The Therapy Relationship - So Helpful, So Difficult, So Aaaagh!

[Hashi]

I am afraid I don't know how to express it in terms of archetypes. I am assuming part of what can happen is that the Orphan Child sees the imperfection or error as a sign of potential danger and then goes into pushing away mode. I am not sure how that is addressed in archetype therapy - if another archetype is encouraged to step in or if the Orphan Child is encouraged to see things differently.

I've probably given the impression that there's such a thing as archetype therapy, but I don't think there is! Maybe it can be approached in the same way as sub-personalities, in a therapeutic sense, but I don't know much about that.

To me, work with archetypes is just about awareness of archetypes and how they create patterns of thinking and behaviour. A lot is about accepting that the shadow sides are part of us too. It's also that each one is only one aspect of ourselves, and we have other aspects we can draw on.

So, just as you said, the Orphan Child is likely to react to seeing my therapist as at all unreliable by rejecting her. I think how the awareness helps is understanding that it's a natural reaction of one aspect of me. I still have other aspects of myself that can see things from a wider, and hopefully wiser, perspective. For example, to want to see if we can repair it before deciding it's finished (the Judge), to be able to take it less personally and look at it with more detachment (the Detective), to see it as an archetype itself - ie as part of the inevitable ups and downs of the therapy relationship (the Storyteller) etc.

I'm going to have to work on the imperfect idea. That brings up the shadow side of so many archetypes! (Judge, Saboteur, Bully...) Yikes. :D

 

[Hashi]

Something that I've felt quite strongly in recent sessions is that she has really taken the issues and our discussions about them to heart. She's doing things differently as a result, and that means I've been able to return to trusting her.

One of the problems was to do with her not being prepared enough in one particular session to hear trauma details. It was like she was 95% prepared but the 5% that she wasn't prepared derailed things. She later explained that it was due to the nature of what I was talking about, and I can understand that now. She hadn't anticipated it and that was why she wasn't fully prepared. Not because - as I angrily imagined at the time - she was blasé about the therapy and not taking it seriously enough. This is what I now think could have happened with any therapist - since I have to grudgingly accept that they are human, after all.

Now when I talk about trauma she is so rock solid it feels like she's been preparing all week. And with what I'm talking about now, it's much more important that she is. It was like the issue happened with something I could handle so that it could be sorted out before we got to this point. I really have to depend on her with this, more than anything I've discussed in therapy before. I have to be able to lean on her, and she has to be able to be there for me and be stable. I think the issue was like a warning. If it hadn't happened, things might be different now.

Much as I've hated the idea that I first read in one of Pencil's posts, that problems in the therapy relationship are part of the process, I have to agree with it. Sometimes problems might mean the relationship coming to an end, but in that case it's because it needs to come to an end. Otherwise, I do see that the problems and then the repair increase the effectiveness of the relationship. It's hard to see that at the time, though.