Symbolic Mom

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Have you ever had to part with your familiar, long-familiar clients who have regularly come to your office for several years now, sat in the chair opposite or appeared on the screen of your computer on Skype

I think this has happened to many of us sometimes. And it is especially offensive when it seems to us that just as soon as things went smoothly, the client began to wake up, shake off the insanity of obsessive acting out and defenses. And here you are! He comes and says - I won't show up anymore, I'm tired, that's enough for me, I can't take it anymore, I don't have money or something like that. It is insulting and painful, self-esteem is mercilessly wounded, emptiness and a sense of loss are just a few of those feelings that visit us, dear colleagues, isn't it?

Has the opposite situation happened to you? This is when you are facing the wall of the need to leave your therapist, and this is not his temporary leave with the assurance: "See you in September." This is when at all. I hope not many have managed to get into a similar situation. And yet, what is happening here and how are both options for parting similar, albeit from different positions?

It just so happened that at the moment I have at my disposal an "invaluable" experience of parting with my mother-therapist for an indefinite period for reasons beyond my control (well, in fact, we all understand that very dependent, others just does not exist). At the same time, while remaining a thinking specialist, I will take the liberty of reflecting on what is happening, pushing into the background the heart-rending cry: "Mom, do not go, I will not be any more."

So. Loneliness is not observed, which means that the internal object has not formed badly, it is stable and will not go anywhere. She is in me. I became her … Although no - no. I am who I am. It's good for me to be myself. Well, then individuation seems to be just around the corner. Efficiency has increased significantly, and with it, resistance to all kinds of troubles and trifles, connection with reality is a pleasure. So why does it hurt so much !!? Why are there so many tears and worries? I understand everything, I see the results and at the same time I continue to cling to the elementary defense mechanism - denial, in this case it sounds like a frightened one: “No, no, no, no, just not that, just not now, it's too early for me to start sailing on my own, I can’t handle it… I’ll get cold again… Mom, don’t go away, I won’t be anymore !!!”. What's this? Rollback, defenses "celebrate victory". Colleagues, this is not a rollback, this is not a "minus", this is a separation, albeit symbolic, but no less difficult and painful. To do without dry speeches about the fact that the task of any therapy is to make the client ever be able to do without it, I will only say one thing, I AM HAPPY THAT I HAVE BEEN PRESENTED IN THE MYSTERY OF BIRTH OF THE SOUL OF A HUMAN CHILD, rather not quite birth and not quite a soul, but a return from the great torpor of a pre-existing essence, but this clarification is no longer so important in comparison with the awareness of the ongoing process.

Therefore, dear colleagues, let us be most attentive not to those who come, but to those who leave, believe me, this is not so simple.