivering what you have to say compassionately and sacrificing your needs. Perhaps plan in advance how long you will spend talking to your (ex) partner before leaving and creating some distance.

If your partner is able and willing to have a dialogue with you then you can discuss how you will approach letting your sider family and social circle know about the break-up and agree a narrative you both can adopt.

If possible, cut off all contact following the break-up, so as to allow space to grieve and start to move on. You can think about this in advance of your meeting and I would suggest that a minimum of a few months can be a helpful period of time to grieve some of the rawer feelings.

Let’s be friends…

Don’t commit to being ‘friends’ at the break-up. Whilst this again may feel seductive, neither of you know how you will feel about the other once the dust has settled and you have grieved. You may be able to be friends or you may not. The romantic relationship needs to first come to an end and only in time will you know whether any form of platonic relationship is possible.

Recognise that even though it is you who has initiated the break-up, this does not mean that you will not feel grief and need to give yourself time to let go of the relationship and your now ex-partner. Getting used to the ‘space’ left in our lives after a break up – a shift emotionally from ‘we’ to ‘me’ – can take time and feel uncomfortable. The inclination can be to ‘fill’ that space with dating, however, this rarely works out well and is a way of avoiding the grieving process.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

Can Self-Help become an identity?

Can psychotherapy help narcissists?

Are we becoming more narcissistic?

What is narcissism?

The medicalisation of mental distress

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Are we becoming more narcissistic?

We are living in the age of narcissism – or so the media would like us to believe. People in The West seem to be focussed largely on themselves and the pursuit of happiness – the answer to which for increasing numbers of the populace is to be found in the soundbites of TikTok celebrities or from the wisdom of other social media ‘influencers’.

But are we collectively becoming increasingly narcissistic and what does this mean?

In my last blog I dispelled some of the myths around this condition and explained rather than it being a description for a set of behaviours, it is a personality style and in its more rigid manifestations, a debilitating one from a relational perspective. I shall therefore not be revisiting all that again and you can read my in-depth blog on what narcissism actually is here.

The argument that behaviour tells us anything much about a person’s personality structure – particularly when it comes to narcissism – is naïve and reductive.

Changes in behaviour online

We know that people behave differently in online interactions as compared to when they are face-to-face with another human being. It is the actual, as well as the perceived distance, from the other’s humanness that seems to give many licence to behave in selfish and thoughtless ways.

Whenever we cease to view the other as human and objectify them, we are not acting relationally as the very word ‘relational’ implies a willingness to understand another’s perspective and to be able to tolerate difference, even if we don’t much like their views.

Is modern man (and women) less able to tolerate differences than prior generations? I am not so sure. What I do know is that the internet, and specifically social media, provides platforms to both those who rather like the sound of their own voice (but arguably have little actual wisdom to impart) and it provides a huge scope for attracting an audience.

Where not so long ago an individual may have believed that they held the key to a successful life (whatever that means), they may have attracted a few lost souls in their tribe, village or town. Now, with expert ‘curation’ of their message and image, they can reach the whole world.

On narcissistic personalities

Behaving in a selfish or egocentric way does not mean that someone is a narcissist. Certainly narcissists can be grandiose, self-centred, entitled and enjoy the sound of their own voice, however we can all at times behave in this way.

Narcissism is a personality style, and we all have a mix of personality styles, generally with one or two that dominate a little more than others. If someone has a narcissistic personality then this particular style of personality is dominant and can be viewed on a continuum (of rigidity) from pathological through to personality disordered.

In psychoanalytic theory, clinicians view these personality styles as being primarily laid down by our early infant and childhood experiences (generally up to around the age of two).

Someone who has a narcissistic personality has not been related to as a separate individual but rather has learnt from a very early age to adapt their behaviour to the needs of their caregiver. In essence, they have internalised the message ‘do not exist’. As a result of learning that their role is to meet the needs of others (their primary carers), the child in question develops a ‘false self’ to compensate – they present a front to the world suggesting that they are perfectly fine.

Beneath this front is a vulnerable child who cannot show his or her feelings for fear of abandonment by the parent. For narcissistically structured people, others – relationships – are a major problem. They need others, however, they also profoundly fear being used or ‘taken over’ by others and so to defend themselves by objectifying those around them. Relationships are about doing or being done to, rather than love.

How might this apply to the collective?

My sense is that it is unlikely that there is now a sudden increase in parents who are failing their children and raising narcissistically structured personalities. However, as the old adage goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ – no child is solely influenced by their parents.

The clinical research would suggest that we are not becoming more narcissistic in terms of personality style, however, what has exponentially changed are two major factors: we have lost collective meaning because the world is changing too fast for us to cultivate and uphold meaning, and secondly, technology is playing an all encompassing role in dehumanising us.

The role of meaning

Human beings are meaning making creatures and we live in a symbolic universe which is probably what renders us unique amongst animals. I have previously written a piece on the role of Culture and the need for belonging in enabling us to have healthy self esteem, which you can read here.

Essentially, as traditional values and means of making meaning either fall away or are dismantled, we are left with two problems: higher anxiety and less collective means of gaining self esteem.

This may then cause us to both behave in more individualistic and hedonistic ways to feel alive but without substance – we deny our vulnerability by becoming more narcissistic.

The role of technology

We are at the start of a technological revolution where only our imagination can predict what the world, and by extension, our relationship to it and others in it, will look like.

Technology is not intrinsically good nor bad – it depends on how we use it. And to date how we have used it is in a rather dehumanising fashion. Convenience has trumped connection and this can be seen in the proliferation of parasocial relationships (where we have relationships with influencers or YouTubers and believe they are real and personal, when they are in fact one-way), and the evolution of dating through online apps whereby we have commoditised ourselves.

On the symbiotic relationship between Echo and Narcissus

The origins of narcissism were taken, largely by Freud, from the 2,000 year old myth written by Ovid. This Greek myth – a myth being a story that reflects a collective truth – is entitled ‘When Echo meets Narcissus’ and whilst most people are to some degree familiar with the myth, it is often misconstrued: many believe that Narcissus fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water; And few even know of the role of Echo.

Narcissus is someone who is admired by all and who cannot tolerate intimacy. Echo, meanwhile, is a river nymph whose voice has been taken by Juno, the Goddess, for gossiping. Echo can therefore only repeat the last words she hears.

This is how the stage, and the symbiotic relationship, between Narcissus and Echo is set both on the myth and for all time: Narcissus needs Echo just as much as Echo needs Narcissus but neither can have a relationship with the other – they are in symbiosis.

Returning to the question of whether technology and specifically how online relationships are being shaped is rendering us more narcissistic, if it is it is, it also rendering us more like Echo – willing to sacrifice our voice to be in the shadow of those we admire; we believe that there is a relationship happening but there simply is not.

Narcissistic people need echoists; we are collectively responsible for admiring those who need to be admired rather than having something of substance to offer. Human beings are adaptable to our environment – it is why we have been able to colonise every corner of the globe. Equally, we absolutely need relationships, as we are shaped and formed not only in childhood by relationship, but throughout our lives.

My view is that as a result of a combination of both a loss of meaning and the ease of online interactions, we dehumanise both ourselves and others and thus become more narcissistic, or at least egocentric. However, unlike those with true narcissistic personalities, it is reversible and as a clinician I know only too well the power of change that comes from a therapeutic relationship.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

What is a narcissist? 

The medicalisation of mental distress

Can chatbot companions relieve our loneliness?

What are feelings anyway?

Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?

The psychological impact of the recession

 

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Is desire spontaneous?

“Dr Meades asks Daphne how she can help.
‘It’s rather personal dear.’
Dr Meades smiles encouragingly, …
‘You see I’m about to embark on a love affair. It hasn’t quite begun yet, but
it will be … well, frankly, quite a passionate business.’
Dr Meades’s face retained its amiable smile. Only her eyes widened to
take in Daphne’s information.
‘An affair? I see … well how can I …?’
(Diski, 1991:125)

In Jenny Diski’s 1991 novel, “Happily Ever After”, Daphne Drummond is 68, an eccentric lady novelist who hasn’t published recently and a tenant living in the attic of a house owned by Liam. Liam is anthropologist obsessed with sex and young voluptuous female bodies. He has given up his family and his academic job to marry one of his students, Grace. Fairly quickly his sexual obsession and desperate love-making becomes tedious and Grace takes younger lovers. Liam spends his time drinking whiskey, daydreaming about sex and sinking into self- pity. He is irritated and disgusted by Daphne.

Daphne loves Liam and she has plans. She campaigns to convince him of the possible pleasures he might enjoy with her aging body. Her aim is to erode his disgust and make him curious. Their first sexual encounter happens when after a heavy drinking session, dehydrated and miserable, he wakes up to find Daphne has tied him to the bed and is gently exploring his body. Touching parts of his body at the same time as touching her own; sniffing, licking and making appreciative noises. At first he keeps telling her to stop but gradually he finds he is becoming aroused.

Arousal versus desire

Although she focuses on women’s sexual experience, in her 2020 book “Mind the Gap”, Dr Karen Gurney makes a distinction between arousal and desire. She cites Basson’s 2000 circular model of arousal and desire for women where arousal comes before desire. Gurney’s point is that sexual arousal may not be related to a partner but may well be a response to someone or something in the world, something heard, touched, seen, read or imagined including erotic art or literature. Experiencing sexual or sensual stimuli is the first step towards arousal. This may be in the company of a sexual partner, dinner in a beautiful restaurant or a hot night in a club, or it might be alone, reading and sunbathing or noticing an attractive stranger on a train. Think of all the pleasurable sensations and fantasies that can be enjoyed.

Distraction affects sexual arousal, so whilst spontaneous sex is seen as something good, planning does matter. There are environmental distractions like noise and interruptions. I’m sure anyone who has been interrupted by a small voice calling out Mummy or Daddy knows how off putting this can be. Distraction can also come from concerns about body image and performance perhaps fuelled by comparisons with depictions on social media. There are also concerns about whether the other person is really enjoying it, will you have an orgasm and is this kind of sex ok. Gurney notes research that suggests actively focussing on arousal, thinking about how good it feels and how into the other person you are turns up the sexual response and is more likely to lead to satisfying sex.

Diski’s description of Liam’s transformation from disgust to arousal turns on him seeing his bondage and Daphne’s pleasure from a position of a voyeur rather than a participant, “He began to feel the appropriate responses of a consumer enjoying a pantomime of lust designed to inflame the passive observer’s sexual temperature.” (Diski, 1991:133) Liam is then begging her to not to stop. He is finally overcome with desire for her in a way he has never desired anyone before. When she unties him he makes an investigation of her body, finding pleasure in the present and past life that is written there, “It was more sensual than anything he had ever imagined.” (ibid., 139). Helped by the lubrication Dr Meades has prescribed, Liam finds a new kind of lovemaking with Daphne.

Gurney’s advice to the women who come to her with ‘low’ desire is to ask them to notice when they are aroused and to try and build on that to create desire and anticipation. For some women making plans to enjoy sex may go against their beliefs and culture however desire doesn’t just come out of nowhere; as Gurney points out if you wait for spontaneous desire to arrive it may be a long wait. Of course Gurney also makes it clear that the psychological and emotional context is significant, in her book she discusses relationship issues along with aspects of cultural and religious shame. Putting these aside, Gurney’s message is encouraging. It liberates us from the myth that  spontaneous desire indicates a ‘good’ sexual relationship. By explaining that desire follows arousal and emphasising the importance of fanning arousal, by addressing the elements Gurney is helping women and their partners to revive the benefits and pleasures of an active sex life.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

 

References –

Basson, R. The Female Sexual Response: A Different Model. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 26, 51-65 (2000)
Diski, J. (1991) Happily Ever After. Hamish Hamilton. London.
Gurney, K. (2020) Mind the Gap: The truth about desire and how to future proof your sex life. Headline Home. London.

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What Can Couples Counselling Help With?

Couples Counselling or Couples Therapy can help the couple communicate better, look at past influences on present behaviour and help the individuals within the couple understand themselves and their partner better. Depending on approach to couples therapy, the therapist will either work with the here-and-now issues and provide the couple with tools to better communicate and relate to one another, and/or look at the dynamics stemming from each person’s family of origin and what each brings into their relationship.

In a sense, the role of the therapist is to introduce the individuals in the couple to one another. There are sides of ourselves that might be difficult to show to our partners without the help of a third party who is “looking in” the relationship.

Observation

The couples counsellor acts as an observer of the couples existing communication style, noticing how they interact both verbally and non-verbally. This information assists the therapist and the couple in helping to identify unhelpful patterns and difficulties in getting important messages across. Communication involves speaking, listening and other vital non-verbal cues.

The aim is to achieve greater awareness of how we come across by slowing things down, reflecting on what was said and noticing how things are received by our partner. Patterns of communication usually stem from how we were taught to communicate in our family of origin, therefore what comes naturally may not be what is needed to improve a relationship.

Mediation

Some couples work involves mediation between parties, especially in situations of conflict and impasse. When the couple gets stuck in recurring patterns of behaviour, a skilled third party can assist in calming things down when exchanges get heated, keep track of certain dynamics, and suggest new and different ways of dialogue that are more conducive to conflict resolution. Ideally, in time, mediation is no longer needed and the couple will eventually learn to slow things down themselves and reflect on their style of relating without the help of a professional.

Education

The therapist’s role is also that of an educator in the art of relating and communicating better. People who are very skilled in other areas of their lives can get stuck when it comes to their relationship. There is no shame in being a master communicator in your job but completely fail when it comes to your relationship. This is because there is so much more at stake. The closer we are to someone, the more difficult it is to see things clearly. Some people may feel resistance to coming to couples therapy because they don’t want to be taught to do something that they think they should know themselves. However, a certain degree of humility when it comes to improving your marriage or partnership, can go a long way. Afterall, we are all learning new things all the time.

Final Thoughts

It might feel daunting for couples to talk about the difficulties in their relationship to a total stranger. It can also feel exposing to talk to a stranger about your feelings in front of your partner. However, this very exposure is what enables us to lower our defences and put us in a more receptive and reflective frame of mind. Individuals within a couple often, over the course of their relationship, built walls around themselves as a protection against emotional
hurt and pain. Within a safe space and with a trusted therapist, the couple can hopefully begin to talk about and understand the origins of these feelings. This usually leads to partners getting to know each other better and feeling closer as a result. With more tools and healthier patterns of relating learnt during the sessions, the couple should feel more equipped to continue working on their relationship even after the therapy has ended.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

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Save? Edit? Delete?

In 2002 an Australian journalist coined the term ‘selfie’. June 2007 saw the launch of iPhone and by 2013 the word ‘selfie’ was chosen by the Oxford English Dictionary as the ‘Word Of The Year’. Never as individuals have we been more likely to have a picture taken as we are now. An awareness of how we look, other than what we see in the mirror, is part of our lived experience.

Technology allows us to edit, manipulate or delete images, as we choose. What we don’t like can be edited out, what we can’t bear can simply be deleted. We can edit our selves to a degree that subverts reality.

The selfie could be seen as an expression of a narcissistic, self absorbed, society in which the individual and their image becomes overly important. The selfie could also be a reaction against societal expectations and ideals and a means of expressing individuality. Through a picture one can imagine themselves to be all the things that they might feel that they are, or aren’t.

Which side of the debate you find yourself on we can’t avoid this idea that there is a good, idealized image of ourselves which is sought, and a bad, devalued, version which can end up deleted.

When we speak of idealization and devaluation we’re looking at ways of coping with unbearable feelings. Taking, editing and sharing the perfect picture projects our idealized sense of who we are to the world. It helps us to defend against those feelings which come when confronted by an image that shows a version of ourselves that we find hard to see.

This ‘split’ into either good or bad, idealized and devalued as seen through the relationship to pictures may be revealing unconscious feelings around our sense of who we are. Can we bear to hold onto the images of oneself as ‘less than perfect’?

Thinking about this spilt therapeutically it invites an exploration as to what the client makes of their rejection of some and celebration of other images. Can we help them to recognise these splits and to consider what they might be an expression of? The aim of this is to help the individual to integrate both the idealized and the devalued parts of themselves into a coherent sense of self.

The selfie as a metaphor for how we feel about ourselves could feel like a simplistic idea, but if we can’t hold on to the images that aren’t ideal, are we showing more than we think?

 

David Work is a BACP registered psychotherapist working with adults, offering long term individual psychotherapy. He works with individuals in Hove and Lewes.

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with David , please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Further reading by David Work –

Football, psychotherapy and engaging with male clients

When Home and Work merge

 

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Care for a Dance?

The considerable volume of writing on relationships is littered with metaphors to explore the intricate connections between people. Most frequent might be images of journeys (‘we had come to a crossroads – an obstacle’, ‘it always seems uphill’); of chemistry (‘I felt the spark had gone’; of sport (‘out of my league.’ ‘own goals’); even, of war (‘battles, bombs and victories’). There are many such in the lexicon, each proving useful in examining particular aspects of the emotional engine of relationships.

Dance as Metaphor

One of the most useful metaphor in working with couples is dance. It is an analogy which allows many of the complexities of a couple relationship to be examined. We might think about the negotiated ‘choreography’ – the way in which the individuals move symbolically in relation to each other and how distance and closeness might change according to the dance being played out. Or we could consider aspects of control, of who wants to take the lead (or give it up) and what this tells us about the relationship overall.

You do not need to be an expert on dance to understand that being in the moment and moving with some other person in the same space is going to take a degree of synchronicity. At times it will require that one leads as the other follows. And, inevitably, in keeping all things in balance, there will some testing periods in maintaining a consistent distance between the two protagonists, particularly as the music undergoes a change of dynamic. What seemed quite manageable in one context, can feel overwhelming in another.

What’s Your Role?

The roles agreed by the dancing couple are contracted quite consciously, but within a relationship that negotiation is often unconscious. As skills and desires change or grow, so the individuals might feel uncomfortable in their prescribed role – no matter how happy they might have been in that role previously. In the initial stages, one partner might have been happy to cede control, to allow themselves to be led and to enjoy the feeling of a protective and guiding presence. However, what once felt protective, might now feel smothering; what once felt guiding, might now feel controlling; where once we were happy to follow, now we want to lead. Understanding and making conscious these roles is important in avoiding resentment and anger.

When the dance gets difficult

When the dance flows, it feels effortless – but it can feel hectic. So much change, so much required – and on the hoof! It feels overwhelming at times – and may even make us think that giving up dancing altogether might be the answer. Perhaps we need a re-set – one where we would do well to remember that dance – like relationships generally – is one of the most natural, most primal of human activities. Our oldest human ancestors would have swayed in time to the beat of a drum – and they would have moved symbolically in likewise rhythm with family, friends and partners.

Learning to accommodate change – or doomed to repetition

The threat to us is not from the dance itself – after all, we well know how joyful and life enhancing it can be. The real threat is change. As the inner worlds of the protagonists seek to find meaning and expression, so the relationship plays out and the couple move around each other – closing and distancing, leading and following, taking and ceding – in a figurative dance within which both participants are testing and exploring their worlds. Change is likely – but it will not necessarily be synchronised. And neither will it necessarily be well communicated. Toes will be stepped on; profanities will be muttered. We may even believe that, with another partner, our dancing would be so much better. And so, we do that: we choose another partner. We begin another dance – closing and distancing, leading and following, taking and ceding – our inner selves being acted out repetitively until we learn to better understand ourselves and how we relate to the people around us – until we learn how to dance better!

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

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Are our emotions shaped by our relationships?

This particularly influences us during infancy, childhood and adolescence.  These early experiences can be activated if they have led to the development of unhelpful defenses.  The lack of attunement in parental relationships can result in an infant developing an unhealthy attachment style, divorced from reality in the form of fantasy or withdrawal and detachment.  This initially protects the infant from the pain, emotion and feelings.  Later due to the blocking of the ability to connect emotionally the protector becomes the persecutor.

A chaotic attachment experience can impact on vital neurological developmental pathways leading to permanent damage to later functional performance. Hence the recent research on childhood services from pregnancy to five years of age. 

If a “good enough” environment is NOT available for one reason or another during a person’s childhood there will be aspects of this early experience that appear to act at an unconscious level, a shadow of the early object relationship. This can be brought into consciousness and worked with in the therapeutic process.   Forming a trusting relationship with a therapist or a stable relationship within a group to hold and contain feelings and emotions to be internalized, made sense of in order to be restored. However, we must not conflate this process by apportioning blame on the parent but as a means of unfolding the neurological pathways that block the capacity for integration.  This is re-experienced in the therapeutic alliance as an imago of the infant / child with an immature mind as the “unthought known”     

Our brain and therefore our mind can remain adaptable throughout our lives and given the right support can  make a conscious decision with a mature mind not that of the infant /child.  A similar process occurs in trauma.  It can respond making the shifts necessary to live a valued and happy life.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available

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Intimacy: pillars and obstacles

Our capacity for intimacy as adults is widely understood to be shaped by our early relational experiences. Theorists from diverse orientations emphasise the link between early attachment patterns and subsequent adult love relationships. When our formative experience is one of loving reciprocity with our caregivers, our abilities to give and receive love freely and fully later in life are enhanced. Children who experience themselves as loved and valued in the context of a harmonious parent/child dyad are more likely to develop a secure sense of self and will have a more robust relationship to (their own and others) autonomy and dependence.

We all struggle to find a balance between a need to be a part of something greater than ourselves and a need to be apart from – to be separate. Some of us will navigate the continuum between proximity and distance with fluidity and ease. Others will experience greater comfort at one end of the continuum or another. For all of us our capacity to experience intimacy will reflect in some measure our abilities to risk closeness and separateness. 

Separateness

The growing infant internalises their primary care giver(s) through the process of separation-individuation. A parent’s recognition and validation of the baby’s unique self will initially be expressed in the child’s specific preferences for being held, soothed and fed. The feedback loop between child and caregiver as the child seeks to explore the world beyond (m)other is critical. When attuned, the child will learn that separation is both pleasurable and manageable  and that it will not entail the loss of the love object. The process of separation-individuation is repeated throughout the life cycle, in adolescence, in marriage and in parenthood. At each stage there is an  opportunity to rework or repeat old patterns and to adopt either old or new solutions. 

Mutuality

To give, to receive and to share in the spirit of joint reciprocal endeavour is the cornerstone of mutuality, another pillar of successful intimacy. Once again it is understood that the capacity for mutuality is rooted in our early experiences with a “good enough” caregiver. The infant develops trust and confidence through interactive engagement with an attentive other. Through this exchange expectations of safety, effectiveness and pleasure are cultivated or impaired. 

Successful intimacy requires the capacity to regress and be dependent, and in an adult partnership, for each individual to be able to tolerate these states in both themselves and the other. This requires a secure sense of individuation on both sides so that closeness is not experienced as an engulfing fusion and a threat to a cohesive sense of self, and separation is not experienced as a catastrophic rejection or abandonment. 

Empathy

Feeling what another person feels whilst maintaining psychological separateness is the essence of empathy. It involves the capacity to immerse oneself in the emotional life of another, temporarily leaving one’s own world without experiencing a loss of self. As such it is fraught with difficulty and risk for the individual who is not securely individuated. Empathy is a two way process in which each partner must have an investment in both understanding and being understood. Early developmental deficits or excesses will inevitably interfere with our capacity for empathy and mature intimacy in our adult pairings.

Viable Intimacy

Intimacy can evoke fear ( conscious or unconscious) in any relationship. Fear of loss or merger, fear of shame, fear of attack or of one’s own aggressive impulse, fear of disappointment and fear of needing. The path to intimacy is complicated and fraught with risk, never more so when we bring our unattended psychic wounds to our adult partnerships in hope of healing. For intimacy to be viable  it will probably help to have an idea of our appetites for closeness and distance. Armed with this self understanding and willing to understand the appetites of our partners we will be better positioned to navigate and negotiate this most foundational relational terrain.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Gerry Gilmartin, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Gerry Gilmartin is an accredited, registered and experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor. She currently works with individuals (young people/adults) and couples in private practice. Gerry is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Gerry Gilmartin – 

Love and Family

Understanding sexual fantasy

Fear and hope in the time of Covid

Relationships, networks and connections

Paying attention to stress

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Why is Love Island so Popular? And why it’s not for the reasons we think

For those of you that don’t know, Love Island is a British ‘reality television’ concept that has become a global phenomenon. Arguably deriving from the first global reality programme, Big Brother, which launched in 1997 it is the latest incarnation of this genre.

The premise is one whereby a group of (young, physically attractive) singletons are isolated from the rest of the world in a luxury villa dotted with cameras throughout. The singletons then must avoid elimination (eviction) from the villa through coupling up with another contestant. And like Big Brother the public ‘votes’ to eliminate contestants who do not please them. The ultimate price? Love? Eternal happiness? No, a pot of money.

What is the appeal of watching reality television?
To answer this question we first have to define how reality TV differs from regular TV. Clearly, reality TV is (to a greater or lesser extent) unscripted. And a cynic may argue that it is cheap to produce as the ‘talent’ is free, however I am more interested in the viewers drive rather than the profit margins of the production company.

For the viewer, they are aware it is unscripted – anything could happen. And with offering the audience a piece of the action – the control to vote out contestants, the experience becomes seemingly interactive, almost relational in that viewers feel a form of connection to the contestants.

Reality TV is reminiscent of the Romans and their staged ‘fights’ between gladiators and prisoners, or between imprisoned wild animals and unfortunate humans. And whilst the humble Roman had no direct power over who survived, they could look to their Emperor who would decide with a simple thumb’s-up or -down whether to spare the life of the barely alive prisoner. In turn the Emperor would be guided by the furore of the crowd, hence the illusion of control and investment in the outcome. Fundamentally though, it was entertainment at the expense of an
other(s).

Now let’s consider how reality TV and regular drama such as soaps – Eastenders and the like – differ. Watching a soap opera is a narcissistic endeavour where the lives of fictitious characters are watched according to a script. All are aware of the ‘pretend’ quality. A performance is being given and the boundaries between real people and characters are clear.

Reality television invites the participants to ‘star’ in a version of life judged by the viewer. And the viewer rewards the contestant through sparing them or eliminating them dependent on how ‘entertained’ they feel. It is a game of exhibitionism and voyeurism. One can argue that unlike prisoners of the Romans who were ‘thrown to the lions’, reality TV stars enter into the ‘game’ with their eyes fully open and can be handsomely rewarded. On the face of it this is true, however, taking ‘Love Island’ alone, there has been significant media coverage of three suicides of people
connected to the show. Whether the latter is causation or correlation, my argument is that both the contestants and viewers of reality TV are being driven by something unconscious.

So what’s the appeal?
I believe that this genre of television has become so extraordinarily popular because it appeals to out innate need to feel part of a community. Unlike soap operas, we know that what happens is real – and even if it is not; both contestant and viewer believe it is so the fantasy is complete.

In reality TV we are invited into the intimate lives of a group of people and can exert influence over them – it creates a kind of pseudo-connection. Exactly the kind of pseudo-connection present in a collusive exhibitionistic/voyeuristic encounter. By definition therefore, it is a form of perverse relationship in that it is rigid and without emotional contact. It is a relationship based on power and control rather than real intimacy.

And like any pseudo-connection, whilst it may feel exciting and glamorous, it has the nasty habit of leaving us feeling less connected and thus more prone to feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness when it all ends. And it always does. For the viewer, they can move onto the next reality TV series thereby keeping their need for authentic connection and vulnerability at bay; for the contestant, they can perpetuate the fantasy through building a career (brand) build on image, or they fall spectacularly from grace or fade away (both are equally devastating for the narcissist).

A loss of belonging
I therefore suggest that ultimately the rise of reality TV correlates with the erosion of community and a sense of belonging. It correlates with an increasingly individualistic world where narcissistic interactions are the norm.

Ultimately though, it speaks of our desire for contact and real relationship, something that can never be fulfilled through reality television or any other kind of perverse relationship where the premise is power and control.

Connection and belonging come from community and from real relationships where two people can take up space and each have their ‘real’ experience validated and understood by the other, rather than one having to be a performing (glamorous) monkey in order to manage to survive (elimination). The latter is pure and simply the definition of a deeply narcissistic and perverse relationship.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Mark Vahrmeyer, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

Why ‘Cancel Culture’ is about the inability to tolerate difference

The Phenomenon of ‘Manifesting – The Law of Attraction’ and the inability to tolerate reality

Why does the difference between counselling and psychotherapy matter?

Love in the time of Covid

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Why do ex-boarders find intimate relationships difficult?

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

This is a question I often ask couples who come to see me for couples therapy. Most cannot answer the question beyond the superficial. However, it is an important question to ponder: relationships are not easy for the most well-adjusted of us and so there has to be a fundamental reason why we (generally) choose to pair bond (be in a committed intimate and romantic relationship with one other person).

I believe that we choose to pair bond as on an unconscious level it is the closest that we can come as adult humans to replicating the ideal) experience of childhood where we had a parent who was there for us, who would listen to us and who, most importantly, would help us make sense of our feelings so that we knew we were not alone. This is essentially what strong functional couples do – they listen to each other and try and work out what feeling their partner is trying to convey to them. The general term for this is empathy.

I therefore believe that this explains what we all want and why we all go into relationships. And also why so many of us keep on trying to find ‘the right person’ even after so many disappointments.

What happens to boarders?
Ex-boarders also harbour hope of a good relationship, however, may be at odds in identifying one. The attachment damage they have sustained and the abandonment (couched in privilege) that they have experienced, leaves them unconsciously yearning for that idealised mother who will be there unconditionally for them. Of course, what they eventually find in any relationship with another adult is that they are not in an unconditional relationship (no such thing exists) and then they withdraw to avoid being hurt or disappointed.

What does it look like?
We are all different and so are ex-boarders, however, many have some traits in common which I shall list:

Ex-boarders tend to-

  • Withdraw emotionally from relationships in order to keep themselves safe and default to their indolence survival strategy;
  • Struggle to make sense of what their emotions are telling them and lack the ability to navigate them without becoming overwhelmed: ex-boarders are good under pressure until they are not;
  • Have an over-reliance on logic and rationality to make sense of the world – this does not work when confronted with a partner who is trying to share their emotions;
  • Regulate (read manage) their emotions by controlling their external world – exercise, career success, sex, alcohol, drugs etc. Some may be less harmful than others but all show an inanity to be in contact with their inner world;
  • Live a pseudo-life where they can never really allow themselves to feel alive as that can only happen through bringing themselves fully into relationships and navigating their needs through communicating boundaries.

What can be done?
The effects that the abandonment a child suffers from being sent to boarding school can be enormously significant. Often ex-boarders will only resent for therapy when they have ‘hit a wall’ in some way.

Psychotherapy can help and indeed is the only way to remap the brain and help ex-boarders come to life. As the damage is relational, the only remedy is a therapeutic relationship where the cut-off feelings of loss, abandonment and emptiness can be retrieved and experienced in the safety of a psychotherapeutic frame.

 

The term ‘Boarding School Syndrome’ was coined by Jungian analyst Professor Joy Schaverian around a decade ago. Since then, it has gained significant traction as a model for explaining the experiences and symptoms of adults who were sent away to boarding school as children.  Please refer to Mark’s previous blog.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Mark Vahrmeyer, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further ready by Mark Vahrmeyer –

Why ‘Cancel Culture’ is about the inability to tolerate difference

The Phenomenon of ‘Manifesting – The Law of Attraction’ and the inability to tolerate reality

Why does the difference between counselling and psychotherapy matter?

Love in the time of Covid

Why am I feeling more anxious with Covid-19?

Coronavirus Lock-Down – Physical Health Vs Mental Health

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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Termination and endings in Psychotherapy

We have just celebrated the ending of the year, welcoming in a New Year. It provides a shared / collective opportunity to reflect on the past, think ahead to the future. Likewise, psychotherapy invites us to think about the past, how it contributes to who we are, what is important to us, how the past can provide an understanding of previously unconscious material that has been repressed in order for us to reconcile the past and choose what is taken into the future.

This segmentation of time helps to contain a complex worldview. I suggest the break or holiday from psychotherapy offers us a chance to reflect on how we manage our internal world in the absence of the secure base represented by the clinical setting. The break provides an opportunity to see how we feel without the weekly hour or hour and a half in the session or group.

How important are endings in psychotherapy?

The therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client provides a safe, secure and consistent base for attachment to a reliable figure for working through trauma. Childhood experiences of adult caregivers, depicted most vividly in fairytales of giants and powerful forces that impact on our emotional security; in adulthood leave traces of emotional trauma that can distort our judgment of reality haunting us as adults. Trauma inhibits the development of neurological pathways that lead to self-regulation of emotional states. Attachment styles will influence how we react to stresses in the environment, the challenge of psychotherapy is to find a way of reaching our fears and understanding how these shape our lives. The biological changes in the brain required to establish new pathways takes time and can leave us feeling confused and bewildered.

Neuroscience has given us a greater understanding of the effects of child hood trauma’s and a method of working that bring about changes in how we process feelings and thoughts.

Through our interactions in the therapeutic setting, either individual or group, enables us to experience /observe our defenses at work in a safe and containing space/ in the individual session or through the group matrix of interactions. This results in a re-working of the internal working model originally created to cope with trauma to enable change to occur. We begin to integrate more adaptive responses to our emotions and feelings. To gain mastery over long held ways of relating, the internalized working model that shaped our attachment style is revised.

What part then do breaks and endings play in this process? Jeremy Holmes suggests that different attachment styles require different approaches to endings. (See paper European Psychotherapy on termination of psychotherapy /psychoanalysis)

I suggest that some knowledge of the theory is useful to clients like a comforting diagnosis helps people feel more in control. It is what mindfulness can do for all of us used in the service of our need for regulation during times of heightened arousal / stress.

Whenever we make an attachment be it to a therapist, a working environment or an intimate relationship we are faced with separation. This is why falling is love is so disorientating; the object of our love leaves us fearing loss, jealousy, envy etc. etc. If our love is reciprocated then we are both preoccupied with one another. It becomes a joke when the love struck people are in a group of friends and only have eyes for each other.

So attachment and separation are present and unavoidable; we are social beings who seek closeness and intimacy throughout our lives. (The exception is when we are preparing for the end of life.)

Ending a relationship or needing to adjust to changes in others in our lives such as our children going from being a child to an adult requires an ability to face the often painful and difficult process of change.

Breaks in therapy offer an opportunity to try out our internalized therapeutic capacity for self-regulation. Ending therapy or a good ending requires work on understanding the capacity we have to deal with life outside of the safety and security of the therapeutic alliance.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

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A consideration of some vital notions connected to Existential Therapies

 

 

This blog follows on from my previous blog – Existential Therapy.  This is how I have interpreted some vital notions connected to existential therapies.

Existential therapy is a diverse approach which is used to understand and clarify a client’s problems and possibilities for living their existence. Below are some more of the vital principles (as I see them) typically considered by existential therapists. I would like to make clear that what I have written is not exhaustive, conclusive or necessarily a general order of things.

1) A belief in the relational nature of being as a central aspect of existence [1].

This suggests two things to me. That we are always in relationship with the world, and how we relate to it is often fundamental in how we are and what we become. It is interesting to note that in therapy the relationship has been continually found to be the key to efficacy whatever the approach.

In contrast to the relational sense of existence some existential philosophers have asserted we are ultimately alone in our existence. For instance, Kierkegaard emphasised the individuality of being human, describing human existence as a solitary affair.

Wherever one falls on this spectrum the discussion of how one is relating to their world can be a fruitful enterprise in existential therapy.

2) Seeking to understand a client’s subjectively lived experience and how it is taking place within a framework of temporality (past, present and future), tensions and contradictions. [2]

For me this means the intention is to understand that human existence is full of paradoxes. The aim is to clarify a client’s life as they have lived it, support them to reflect on what has happened and allow them to determine how they would like to live in the future in line with their values.

For instance, if a client comes to see me I am not going to attempt to fit them into any theory or model. I am also not going to tell them what to do.  I do hope to hold an openness to each client’s way of being-in-the-world and support them to get clarity on what is going well and what needs to be changed. I may employ an exploration of philosophy and other wisdoms as well as psychological theory to support a client’s inquiry, but I will always lean towards emphasising a client’s lived experience as key to the investigation rather than any theoretical understanding.

This leads me to another understanding that frames existential therapy.

3) A consideration and discovery of a client’s freedom and responsibility

For me this element is summed up nicely by Nietzsche’s words  “Follow not me, but you”. [3]

When he said this I think he was responding to people’s attempts to pinpoint his ideas into an all-encompassing approach to life. For me, it feels like a relevant description of every individual’s existential responsibility.

An existential therapeutic perspective typically strives for the clients to take responsibility for their lives and see their very existence, their being-ness, as the source of their potential as well as an opportunity to confront their limitations.[4] This possibility of being also upholds a fluid sense that we are always becoming and not a static substance. It invites a platform from which clients might begin to take responsibility for their existence and what they value. In this movement we may begin to reveal, understand and clarify their choices and actions. This takes courage though. It takes courage to birth and live out one’s potential, especially in the face of adversity and limitation.

This links into another significant understanding or theme underpinning existential therapy: ‘being towards death’.  Please also read my blog on Existential Therapy and Death Anxiety.

Susanna Petitpierre, UKCP accredited, is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor, providing long and short term counselling. Her approach is primarily grounded in existential therapy and she works with individuals.  Susanna is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice and Lewes Practice.

Further reading by Susanna Petitpierre –

Existential Therapy

Being embodied in Therapy: Feeling and listening to your body

 

Resources – 

[1] Spinelli, E. (2007) Practising Existential Psychotherapy. The Relational world. London: Sage

[2] van Deurzen, E. (1998) Paradox and Passion in Psychotherapy: an Existential Approach to Therapy and Counselling. Chichester: Wiley.

[3] May, R., (1958) Origins of the existential movement.  in Existence. (Eds: Rollo May, Ernest Angel & Henri, F Ellenberg) Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: USA.  p. 31

[4] van Deurzen, E. (1998) Paradox and Passion in Psychotherapy: an Existential Approach to Therapy and Counselling. Chichester: Wiley.

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