In this blog I will be touching on the question: what is psychotherapy? Asking this will elicit an answer entirely dependent on which psychotherapist you ask because psychotherapy necessitates the therapist to have an idea of what it is to be human in this world. This is subjective and will invariably be informed by their training, world view and personal histories.
My view is that psychotherapy is a mysterious venture because its works through mechanisms that are not entirely conscious. Psychotherapy requires an appreciation of a deep formless place within us that defies location and definition. If we try to pin this process down, then something of its essence is lost. The freedom to roam is stupefied by what we feel ‘should’ be happening. I will therefore annoyingly refrain from giving a clear answer to the question at hand. Everything I write will be pointers, nudges and hints towards something greater that lies behind the literality of our usual everyday lives.
One thing we can be sure of is that psychotherapy involves two people sitting together — two people fulfilling particular roles. One person’s role is that of the client who comes to therapy for the amelioration of a difficulty or problem in their lives. The other persons role is that of the psychotherapist. Our roles in life have archetypal resonances. For example, a parent’s role is that of the archetypal mother or father and comedian’s role is the archetypal trickster or jester. The psychotherapist’s archetypal role is that of the healer.
Throughout history we have had healers who work in accordance with the belief systems, ontologies and paradigms of their age. In pre-history and traditional cultures, we call these healers shamans. They worked with unseen energies in a vibrant alive animistic world. In our current time healers have tended to do away with these so called ‘primitive’ superstitions. Now, psychoanalysts use the frameworks of the unconscious, transference and projective identifications. On the other hand, psychiatrists adhere to the doctrines of medical science. Their world is one of chemical imbalances, diagnoses and treatment options. More recently, healers work with historical trauma and somatic experiencing. There is truth to all these approaches. However, problems arise when healers take these tribal affinities as ‘the truth’. Clients could then be forced into an ill-fitting box that is not of their making. Psychotherapy is then something that is done to us through the imposition of a particular belief system. This is not the way to go. But paradoxically we all need frameworks or a system to work in, otherwise we are wondering aimlessly in the dark. The trick is not to take these modes of operating as a literal truth and to have a light touch.
So, people come to therapy to see a healer. But what exactly is healing? If we look at the etymology of the word heal it may give us some clues. Heal originates from the old English Haelan which means ‘to make whole or restore to soundness’ and is related to the words health and, interestingly, holy[1]. It follows that psychotherapy is about facilitating health and wholeness, and this is a ‘holy’ activity. The implication of seeing psychotherapy as a journey towards wholeness is that there are parts of us that are split off that need to be recovered and integrated into our being. These parts split off in our formative years as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from their potentially terrifying intensity. A ‘false self’ then develops to meet the wants, needs and desires of others[2]. We then become unconscious of these splits in our being which, although we are unaware of their existence, drive our behaviour from behind the scenes causing us to behave and act in limiting and detrimental ways.
Another useful etymological exploration is to look at the word psychotherapy itself. Psychotherapy is the amalgamation of the Greek words psyche and thera. Psyche has three meanings: soul, breath and butterfly. And thera means to attend to or to take care of. It follows that, in one sense, psychotherapy means to attend to or take care of the soul[3].
Some people may be uncomfortable with the notion of soul. We are a product of a culture which is dominated by a materialistic, reductionist and scientific outlook. Many see the belief in soul as childish and naïve. It is true that if we were to dissect a human, we would not find a soul, we would just find biological organic matter. Despite this, according to recent surveys about half of the UK population believe in a soul[4]. This implies the jury is still out and the hardcore rationalists have not succeeded in converting us to their view. Maybe there is some truth to soul after all, although one could never prove it.
In the context of psychotherapy, what exactly do we mean by soul? The therapist who originally brought soul into psychotherapy is Carl Jung[5]. He recognised psyche as a spiritual reality whilst simultaneously attempting to maintain empirical and scientific credibility. He subsequently rejected any definition of soul that smacked of the anything resembling mysticism. The result of this is that he described soul in a myriad of different and sometimes contradicting ways. The definition that most resonates with me is to see soul as ‘a kind of life force’. This chimes with the other meaning of psyche which is breath. Across many philosophical and religious traditions, the breath is universally regarded as a principle of life. Breath is symbolically synonymous with the vital energy that rhythmically flows through us, animating us into existence. In the Indian yogic traditions this is called Prana and in the Chinese traditions it is called Qi. Both these words literally mean breath in their respective cultures. Viewing soul as the breath of life gains further traction when we consider the word animate which comes from the Latin word anima and also means soul and breath. All this points to soul being the vital energetic essence that animates us to be alive sentient beings.
So, the task of psychotherapy is to tend to our energetic life force. In an ideal situation, when our lives have meaning and we feel we are living the life we want, this energy flows unhindered. We are in tune and harmonic balance with our own essence. We wake in the morning content and satisfied with the way things are. It feels good to be in our skin. There is a confidence in our being. We have faith in our resilience to meet life’s challenges with openness and sensitivity. All is good.
Needless to say, the above scenario is not how most of us exist. And even if it did it would probably only be temporary situation. In all of us, without exception, life force leaks out of conscious awareness. Our conditioning creates blockages or knots that inhibit the flow of our being. We can subsequently be sucked into the vortices of anxiety, depression, shame and other negative feeling states. All these painful and troubling experiences are distortions or splits in our life force.
Returning to the idea of healing, it is the job of psychotherapy to integrate these split off energies into the flow of our being. This doesn’t mean surgically removing them but rather it is a process of alchemical transformation. It can be painful for us as we feel those sensitive wounded parts of us bubble up to the surface of awareness. But there is a beauty in this unfolding as we, through our pain and tears, give birth to a new way of being.
I have no trace of doubt that we all have this potential for transformation and healing because we all have soul. We are all equally imbued with this life force. It courses through the veins of our being whether we like it or not. The only difference is how that energy is expressed or caught up in our own particular ways of existing and unique shape we adopt in the world. And like all energy, it cannot be destroyed but can be transformed. The solidity of the ice in our hearts can be melted into the spring water of life. Psychotherapy is about providing the right conditions for this process to naturally unfurl on its own accord. Like a blossoming flower it cannot be forced but it can be nurtured or tended to.
When considering psyche as breath, it strikes me that breath is neither inside nor outside of us. The act of breathing is a rhythmical symbiotic exchange between inner and outer. Similarly, we cannot locate psyche as being entirely within us. We are in a continual inter-being between ourselves and our outer environment, be that the animate or inanimate. We inter-be with the people in our lives and with the ‘inanimate’ such as our houses or works of art. A work of art could bring us to a sense of awe or wonder, and an untidy house can make us irritable. When considering this, psychotherapy isn’t only about the individual client. It is about their relationships, their work, the culture at large and the world they inhabit. In other words, we all live in a relational interpenetrative energetic ecosystem. Therefore, we do not locate the problem entirely in the individual but rather there is the appreciation that the person is but one part within a larger systemic network of influence that is spread across time and space. Psyche is both within us and external to us without being entirely located in either. Our soul is a sparkling reflection within an infinitely vaster world soul.
The last meaning of the word psyche is butterfly. This reminds us that one way the soul communicates with us is through the symbolic. From ancient times the butterfly has signified not only the mystery of physical metamorphoses but also the loveliest transmutations of the soul. It is the poetic image of soul’s renewal into beauty. This beauty is latently present in all the stages of the butterfly’s life cycle from the egg to the caterpillar to the chrysalis. It could not be any other way. Similarly, we all have beauty in the core of our being, no matter what stage of life we are in. James Hillman tells us that ‘the soul is born in beauty, feeds on beauty and requires beauty for its life’[6]. It is the task of the psychotherapist to recognise, nurture and tend to that innate beauty. This beauty is not merely confined to a surface level aesthetic sensibility. That kind of beauty is an allegory of a deeper more fundamental truth. The beauty I am speaking of is an intrinsic quality of the world that radiantly smiles at us from behind apparent appearances. It is who we are beyond our conditioning in our core. Its expression comes not only symbolically through poetry, art and music but also through love. When we see the beauty in the heart of things we cannot help but experience love. Beauty and love are entwined in an infinite, ineffable embrace — Psyche and Eros[7]. This is the gift of psychotherapy — to be seen, loved and recognised for who we fundamentally are. We are all beautiful.
[1] See https://www.etymonline.com/word/heal
[2] Donald Winnicott coined the term ‘false self’ in his work on child and personality development.
[3] I owe this insight to Guy Dargert from his wonderful book — The Snake in the Clinic: Psychotherapy’s role in Medicine and Healing (2016).
[5] See https://jungiancenter.org/jung-on-soul-tending/#:~:text=The%20dictionary%20offers%20seven%20definitions,“soul”%20as%20Seele%20does.
[6] James Hillman: The thought of the heart and the soul of the world (1992), p29
[7] The Greek myth of Psyche and Eros (the god of love) tells of Psyche’s trials and tribulations in a quest through the underworld which eventually ends in the unification of soul/beauty and love. Psyche’s journey to the underworld is an apt allegory for the psychotherapeutic endeavour
