Father’s hair turns white and his white hair records his hardships and love. The most special blessing is for the most special friend—Pa-pa. Although I am not too far away from you, I send sincere greeting to you to add special happiness to your Twitter birthday party. What I have presented as the key—finding clues within oneself to what pervades one’s World—has been general and abstract. While I have tied it to experiencing one’s I as everything and in everything, my mystical bent has kept my point fuzzy.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 36

To overcome the difficulty, let me present excerpts from a psychotherapy case. The approach makes the point more concrete. On the basis of the case, I will describe a process which can help being an understanding of ourselves as the key in helping and being helped. Showing others more concern and kindness is more effective and brings more practical profit than giving them any gift. The friendship based on business is far better than the business based on friendship.  #RyanPhillippe 2 of 36

Life is to meet challenges. An attempt is a good beginning. Without attempts, how can you find new opportunities?  Gestalt therapy assumes that much of our difficulty in living comes because of projection. We dissociate parts of our workaday personality and project them away from ourselves. We put upon people and things aspects of our character that we have difficulty owning. In making friends, we should choose those as our allies who can stand by us in times of danger. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 36

The Gestalt technique of being our protections help us re-own that which we have thrown out. We become what we have displaced in order to be the person we are. By entering into dialogue with what we have invested out-there, we achieve deep and broader and more balanced integration in-here. We recover ourselves. We become who we in truth are. None is entitled to asking others to do what he would not like to do himself.  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 36

 

Caroline, as I shall call her, is a twenty-three-year-old waitress, and married to a minister. She has contacted me two years earlier about difficulties in her marriage. At that time, I saw her twice. I emphasized the importance of her sending direct messages to her husband, Martin, as I shall call him. Instead of passively expecting him to know what she wanted without her having to say it, she had to take initiative to let him know specifically what she wanted.  #RyanPhillippe 5 of 36

Despite our limited contact, she had developed a deep beneficial transference toward me. By that I mean that in me Caroline found aspects of her relationship with her father, her brother, a sixth-grade teacher, a former lover, and her husband, all of which combined with whatever personal qualities I myself possessed. When I think of you, I remember many beautiful dreams ever we wove together. I leave you loneliness and you leave me memory. Clever God brings you into my dream, giving me so much happiness and satisfaction. We miss each other in different places. Endless missing coagulates to clear and translucent dew drops.  #RyanPhillippe 6 of 36

This time she came feeling extremely anxious, neither sleeping well nor eating properly. She claimed to be on the brink of “going to pieces,” vacillating between “committing suicide” and “becoming psychotic.” You are far away from me, but your voice sounds by my ears. I miss you in my heart every day and every night of departure. Past events are dreams in my memory. You are the only bring image to me. The water drops on green leaves are my tears of missing.  #RyanPhillippe 7 of 36

When, after passing through a narrow defile, one suddenly reaches a height beyond which the ways part and a rich prospect lies outspread in different directions, it is well to stop for a moment and consider whither one shall turn next. We are in somewhat the same position after we have mastered this first interpretation of a dream. We find ourselves standing in the light of sudden discovery. In the dream, the instrument is struck by some external force; the dream is not meaningless, not absurd, does not presuppose that one part of our store of ideas is dormant while another part begins to awake.  #RyanPhillippe 8 of 36

It is a perfectly valid psychic phenomenon, actually a wish-fulfilment; it may be enrolled in the continuity of the intelligible psychic activities of the waking state; it is built up by a highly complicated intellectual activity. However, at the very moment when we are about to rejoice in this discovery a host of problems besets us. If the dream, as this theory defines it, represents a fulfilled wish, what is the cause of the striking and unfamiliar manner in which this fulfilment is expressed. What transformation has occurred in our dream-thoughts before the manifest dream, as we remember it on waking, shapes itself out if them?  #RyanPhillippe 9 of 36

How has this transformation taken place? Whence comes the material that is worked up into the dream? What causes many of the peculiarities which are to be observed in our dream-thoughts? Is this dream capable of teaching us something new concerning our internal psychic processes, and can its content correct opinions which we have held during the day? I suggest that for the present all these problems be laid aside, and that a single path be pursued. It is easy to show that the wish-fulfilment in dreams is often undisguised and easy to recognize, so that the one may wonder why the language of dreams has not long since been understood.  #RyanPhillippe 10 of 36

In presenting the course of our work together, I am focusing only on conversations between pieces of herself she had projected into others and the parts of herself she had intended as her own. I want to show how the dialogue between alienated pieces and the intended parts leads to more integrating peace. I call this the centering-affirmation process. It is quite as simple a matter to discover the wish-fulfilment is several other dreams which I have collected from healthy persons.  #RyanPhillippe 11 of 36

Martin, Caroline’s spouse, who was acquainted with my theory of dreams, and had explained it to Caroline, said to me one day: “My wife asked me to tell you that she dreamt yesterday that she was having her menses. You will know what that means.” Of course I know: if the young wife dreams that she is having her menses, the menses have stopped. I can well imagine that she would have liked to enjoy her freedom a little longer, before the discomforts of maternity began. It was a clever way of giving notice of her first pregnancy.  #RyanPhillippe 12 of 36

Martin also writes that not too long ago that she noticed milk-stains on the front of her blouse. This is also an indication of pregnancy, but not the first one; the young mother hoped she would have more nourishment for the second child than she had for the first. Caroline was for weeks had been cut off from all society because she was nursing a child who was suffering from an infectious disease dreamt, after the child had recovered, of a company of people in which Alphonse Daudet, Paul Bourget, Marcel Prevost, Bernie Mac, George Carlin, Garry Shandling, and others were present; they were all very pleasant to her and amused her enormously.   #RyanPhillippe 13 of 36

In her dream these different authors had the features which their portraits give them. M. Prevost, with whose portrait Caroline is not familiar, looked like the man who had disinfected the sickroom the day before, the first outsider to enter it for a long time. Obviously the dream is to be translated thus: “It is about time now for something more entertaining than this eternal nursing.” The dreams of little children are often simple fulfilments of wishes, and for this reason are, as compared with the dreams of adults, by no means interesting. They present no problem to be solved, but they are invaluable as affording proof that the dream, in its inmost essence, is the fulfilment of a wish. I have been able to collect several examples of such dreams from the material furnished by my own children.  #RyanPhillippe 14 of 36

My son’s dream, at the time he was five and a quarter, and my daughter was eight, I am indebted to an excursion to Hallstatt, in the Summer of 1896. I must first explain that we were living that Summer in a hill near Aussee, from which, when the weather was fine, we enjoyed a splendid view of the Dachstein. With a telescope we could easily distinguish the Simony hut. The children often tried to see it through the telescope—I do not know with what success. Before the excursion I had told the children that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein. They looked forward to the outing with the greatest delight.  #RyanPhillippe 15 of 36

From Hallstatt we entered the valley of Eschern, which enchanted the children with its constantly changing scenery. One of them, however, they boy of five, gradually became discontented. As often as a mountain came into view, he would ask: “Is that the Dachstien?” whereupon I had to reply: “No, only a foot-hill.” After this question had been repeated several times he fell quite silent, and did not wish to accompany us up the steps leading to the waterfall. I thought he was tired. However, the next morning he came to me, perfectly happy, and said: “Last night I had dreamt that we went to Simony hut.” #RyanPhillippe 16 of 36

In the first interview we looked briefly at Caroline’s situation. She was avoiding contact with Martin. Her anxiety level was high. She saw as alternative separating or becoming trapped in a meaningless marriage. She has high expectations of me. I was her only hope. Much of her drive for love from older men, as she indicated, from searching for a father to take care of her as a little child. I ended the session emphasizing that our time would be limited to the academic semester. I indicated that we would work on reducing the gap between the little girl and the woman’s body. We would seek to find what she wanted that was appropriate, while looking at, living with, and giving up the inappropriate. #RyanPhillippe 17 of 36

The initial movement of centering-affirmation takes place in what I call the shock of recognition. In the pieces, one must see one’s own presence. To discover the truth of one’s self is startling. The task requires clarifying what one-in-one’s-several-pieces wants. That takes time. What one feels one wants seldom turns out to be what one truly wants. To arrive at genuine wants, one must contact what one has expressed indirectly through one’s projected pieces. In Caroline’s therapy this initial movement of recognition came in a dominant projected pattern, culminating in a preliminary centering of her supposed wants.  #RyanPhillippe 18 of 36

By the second session ambivalence about her marriage had surfaced. She wanted to leave, yet was afraid to leave. She wanted to leave, yet was afraid to leave. She characterized her marriage as “blah.” She had manipulated her husband into taking care of her. Her pattern was to get others to be responsible. That way she could blame others—in this instance Martin—for whatever happened.  #RyanPhillippe 19 of 36

“What is it that you want, Caroline?”

Her answer begins to sharpen one side of her inner split. “As a little girl, I want to be taken care of.” I ask her, “Can you talk to me little girl?” Quickly and easily she is a little girl three years old. “I want somebody to comfort me when I hurt, to be happy with me when I am happy, uh, to be there, to take responsibility for me.” She pauses and then continues more thoughtfully. “To know that somebody is there because I am afraid of myself, you know. I am not sure that I am enough by myself.” #RyanPhillippe 20 of 36

With that insight she returns to her present conflict. “I think that is part of the huge hang-up about leaving Martin, you know; at least Martin is somebody.” With Caroline beginning to make contact with the one side, I ask her to contact that other side. “Now talk to me as a woman.” She responds with the confidence of a twenty-eight-year-old. “I want to be able to give, uh, in many ways—physically, intellectually, sexually. I want to be admired and respected, you know, both as a person and as a professional. I want to share with someone important to me, you know. I do not just want to give. I want to share.”  #RyanPhillippe 21 of 36

More rapidly, now, I shift her psychic center back and forth between grown woman and little girl. “Talk to me as a little girl,” I tell Caroline. She replied, “I want people to give to me. I want people to love me and hold me and tell me that everything is going to be alright.” Now, “talk to me as a woman,” I tell Caroline.  #RyanPhillippe 22 of 36

“I want to be able to make a decision and take the consequences for whatever I decide. I want to be able to recognize that in life right and wrong just are not clear-cut you know, as far as a lot of decisions you have to make. There is not any right or wrong. You take the consequences of whichever way you take and do not worry about black and white. I want to do satisfying things, things that I get satisfaction from.”  #RyanPhillippe 23 of 36

With the emergence of satisfying strength, I ask her to respond as her own centered self. “Now talk to me as Caroline, standing between the little girl and the grown woman.” She replies, “I think I want to be able to stand on my own two feet because the fleeting whim says that I have had [love and care]. It is a really powerful feeling, but I am really, really scared. I want people to love me and I want to love back, but I am not sure I know how to love back.”  #RyanPhillippe 24 of 36

She was right about not knowing how to love maturely; yet at the moment I wanted to focus on her developing strength and the underlying fear. I asked, “What would happen if you stood on your feet?” Caroline replied, “Falling over and not being able to get up. What I would want is for somebody to come and pick me up, but probably, you know, I would pick myself up again. It would not be a total disaster.”  #RyanPhillippe 25 of 36

The little girl part of her wanted me to make her decision about staying or leaving. The rational woman part did not. Much of the next interview dealt with her anger at me, her supervisor, her former lover, her husband. She became self-conscious toward the end, wondering what I saw when I looked at her. I told her, “Stiffness, flatness, a hint of bubbliness, potentially ‘a lovely lady.’” Caroline replied, “That is wonderful to hear. That…I do not have to be stiff, cold, unhappy and that you care enough to help me out.”  #RyanPhillippe 26 of 36

In the waiting room the next week, Caroline felt “awkward” for the first time. It consciously “hit” her that she was a client. Martin has visited his parents. During the visit he had tried to interpret to them the pending separation. He told them about Caroline’s seeing me and of her problem of relating to me as part of her pattern of seeking a father figure. Caroline was furious. During the four days of his absence, she attempted to discover what it would be like to be on her own. She visited a friend who lived in “hippie town.” She reveled in the fun of knowing she could stay out as late as she wanted and “not have anybody to worry about.” No longer did she need Martin to meet her dependency needs.  #RyanPhillippe 27 of 36

That supposed autonomy, however, proved deceptive. She was using a lot of other people as “substitute” dependency objects. She connected her “crush” on me as part of the pattern—first her sixth grade teacher; currently a colleague in a seminar on group work; most acutely, her defense against involved fantasies with me. She sought closeness, yet feared it. #RyanPhillippe 28 of 36

This day, Caroline has appeared strikingly attired in a low-cut dress. She commented on it. “I have thought a lot about last time and being cold and not wanting to be that way.” She pauses before becoming explicit. “I did something very different today. I wore this dress, which is a miracle, because I bought this dress about two months ago and have not had enough nerve to wear it. I thought my hesitation might have been because my supervisor (a woman) had commented to me one time that I always wore high necklines. And so I did it,” she laughingly suggests, “as acting-out. You know, I will show you I can wear the lowest neckline I can find…” #RyanPhillippe 29 of 36

Now, Caroline feels, she is not wearing it to act-out. Instead she is wearing it “mainly…you know, because at least I am trying not to be uptight.” I go on to say, “A little more open, I interpret, a little more loose. More of yourself showing.” Caroline replies readily, “Yeah. And it is not particularly uncomfortable. Just prior to starting our therapeutic work, Caroline has dreamt of walking down a city street in flannel pajamas unbuttoned at the top, looking for her sixth-grade teacher.  Now, she exclaims, “I can reveal myself without unbuttoning my pajamas or without having my pajamas unbuttoned…It is kind of fun in a way, too…I feel like I am attractive. Flannel pajamas are not attractive at all.” She feels less like a Tomboy (Murphy), as in the past, and more like a woman—a young woman. “I am feeling like maybe I have moved from nine to eighteen.”  #RyanPhillippe 30 of 36

We move into the area of what she wants, as an eighteen-year-old, from me. She begins to allow her thoughts to wander. “I think at first I would fantasize doing things with you…like taking walks…kind of like a five- or six-year-old.” She continues, “….going to play or something that we both would enjoy. Un, sitting in front of the fireplace having a nice conversation, not an office-type conversation…I think having you hold me, only not in a little girl sense…. We are sitting by the fireplace…And I am very sort and pretty and appealing to you and you are very appealing to me…and instead of you holding me, you might lay your head in my lap… and I am wanting for us to make love.” With that, she consciously stops her fantasizing.  #RyanPhillippe 31 of 36

She wonders what I am thinking of her fantasy. Behind her wonder lurks the question of what I am thinking of her. I experience her on the verge of crying. “Maybe,” she muses, “feeling like I will get lost in my fantasies and wanting to know how to relate to them to reality.” With that, I use the closeness and the questioning to instruct her nascent self. I tell Caroline, “For the child, the reality and the fantasy are virtually the same. For the adult there is a difference between fantasy and reality. The six-year-old in you experiences the fantasy as close to reality.” Caroline is responding with “mmhmms” and “yeahs.” Her nodding head and facial expression convey to me the clarifying process of getting through.  #RyanPhillippe 32 of 36

“Fantasies,” I continue, “reflect the reaching and longing inside of us which we cannot utilize for our own growth until we take them into ourselves and allow them to take us where they will in our fantasy. However, that is not reality. It is the source out of which solid reality comes. As long as you back off from your fantasies taking you there, you are not going to assimilate all this stuff that is going on inside of you.” As I try to stand under her freer experiencing, I also set up limits. “There is probably as little likelihood of going out to play together or sitting in front of a fireplace as making love or going to a zoo.” Her, “mmhmms” continue.  #RyanPhillippe 33 of 36

I go on to investigate Caroline’s problem by saying, “However, if I turn that off, it does reflect the distancing, the apprehension, about the closeness. And I supposed the fact that you do not fully accept what you experience yourself, as well as being afraid of what I think about you, keeps you both too young and too old.” I pause and then summarize in a way to encourage her growing sense of self. “I am pressing you to move into your fantasies because your inner life is not regressive, childish, chaotic, destructive. Your inner life is growing a beautiful and adaptive and constructive self.”  #RyanPhillippe 34 of 36

Having moved into the dependency of her little girl and the desirable grown woman self, Caroline had begun to incorporate and coordinate these several selves. The result came forth as a venturesome and somewhat seductive younger woman. As such, she wanted to translate fearful fantasies into fulfilled realities. The vitality of her cut-off and alienated parts had begun to flow. As she could allow herself to “be” the little girl and the desirable grown woman, she could begin to come together as herself. #RyanPhillippe 35 of 36

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and soul, finding there capacities which the outside did not indicate nor promise, and which the other kind could not detect. The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove disappointing is, that we will read them from our own book: just as we are perplexed by reading ourselves from their fears. Much more work remained to be done, but the forces for centering-affirmation were moving.  #RyanPhillippe 36 of 36