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.
Does your life story make sense?
Why are stories so important to us humans?
Human beings are the story species. From the earliest mythic hunts retold around tribal fires to the modern-day family evenings spent bingeing on the latest Netflix series, stories have captivated us. And yet, when it comes to our own life story, we are more liable to tell well-practised narratives that are unable to explain our struggling relationships, our lack of fulfilment or a life we feel adrift from.
As the human mind and its cognitive powers exponentially increased over millennia, humans found themselves increasingly at an evolutionary advantage. Like no other species, humans were able to learn from the past – through memories recalled and pored over – and imagine and shape future possibilities. This way of experiencing ourselves has placed us at the centre of our own story-world with us as the protagonist of a story moving from the past to the future in a continuous present. This uniquely human experience, where we can out-think our competitors, also tends to mean that we get pulled along by the mesmerising, dreamlike narrative.
Is what we experience and do in our awareness?
Though we believe we live in our own lives close-up and in technicolour, the truth is that much of what really happens is hidden from us. This can be a difficult thought to accept. We get a sense of this being true, however, when we try hard at our relationships, for example, but they keep breaking down in similar patterns, or when we achieve a life-long goal but it doesn’t make us happy. We can get a sense that our stories don’t match up with our experience.
The majority of the processes that the body and mind carry out – such as controlling our heart rate to deciding if we trust a person we’ve just met – are performed out of our awareness. This can be likened to an iceberg where only one tenth of its mass is visible above water. Nine tenths are out-of-sight below the surface.
How the past presents in the ‘now’
Another key factor is that many of our life decisions were made in childhood. This might sound strange, perhaps even outlandish, but think about it. Did you decide the family and culture you were born into? Or did you choose the personalities who surrounded you and their specific needs and struggles? Of course not. You – like all of us – did the only thing you could as a child: you adapted to your environment to try and get your needs met. While the impact of that process and what the cost was to you is often unseen.
Within early and intimate relationships, we do the best with what’s on offer to receive some level of acceptance and approval. These hidden life decisions, based on the logic of a young, immature mind, set us on a course for life as we try to make sense of experiences and create an unconscious working model of how we can be in relationships with others and who we are in those relationships. As a consequence, our self-stories have likely faced little challenge through their life journey to where we are at this very moment.
Through our life, we have been surrounded by other people’s stories – in our family, with friends, in the broader culture. These can have a positive, reinforcing impact on us. They can also overly influence us, make us maladapt and even make us lose touch with our own stories. Or trying to make our life fit someone else’s story.
How psychotherapy is about your story
People come to psychotherapy often due to problems encountered in their immediate lives, such as suffering from depression or a relationship breakdown. These issues however often point to deeper, underlying issues. Therapy offers the opportunity to look at what is going on underneath the one tenth of the iceberg. We do this together, therapist and client, in a collaborative process, using curiosity and compassion. It is through this unfolding process that a fresh and more connected story can emerge.
Through this therapeutic re-storying process, you engage with your personal narrative as the adult you are now, not the younger version of yourself who found themselves locked in rigid narrative episodes. As Jeremy Holmes, psychiatrist and writer on attachment theory and narrative, said, “Each story is there to be revised in the light of new experience, new facets of memory, new meaning” in a process of “narrative deconstruction and construction”. It is through this therapeutic work of review and rebirth that “narrative truth” and new meaning can surface and your story not only becomes understandable and real but it again becomes yours.
The mythologist and academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote about the ‘monomyth’ or common hero stories common across cultures, said, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
And perhaps this is a key aim of working with story in therapy: through opening up and meeting your self-story afresh, you can make sense of it, reclaim it and play an active part in its ongoing development. This offers the possibility of living a fuller and more engaged life, where you feel more here and more alive.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Thad Hickman, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Thad is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor and a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). He works long-term with individuals in our Brighton and Hove practice.
Can chatbot companions relieve our loneliness?
In recent weeks I have seen various articles espousing the virtues of having an ‘AI companion’ or chatbot friend. Apparently these are particularly popular with the younger demographic. One of these is ‘Replika’ – a prophetic name if there ever was one.
Chatbot ‘friends’ are touted as being helpful in alleviating loneliness through to functioning as some sort of antidote to mild mental health problems. Reading through the ‘testimonial’s’ on Replika’s website the interaction is linguistically framed as a relationship, with reference to the duration the AI avatar and human have ‘been together’ and, based on the published testimonials alone (which are undoubtably biased), some people seem to get something from this encounter.
As a psychotherapist it is not my role dismantle another person’s way of being in the world. This would be arrogant at best and dangerous at worst. However, psychotherapy, at least in the way I practice it, is all about relationship and one of the foundational belies is that what has gone wrong in relationship can only be healed through relationship. This is because human beings, like all mammals, are relational but we are the most relational of all if relational refers to our psychological, emotional and cognitive development being contingent on the consistency of a caregiver. Other mammals, once weaned, can fend for themselves. Humans remain dependent for longer than any other mammal.
We are shaped and defined by the relationship with our primary caregivers and, with the risk of providing an opening for the historical and clichéd attacks on psychoanalysis, we are most shaped by the relationship with our primary carer, who is our mother.
These early relationships are what help us to understand our emotions and grow a mind. If satisfactory enough, we learn that whilst others can and will disappoint us, we need relationships with others throughout our lives. It is true that some people have more need for contact with others, but contact is needed nonetheless.
In my clinical practice I am always thinking about whom my patient is having a relationship with – even if they are single and isolated, in fact especially so in such cases. As children we internalise important relationships with others, starting with our mothers and then broadening out as we grow older. In the British school of psychoanalysis we refer to such internalised relationships as ‘object relations’. Therefore, when I am thinking about whom someone is having a relationship with, I am referring to their object relations – whom have they internalised and therefore whom are they projecting onto other relationships?
If we have ‘good enough’ parenting, we are likely to feel fairly secure in relationships and are able to operate in a world populated by others. These others have minds that are different to our own and by extension are having different experiences moment to moment. We have internalised a ‘good object’ (good parent) and can tolerate frustrations and difference in others without becoming unduly affected.
An indication of someone who has healthy relational dynamics is someone who is able to tolerate difference in others and hold onto the good of what the relationship offers. One of the (many) frustrations about being a grown up, or rather having a psychologically mature mind, is that we learn that relationships with others are inherently frustrating alongside being rewarding.
Returning to Replika and systems like it, I can well see why, by applying enough denial to the encounter, it can, on the surface, seem satisfying as despite the illusion, we are not having to content with thew mind of another and thus the difference of another. The system ‘pretends’ to be different but in fact mirrors back to us what we want to see and hear.
Narcissism by another name
In the myth of Narcissus and Echo, Narcissus is a young man who finds relationships with others confronting. Through happenstance, or what we might call fate, Narcissus finds himself isolated in the woods and discovers the most beautiful ‘Other’ he has ever seen in a still pool of water. This is of course his own reflection and yet Narcissus falls hopelessly in love and even when part of him knows that he is deluding himself, he cannot bear to tear himself away from this ‘perfect Other’. The story of Narcissus is ultimately a tragic one as he wastes his life away yearning for something he cannot have – the perfect relationship.
A character whom is rarely referenced in relation to Narcissus is Echo, the river nymph who loves Narcissus and has been condemned by a Goddess to only be able to repeat the last words anyone says. In other words, she is an echo. She too sacrifices her life waiting for Narcissus to notice her but, of course, as she is ‘different’ he cannot allow himself to notice her other than to drive her away.
I see the rise of these artificial ‘friends’ and the ‘relationships’ that ensue to be modern versions of the myth of Narcissus and Echo. ‘Replika’, or replica, when spelled correctly, quite literally means ‘clone’ or ‘copy’ but one can just as easily translate this to ‘reflection’. Chatbots reflect back to the user what they want to see and hear – from literally dictating how the AI avatar looks, through to receiving the expected responses. The user is turned into Narcissus and an echo is all they receive in return. Of course since Echo in this modern myth is but a machine, ‘she’ will never die.
We all secretly, or not so secretly, hold fantasies of the perfect Other. This fantasy forms the basis of all modern romcoms all the way back through our collective history. It is epitomised in the idea of a ‘soulmate’ and fuels our drive for the perfect partner – something that in itself is driven through technology in the shape of dating apps; we have the illusion of infinite choice but choose nobody as once we do, they become real and thus disappoint.
Growing up psychologically, maturing and individuating, means letting go of fantasies. It means recognising that relationships are essential to us and that in order to have something real and fulfilling, we must tolerate the frustration and sense of difference.
Rather than difference needing to be threatening, as it increasingly seems to have become in modern society, difference between people is evidence of reality – the very fact that we are encountering a different mind.
Real relationships are about expressing our thoughts and feelings – our experience of the world – and knowing that someone is there to receive them and us, irrespective of whether they ‘mirror’ those exact thoughts and feelings. It is through and via this process that we get a sense of ourselves in the world and with others.
Narcissus was in a clinical sense deluded and descended into psychosis, withering away on the bank of that fateful pool. Chatbot friends encourage this same delusion. I am not suggesting it will lead to psychosis, but reality it is not. There is no relationship to be had and there is no thinking mind alongside you. You are just as alone as Narcissus and cannot grow from a reflection – for that a real relationship is required.
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 –
Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?
The psychological impact of the recession
Some existential musings on love, generosity, and the relation between self and other (part two)
(Adapted from a presentation given at the SEA conference November 2022) – (Part two)
Speaking of life itself as a movement of becoming. Have we forgotten the isness and replaced it with beingness, an allegedly unified subject of self-consciousness, contained and stuck within a name or a label? Must knowledge be part of it, must we always think our way in?
Does that remind you of anything? The masculine economy of desire tells us I think therefore I am (Descartes, 1998). It invites us to believe in the binary. But Nietzsche (1886/1978) tells us differently. He gifted us multiplicity, and music to dance to. He invited us to affirm life beyond the narrow confines of self-preservation: to play with all the dynamic forces and tensions.
Perhaps generosity is a type of life force? Bazzano (2019) says, in Nietzsche there is no individual will to power but “power understood as a generous expenditure” (p.95). But generosity is often suppressed in favour of rigid identities. In current culture it seems the human animal is seen as depending upon an idea of self, perhaps influenced by patriarchal forces. Discourses of subjectivity rely on notions of individuality, autonomy, and self-preservation. The different other often becomes a threat as does the potential for an unstable, non-unified experience of self.
And what about suffering? Are we allowed to suffer anymore? Is that not sometimes where the gift of transformation lives? Yes there is a paradox here, as Nietzsche (1974) writes, suffering is markedly personal because it is an aspect of self-expression, in time. In which the very process calls us forth to reshape and become; reinterpreting the past through healing and releasing what was and opening to the new. However, don’t we all rely on each other for that too?
Helene Cixous (1991) tells us “only when you are lost can love find itself in you without losing its way” (p. 39). This feels important to me. In Renshaw’s interpretation, Cixous seems to refer to “the very structure of desire that is made
possible in a non-possessive, feminine relation to difference. She goes on to say:
“Only when we are lost to ourselves, to the extent that being a self means being one and unified, are we opened to the possibility of a becoming that is expansive, abundant, and opened to the indeterminable difference of the other. Only then can love descend upon us the way it wants, in one of its bewitching, magical and divine forms” (p.183)
In her essay, The newly born woman, Cixous (1986) writes of the feminine economy of desire as a notion able to grasp the abundant and often incongruent aspects of desire, refusing to “exclude the contradictory, and the ability to
embrace a cycle of relations that are constituted in movement …never static …marked by movements, towards, away and elsewhere” (p.125).
There is much to consider here. In her book, ‘The Subject of love’ (2009, p.6), the academic Sal Renshaw offers us some questions to ask ourselves.
Perhaps we can explore them together.
“Can we love as a gift that does not return?
What would it take to love the other as other, neither to refuse nor to embrace the
other but to create a space in which the other is met, is brushed against, is
perhaps felt as well as seen”
Can we live our subjectivities in a way in which love emerges in the in-between,
not as something the ‘I’ does or has, but rather as something that happens to us,
that emerges, in the very space of meeting?
What kind of being or becoming, does it take to love the other in their otherness
and not to sacrifice oneself in doing so?
What kind of relations to and between subjectivities make possible a generous
meeting in difference?”
Part one of this blog can be found here.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Susanna, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Susanna Petitpierre, BACP Registered, 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.
Further reading by Susanna Petitpierre –
Some Existential Musings on Love, Generosity, and the Relation Between Self and Other? (part one)
On living as becoming (part two)
On living as becoming (part one)
Some thoughts on becoming (part two)
Some thoughts on becoming (part one)
References –
Bazzano, M. (2019). Nietzsche and Psychotherapy. Oxon: Routledge.
Carson, A. (1998). Eros: The Bittersweet. Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press.
Cixous, H. (1986 [1975]). ‘Sorties’. Trans. Betsy Wing. In Helene Cixous and Catherine Clement. The Newly Born
Woman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Descartes, R. (1998). Discourse on Method. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Merleau-Ponty, M., (2012) Phenomenology of Perception. Oxon: Routledge
Nietzsche, F. (1886/1978). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London:
Penguin.
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House.
Renshaw, S., (2009). The subject of love. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Some existential musings on love, generosity, and the relation between self and other
(Adapted from a presentation given at the SEA conference November 2022) – (Part one)
Anne Carson (1998) wrote,
“‘Now’ is a gift from the gods and an access onto reality. To address yourself to the moment when Eros glances into your life and to grasp what is happening in your soul at that moment is to begin to understand how to live.” (p.153).
Was it Merleau-Ponty (2012) who showed us that, without you, I do not know who I am. I cannot see the back of my head. I need you, the other, to tell me so I can build a picture of it. Yes, it seems we are made in the social. But that means there will be ruptures too. Losses and suffering will prevail without our control. Can we transform in them? Do I need your help for that too?
Sal Renshaw (2009) describes the relation between self and other as a continual movement intrinsic to our becoming. Not only does the relation between self and other reveal the movement of becoming. It also signifies the impossibility and impermanence of the unified subject or absolute being. Encountering self and other reveals difference, perceived “somewhere in the space between that which returns to us that which we recognize as the same, and that which escapes us” (Ibid, p. 2).
Sometimes difference is felt as a conflict, sometimes as a threat, sometimes as an interest and an opportunity. But difference can be, and is, an opening into our becoming.
It may entail a complex exploration: maintaining positive regard for the other without being implicated in a kind of sacrificial logic rooted in Christian morality and its derivatives and without being caught in the web of patriarchal narratives. As Renshaw states (2009) writers such as Helene Cixous inform us of the extent to which “women have traditionally borne the brunt of sacrificial logic in a patriarchal structure” (p. 7).
How can we hold a space for a version of selflessness that is generous, alive, affirmative and does not fall into self-abnegation? A difficult task, no doubt. But an important one: “loving the other as other, allowing them and oneself to be born into the present in love” (Renshaw, 2009, p. 176). Perhaps they have forgotten or never knew that difference is the astonishing source of their love.
Isn’t there always more to the story, yes, more to come, more to become?
Is not life itself a movement of becoming …
Part two of this blog can be found here.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Susanna, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Susanna Petitpierre, BACP Registered, 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.
Further reading by Susanna Petitpierre –
On living as becoming (part two)
On living as becoming (part one)
Some thoughts on becoming (part two)
You’re not watching me, Mummy!
Is it ever too late in life to change? Despite many decades of accomplished professional practice and conspicuous recognition for his achievements, the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was stunned to discover he still had personal work to do.
In his memoir, Becoming Myself , he recalls attending an academic event where he realises (1) he is to be the target of gentle but sustained mockery from his Stanford University colleagues. That night he has a powerful dream from which he wakes to conclude, ‘I am still looking for validation, but not from my wife, my children, my friends, colleagues, students or patients, but from my mother!’
Although Yalom’s real mother was long dead at the time of his unsettling dream, his self-discovery revealed that her frequent harshly critical judgements of him as a child had become part of his lifelong personality, rising suddenly within him at times of stress, such as when he became the particular focus of others’ attention. In his dream, isolated and scared, he plaintively cries out, ‘How did I do, Momma? How did I do?’.
We might pause to consider how it could possibly be that a richly experienced practitioner, one expert in helping others to understand themselves better, could be so suddenly blindsided by such a self-revelation. On the other hand, what Yalom is disclosing about his experience here might be seen as one of the most fundamental of human realities.
In psychotherapy we speak of the developmental process of ‘introjection’, whereby we unconsciously adopt the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of significant others, particularly the most powerful others in our early lives. In the modality of Transactional Analysis we call this part of us our Parent ‘ego state’. This proposes that during the
development of our ‘self’ we naturally take into our own way of being key aspects of the others we depend on, how they think, feel and behave: we thereby install their potency into our developing personality.
This is a natural survival strategy and serves us well when it provides us with valuable parental impulses that guide us to operate safely in the world and help us to nurture ourselves when under stress. The downside of this strategy is that, depending on the quality of the care we received and how we responded to it, the Parent ego state we carry
forward can contain persecutory impulses, parental fears and smothering tendencies combining in us to create significant inner conflict in our adult life.
Engaging in psychotherapy can be effective in helping us to explore those aspects of ourselves that seem to echo the powerful personalities of our past lives. Careful exploration with a curious and empathic therapist can help us to surface parental messages we may be carrying that contribute to previously unexamined self beliefs. In uncovering these ‘introjects’ we can more clearly see how what we chose to take on from others in the days when we first learnt to be ourselves might be limiting us now in living more freely and spontaneously in the world.
Yalom’s insight, late into his own life, was to see that the way he had incorporated his mother’s harshness into his own process was preventing him from being able to truly recognise and celebrate his own worth.
His particular way of dealing with this was to look for the compassion in himself for ‘that mother that I disliked so thoroughly.’ He writes of achieving a different perspective on her through his later realisation she had a deeply conflictual relationship with her own mother, always remaining desperate for a recognition from her that never came.
Coming to understand the possible motivations behind his mother’s persecutory behaviour, Yalom found a way in which he could simultaneously diminish the power of the fierce inner critic that he had made of her. Like many of his patients, he discovered it was never too late to become himself.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Chris Horton, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Chris Horton is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and a psychotherapeutic counsellor with experience in a diverse range of occupational settings. He works with individuals (young people/adults) in private practice. He is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practice.
Further reading by Chris Horton –
Making sense of our multiple selves
Let’s not go round again – how we repeat ourselves!
Resources –
(1) Yalom, I (2017). Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir. Piatkus 1
What are feelings anyway?
Everyone knows what a feeling is, right? Well, it turns out that this is not the case and many of us are either unable to experience feelings at all, or get thoughts and feelings mixed up.
Early on in my training I had a tutor who would tell us ‘when in doubt, hunt the feeling’. It is arguable that this is the purpose of the therapeutic interaction that enables both empathy and relational understanding to take place.
So what is a feeling?
Feelings are emotional responses that we experience which can then be thought about and communicated using language. Let’s delve deeper and understand how feelings operate.
When we have a physiological response to stimuli – this can be external or a thought process – the cluster of physical responses are called ‘affect’. Affect is primal and is something we find across all mammals. Broadly, affect is a proto-emotion and expresses itself through what we would describe in words as:
Seeking;
Rage;
Fear;
Panic;
Play;
Lust
Care.
Affect is not relational, meaning it neither functions nor is used to communicate feelings to another.
Above affect we have our emotions, which are more sophisticated and nuanced and whose function is to let both us and those with whom we are in relationship know about what is going on for us. Emotion is the link between mind and body, and, affect and feeling. Our primary emotions are:
Fear;
Anger;
Sadness;
Joy;
Disgust;
Surprise.
Emotion defies language in that it can be felt and communicated through relationship and experience. However, effect is communicated using projection and projective identification – the ‘putting’ of feelings into another.
Feelings sit at the highest level and are behavioural and cognitive. They can be thought about and defined in language and conceptualised by another.
How can things go wrong?
Infants do not have the ability to use language and nor do they think using words. They experience affect in their body and communicate their emotions to their primary carer using projection. With early trauma where the primary carer (the mother) has not been adequately internalised, the infant projects their affect out into the universe, rather than into the other. They can neither make sense and soothe themselves nor locate soothing in another and are adrift with overwhelming emotions.
In psychotherapy
In relational psychotherapy, feelings are communicated through verbal and non-verbal cues but are also present in the transference in the shape of emotion. By receiving the patient’s projections and giving shape and form to them in the therapy, the therapist assists the patient in digesting their emotions and converting them into feelings.
When is a feeling not a feeling?
Often people will talk about feelings when these are actually thoughts. In language this is expressed as ‘I feel that…’. As soon as the word ‘that’ follows the word ‘feeling’, you know you are dealing with a thought.
Why does all this matter?
Integrating thinking and feeling lies at the heart of the therapeutic process. If unexpressed and crucially, unexpressed in a relationship, then a person is likely to remain stuck experiencing the world and their current relationships clouded by past experiences. In the words of Freud: “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
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 –
Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?
The psychological impact of the recession
Why do people watch horror movies?
Defining happiness
Happiness is linked to a sense of joy, ease, and gratitude. It is also linked with a general positive evaluation of one’s life, past and present, which usually contributes to positive expectations or and looking forward to the future.
An ability to sustain a state of happiness depends on many factors, including how a person deals with stress and adversity. There is strong evidence that early attachments are a crucial determining factor in a child’s brain development, and consequently the formation of their world view and perspective in life. For example, a child who grows up with ongoing exposure to stress and trauma, and few or no positive early relationships is likely to feel preoccupied, anxious, and even depressed rather than happy and at ease. In turn, a child who grows up feeling emotionally and physically safe, though positive early relationships with others and therefore themselves, will very likely continue to cultivate these qualities throughout life.
Happiness can also be seen as a temporary emotional state, which comes and goes. Life satisfaction and mental wellness are qualities which can be cultivated and even created through conscious life choices in areas such as relationships, nutrition, exercise, work and spirituality.
What is the link between social connections and happiness? What aspects of having strong family ties and good friendships promote happiness?
Good relationships are a vital component in living a satisfying and fulfilling life. Human beings are relational beings. From day one we depend on our carers to survive and thrive in life. A sense of belonging, meaning, purpose and acceptance comes from relationships that are healthy, dependable, and enduring. Through others we feel seen, heard, and validated.
In turn, giving to others brings us a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, and makes us happy as well. We don’t choose the families we are born into; therefore, good family ties aren’t a given for everyone. Those who are fortunate enough to have strong family ties and good relationships with their families are lucky. However, building strong friendships and relationships are also a way of creating a ‘family of choice’ with those we value and with whom we have things in common. Without good relationships we invariably feel lonely and isolated, which leads to poor mental health.
What is the link between happiness and self-compassion and gratitude?
Self-compassion and gratitude are ways of cultivating a positive view of self, others and the world around us. The way we think has a direct impact on how we feel about ourselves and others. This differs from positive thinking or being out of touch with reality. Our negative bias can lead us to developing self-defeating thoughts and a bleak view of the world. This then becomes our reality as we constantly search for things to confirm this view. Things are mostly neither always good nor always bad. The ability to hold a balanced perspective on life and hold both positions at the same time is what defines a healthy mind. Therefore, cultivating a positive thinking loop, rather than a negative one will impact our ability to feel happy.
Is happiness a choice?
Increasing our capacity to feel a full range of emotions such as sadness, anger, love, etc will also increase the likelihood of experiencing happiness. To feel happy, we need to get better at feeling in general. This means appropriate emotional responses to different situations. There are different ways of developing emotional literacy, psychotherapy being just one example. Therefore, we could say that there is a choice in improving one’s ability to feel happiness, as well as others feelings too.
On our website you can find more information about our counselling and psychotherapy services and how to contact our team.
Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Superviser and Executive Coach. She works with individuals and couples in Hove and Lewes.
Further reading –
What are the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy?
Why is mental health important?
What makes us choose our career paths?
Antidotes to coercive, controlling and narcissistic behaviour
Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?
A topic of certain difference, and at times discussion in the field of psychotherapy, is whether we refer to those we treat as ‘clients’ or ‘patients’.
Why might this matter?
On the face of it, it should arguably matter little to someone attending psychotherapy, as to what the therapist calls them on paper; in the room they will be referred to by name and thus, to some extent, the nomenclature used is academic.
However, psychotherapy is about how the psychotherapist thinks about the person who engages their services and this thinking will inevitably influence how the psychotherapist refers to those who come to see them and vice versa.
Why such different terms?
Psychotherapy was born out of psycho-analysis. And in both classical and modern psychoanalysis, as well as in the language of many psychoanalytical psychotherapists, the term patient is commonly used.
Historically, this is derived from Freud’s use of the term, whereby he situated psycho-analysis firmly in the medical field.
There is an additional term that is used in analysis which is ‘analysand’ – the person who goes for analysis. Whilst it bridges the gap between client and patient, I find it somewhat clunky and it is not a valid term to use in psychotherapy.
Who is the expert?
Much progress has been made in the field of psychotherapy to shift from a ‘blank-screen’ model on the part of the psychotherapist, to a relational approach – meaning broadly that the psychotherapist plays an active role in co-constructing the relationship and works within the context of the relationship to bring about change.
Many in the more humanistic field argue that one of the goals should be to bring about as much equality between the therapists and ‘client’, so as to eliminate the power imbalance.
Whilst a noble endeavour, I think this is naïve, as firstly, we are are there in an expert capacity and those of us who are trained and work at depth, understand that we carry an enormous burden of responsibility to those who engage our services. We are therefore, not equals.
Secondly, depth psychotherapy, using a psychoanalytic model, works with what the client or patient ‘projects’ onto us – something we refer to as transference. In the transference, we inevitably represent one of the parents for the client and it is arguable that the treatment process in psychotherapy is one of re-parenting.
Parents and children are never equal
I believe that roles come with firm boundaries – many of which are frustrating. For example, it is a parent’s role to always be a parent to their child. This role will evolve and change over time and eventually there will be two adults in the relationship, however, this does not imply that there are two equals. Part of the frustration of being a parent (and the child of a parent) is in acknowledging the firm boundary, meaning that a parent should not become a friend to their child, no mater the age of that child. This does not mean that this does not happen in some families, however, I view this as unhelpful.
The therapeutic relationship between a psychotherapist and their client or patient is sacrosanct – as should be the relationship between parent and child. We are there in an important, and at times, critical capacity and co-create with those who come to see us a deep intimate relationship that must be alive, messy, creative, conflictual, loving and hateful – but always and forever boundaried.
Boundaries frustrate but facilitate grieving
Over the past decade of being a UKCP registered psychotherapist, I have seen a fair few people come and go from my practice. Most have stayed for years and, I believe, done some very good and important work.
As in life, the relationships we form with those whom we see week after week matter to us and I have grieved with the end of the work and having to say ‘good-bye’ when treatment ended.
The grieving is necessary as, irrespective of how much we have come to matter to each other, I shall always be in the role of psychotherapist for all of my former patients. Most will never cross my threshold again, however, it is vital that they can hold me in mind in the role they assigned me and that I don’t deviate from that position and ‘befriend’ them. Whilst this may feel seductive to both sides (as it does for a parent and child), the boundary enables the relationship to work and continue working in the capacity it must for the patient.
On why I use the term ‘patient’
I have shown my hand in the previous paragraphs in using the nomenclature of ‘patient’ and shall now explain why I have, over time, shifted in my way of thinking.
Patients come to me because they are in distress. I am there as an expert, not to tell them how to live their lives, but to help them understand how and why they live their lives they way they do and offer them a stable and secure relationship through which to bring about change.
Psychotherapy is about change – it is not about enabling existing behaviour and this needs to be agreed between therapist and patient.
I view the term ‘client’ as representing a grey area when it comes to boundaries – with clients we can ‘have a chat’ and maybe take the relationship outside of the context in which it began. It also seems to me to be very transactional. This is a personal view and not an accusation of anyone who has a preference for this term.
My work as a psychotherapist is to ‘treat’ my patients. I am accountable for understanding their minds and helping them find a way through their distress. If they knew how to do this, they would not need me.
Lastly, rather than being a distancing term, I view ‘patient’ in this context of one towards which I can show the upmost respect. It does not imply, to me, that I am better than them, but it does show that I am willing to take on the responsibility for my part in their treatment and that the boundary will always hold. For me it is ultimately a term of ‘love’, in the way Freud meant it.
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
How to minimise Christmas stress if you are hosting
Can couples counselling fix a relationship?
I’m the problem – it’s me!
Are you curious to know the most popular song in the world right now? Of course, you might not have been able to miss it.
This autumn, a musical milestone was achieved by Taylor Swift, who has become the first musician to claim all ten top slots of the US Billboard Top 100. Of her ten conquering songs the one that’s found most popularity with streamers is Anti-Hero, with its choral refrain, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me’.
And this phrase has been reported as being rapidly taken up in social media trends almost as an anthem for our times. The promotional video accompanying the song depicts multiple versions of Swift portraying a character riven by internal conflict, struggling to relate to others and self-medicating with alcohol to cope.
Clearly, apart from its evident musical catchiness, something in the central message of this song is resonating with fans of an artist whose online followers number more than 100 million, mostly young, people. Is it that the singer’s conflation of her very identity with her problem seems to fit their own experience?
So what’s ‘the problem’?
The word ‘problem’ has been defined as ‘a situation, person, or thing that needs attention and needs to be dealt with or solved’. Just to speak the word involves compressing the lips twice to form the first syllable with its explosive ‘p’ and ‘b’ in a verbal stumble, almost expressive of something being expelled. It’s derived from the Greek ‘proballein’, a combination of ‘pro’ meaning ‘before’ and ‘ballein’ meaning ‘to throw’. And perhaps there is an ancient wisdom in the root of this word in its suggestion that we experience the need to ‘throw’ a perceived problem out of us.
Working with ‘the problem’ in therapy
This has recalled me to thinking about the uses of therapy as a means for practitioner and client to work purposefully together in addressing the recurrent phenomena of ‘the problem’.
Narrative therapy offers a framework for supporting families and individuals who present accounts of their life experience as ‘problem saturated’. Where someone has concluded they are the problem, in locating the problem inwardly in this way, they have formed what is called a ‘dominant story’ about themselves, one that could become powerfully restricting in narrowing possibilities for them to uncover other meanings or perspectives on their lives. It’s argued that this way of seeing only supports and sustains the presenting problem.
Linked with the original meaning of the word as ‘throwing’ something away from us, narrative therapy invites us to separate the person from the problem. Therapist and client engage in a collaborative search for an ‘alternative story’ that will challenge a person’s dominant story through techniques of ‘problem externalisation’. This starts with the contention that ‘the problem is the problem’ and focuses instead on the relationship between the person and the problem.
In therapeutic practice, fruitful ways of externalising any problem often involve using language creatively in naming it and even placing the problem where it may be visualised in the room and personified in its own right as an entity with its own curious qualities. So depending on the nature of the difficulty, practitioner and client might be working together to discover more about what the client them self names as, for example, the ‘Anxiety Wave’, the ‘Constant Conflict’ or even, in the case of Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero, the ‘Monster On The Hill’.
This is an approach that honours the deep distress experienced by many individuals for whom a problem has become an inextricable and debilitating part of themselves. Through supporting them to separate from their problem, alternative stories can emerge that surface previously unacknowledged – or discounted – personal skills and competencies, revealing new capacities for agency.
Arguably Taylor’s song has done a service for those who most identify with her protagonist’s dominant story of problem internalisation. I hope it leads them to ways in which they might find their own alternative stories to effect preferred positive change in their own lives.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Chris Horton, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Chris Horton is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and a psychotherapeutic counsellor with experience in a diverse range of occupational settings. He works with individuals (young people/adults) in private practice. He is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practice.
Further reading by Chris Horton –
Making sense of our multiple selves
Five Top Tips for Surviving Christmas Day
Christmas can be an emotionally challenging and difficult time for many of us. There is such expectation on how Christmas ‘should’ be. Yet like the weather fails to deliver on the ‘winter wonderland’ scenes on the TV adverts, for many of us, our family experience often falls far short of the loving idyllic family reunions depicted in those same snowy adverts.
What makes Christmas particularly difficult?
Aside from the expectations we put upon ourselves, it has all the classic ingredients of being either an explosive disappointment or a damp squib.
Family of choice versus family of origin
Christmas is often a time when we get together with family members we would only ever see on other festive days or, as the saying goes, weddings and funerals. Often, we have little close relationship with these family members. Yet somehow we expect to feel a close bond with them on this day in particular.
Many families are now what is referred to as blended families. Nowadays, it is normal to grow up with step-parents, step-siblings and half-brothers and sisters. While this does not necessarily lead to conflict, it can make the delicate balance of Christmas Day complicated and fractious. Compromise is often the order of the day.
Christmas is often a difficult time thanks to the ghost of Christmas past. Many relationships break down over Christmas and can leave us with tainted childhood memories of parental feuds and the accompanying grief. This then plays out in the present, potentially contributing to conflict with family members – the trauma repeats.
And then there is the one extra ingredient that can make things seem so much worse than they are; the explosive charge in many Christmases – alcohol. Consuming alcohol in and around Christmas is normalised and we can often feel under pressure to ‘join in’. Many of us also use alcohol as a way of coping with the day, the family members who descend upon us, the expectations, unhealed rifts and so on. However, when it comes to managing emotions and conflict, alcohol has never been a solution.
Five top tips to surviving Christmas Day
- Support through relationship
If you are in a relationship, talk to your partner. Explain to them that you may find the day hard and agree how you will ask for support when needed, or how you will support each other. Examples may be anything from starting the day together and connecting through to holding each other in mind. You can demonstrate this through small reassuring gestures such as visually checking in with one another.
- Reality Testing
Christmas is only a day. The expectations we feel in relation to it are largely in our own head. By pausing and accepting that there is no such thing as a ‘fairy-tale Christmas’ (except perhaps for some fortunate children) we can gain a little space to see it for what it is.
- The past is not the present
Memories of past Christmases, while present, need not dominate our experience in the here and now. Accept that it is a difficult time for you, know that it is for many others, be compassionate with the feelings that the season evokes and remember it is only a day. Sometimes we feel strong emotions on particular days that are simply reminders of the past – echoes – and we have the power to create something different.
- Alcohol makes things worse
Nobody is telling you not to drink on Christmas Day. However, if it is a day that evokes sadness or anxiety, alcohol will not improve these feelings for long. Once it wears off, they will be back with a vengeance and accompanied by a hangover. The opposite of using alcohol to self-soothe is to soothe through relationship. Even if you are not in a relationship with another, you are in a relationship with yourself and can hold yourself in mind.
- Hold Yourself in Mind
One of the traps people often fall into is that they imagine that they have no choices on the day; they simply have to do what is expected. Doing what is expected is a choice in itself! Even if you do feel that there is little on offer for you during the day, a change of perspective and holding in mind why you are choosing to make these choices can be helpful. For example, rather than framing it as “I have to go see X person, or Y will be disappointed”, you can rethink it as “I choose to see X person as I want to give that as a gift to Y’.
Even if the day feels full and focused on others, it is always possible to take a few minutes out to calm yourself. You can breathe, come back to the here and now and remind yourself – Christmas is only a day. See my blog on avoiding panic attacks for a simple but effective practice to calm yourself and return to the here and now.
Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex. He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.
Further reading
Can couples counselling fix a relationship?
As I Walked Out One Evening
Some years ago, I was given a card that quoted the second and third verse of Auden’s poem, ‘As I walked out one evening’. It was wonderful, the idea that someone could be loved until two continents met across the Pacific Ocean. What a romantic notion.
For many of us, when we fall in love we feel outside the ordinary world, a kind of intensity and madness that takes us beyond the limitations of everyday life. Auden illustrates this feeling at the beginning of the poem, The lover says that they will love the other until impossible things come to pass, ‘till the ocean is folded and hung up to dry’, that is they will love the beloved forever.
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps they over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street
I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
(verses 1-5)
The idea of a never-ending romantic love is a seductive narrative and I believe a pernicious one. This is because it implies that the power of romantic love, i.e. being in love, is enough to overcome the vicissitudes and transitions of human life. But these are inevitable because we live in time and in space.
In order to fall in love we have to avert our eyes from the ordinariness of the other, to believe they’re special and by being loved by them we are too. Time passes and the ordinary person emerges; time passes and what first attracted us is now irritating; time passes and what matters to us has changed and we don’t share the same interests; time passes and our bodies have grown older and less attractive; time passes and we become forgetful, frail and fearful; time passes, perhaps we become ill and eventually we die.
What happens to being in love? Auden’s poem continues with a warning that love cannot overcome time. Time is watching us from the darkness, perhaps occasionally we are aware that our relationship has a time limit, but often ‘In headaches and in worry, Vaguely life leaks away,’. In the poem there are warnings about the lover’s relationship, the glacier knocking in the cupboard, the desert sighing in the bed and the cracks in the teacups.
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
“O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
The glacier knocks on the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
(verses 6-12)
Couples come to therapy full of regret and resentment and tell me it’s been like this for years. They recognise there were signs that they needed to pay attention to their love and changes in their relationship and these opportunities were missed. I suggest that some of this is because people want what they had at the beginning, I want to it to go back to how it used to be. To recognise change in a relationship can mean mourning the loss of those early feelings of being in love, that intoxicating pinnacle of romance.
Part of the work of couple therapy is to be able to remember and respect those initial feelings and to find a more fluid and changing narrative about romantic love. One that recognises that time passes and we cannot, we just cannot, stay the same.
Where the beggars raffle the banknotes,
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
(verses 13-16)
Apologies for any misinterpretations of Auden’s poem.
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.
In Support of Being Average
Ask yourself if you would like to be described as being ‘average’ and it might not be your first choice. Average might feel like a vague insult, a reflection on yourself that you’d rather not have. When we use the term ‘average’ we don’t see much that is positive about it.
What is ‘average’?
By definition ‘average’ speaks of a central or typical value across a data set. Average comes with connotations of mediocrity, not setting a very high standard, lacking motivation or even having given up. Average has little to make it feel desirable, but that doesn’t mean that we should write it off.
Perfection: The opposite of average?
Modern society, especially in the world of social media, seems to have no time for average. We are encouraged to seek perfection, to rise above what is seen as average and to strive and compete for a perfect existence. Flaws and defects wont do, only achieving a level that cannot be exceeded is acceptable.
In writing this we are presented with the thought that perfection is very subjective and is also very hard to achieve. We all carry a sense of who we are and the pursuit of perfection is something that we mostly define for ourselves.
Our sense of what is perfect is tied to our sense of self. Early messaging that one isn’t good enough and the associated feelings of inadequacy can make perfection feel appealing. By being perfect we compensate for our inadequacies and are beyond reproach. One becomes insulated from the feelings of judgement from oneself and others. Perfection and the pursuit of it become the solution to challenging feelings.
To always want to be perfect means that we never have to consider what failure feels like. Part of being human is that we are sentient beings and not merely machines carrying out limited functions in a repetitive fashion. To be simplistic we aren’t and can’t be all-knowing and therefore we are flawed and failure is possible.
The pursuit of perfection can impact our personal relationships and deny us the opportunity to explore and be curious. If perfection becomes a motivating factor how can be relate to others when we are managing our own anxiety around feelings of being judged. If it feels unbearable to think of failure how do we learn and develop?
Thoughts of being ‘average’ and psychotherapy
Considering how thoughts of being perfect can impact our life and relationships we might think of how we can move away from this high standard. To be less than perfect, we have to consider how we tolerate what has previously felt unbearable. The thought that it’s ok not to be perfect is a challenge and can expose one to questions of self critical, judgemental feelings that have been defended against. Psychotherapy offers the opportunity to think with a therapist and explore what is behind such feelings. Can we challenge this unconscious sense that anything other than perfection is bearable? Can we be ‘average’ and be happy with that?
Being an advocate for ‘average’ is not about promoting mediocrity, it’s a reaction to the rigour of perfection and a way of finding a more compassionate sense of self that can be at ease with and maybe even enjoy.
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 –
Understanding Feelings of Guilt
Guilt can be a particularly tortuous feeling and, for some, a chronic state of mind. Below, I will think about different aspects of this complicated emotion.
Origins of Guilt
For Melanie Klein (1), guilt is part of a small child’s normal development, when they realise that they can hate and feel aggressive towards those they also love. The guilt arises out of fear that the infant is responsible for the potential or actual damage and loss of their mother/caregiver – on whom they absolutely depend.
These early experiences will be made better or worse by several factors, including the love and stability given to the child as it grows. Future events, particularly those early on in life, may help to relieve or compound the individual’s more complex or unresolved relationship to guilt.
Function and Dysfunction of Guilt
While painful, particularly when we are consumed by it, it’s important to realise that guilt is a normal part of our emotional lives. When it functions, it is helpful for us as individuals and societies. It is strongly connected, for example, with morality and conscience.
Being able to feel guilt is a healthy capacity and is connected to remorse. Guilt can lead us to accept our responsibility and take action, if necessary, to make reparation. This can take often place in ordinary ways, for example, saying sorry to someone we feel we’ve hurt.
However, when the awful and terrifying feelings of guilt in childhood have not been resolved enough, they can persist into adulthood in chronic and acute ways, and for some people becomes a regular place in their minds to go to. Feeling perpetually guilty can lead to, and be bound up with, intense feelings of anxiety and persecution.
Guilt can get located into all kinds of irrational parts of oneself and can become a way of avoiding other difficult feelings. For example, guilt can be bound up with unresolved feelings around regret and loss or can be a response to uncomfortable feelings of anger. Or it can be used as a way of cushioning against feelings of a loss of control – for e.g. following an external trauma.
Defences against Guilt
For some people, feelings of guilt are so hard to bear they find different ways to get rid of them.
For example, they may become extreme in their efforts to ‘make reparation’, like compulsively putting others first. This is problematic for several reasons, not least of all because underlying this dynamic is often – and understandably – growing resentment which cannot be acknowledged. Inevitably this can simply perpetuate further cyclical feelings of guilt.
Fearfulness around feeling guilt can also lead to a difficulty in taking ownership and another way of avoiding guilt can involve being critical and blaming of others. This is often unconscious and a defensive way of managing guilt by projecting it out – so that others will hold all the guilty feelings.
How to get help with Guilt
If we think back to Klein’s ideas of development, it is the acceptance of responsibility that can lead to repair and resolution. In adult life it is similarly important to be able to bear our guilt without fear and attack (on ourselves or others). Taking responsibility for our actions is so important to our psychological health, and allows us, at times, to repair and this will also feed back into our sense of self and confidence.
Chronic and more compulsive feelings of guilt however are problematic and likely to be bound up with complex childhood (and, also, sometimes adult) losses and traumas. These can be worked through in therapy or counselling.
Group therapy can be particularly useful in tackling pervasive feelings of guilt as the individual can gain a great deal from the reassurances of other members. Also, seeing others grapple with familiar emotions around guilt can be powerfully therapeutic in thinking about one’s own relationship to it.
Therapy can encourage and support people in coming to terms with responsibility, regret, and remorse where this is helpful and appropriate, while still questioning and exploring more chronic and corrosive feelings of guilt.
Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.
Further reading by Claire Barnes
The process of joining a therapy group
What is ‘othering’ and why is it important?
How psychotherapy groups can help change our internalised family systems
Is a Therapy Group Right for Me? Am I Right for a Therapy Group?
Reference –
(1) Melanie Klein (Psychoanalyst) b1882 – d1960. Love, Guilt and Reparation (1937)