My family is definitely not an illustrious family- very ordinary indeed but what intrigues me is the search- the exploration and the variety of what can be discovered when we begin probing “the depths”. I think the interest is very similar to how I have always felt with doing the work of psychotherapy with the many and varied people who have come to see me over many years.

It is common to believe that people in the helping professions are in that work because they are “obsessive helpers” and must forever “care” for others. I have never thought that that explanation felt true for my major motivation in being a psychotherapist. What I love and have loved is the search and the exploration. In the case of psychotherapy it is an exploration of what are the precise experiences in life and the precise interpersonal, inter-relational and intra-psychic dynamics that make this person different from this other person. What is it that is in so many ways quite typical dynamics that can be found in many people and what exactly is it that makes this person unique?

I have always found great excitement in exploring the depths of the psyche and when it is done in a collaborative way most people can find their own way through their life issues when we can both understand how they think and feel in all sorts of situations. What I have also found is that the learning is endless; there is always something new to learn and fortunately you can never “know it all”.

I find with my new interest that some of these same excitements are very similar. I have absorbed much of the information that my sister had found and which passed onto me. This is similar to absorbing and making sense of all the “book learning” that went with becoming a psychotherapist. But the experience of searching for myself has led to enormous learning in a wide range of areas. It has also brought me in touch with many and varied people from the wider family group who once I would have paid very little attention. And it has brought many new insights into the family and put my life and my family’s lives into a much broader context.

Psychotherapy also brings that broader context to our lives even though it frequently seems focussed on the internal.

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”

Since my childhood surname was Wisdom it has always seeemed incumbent on me to contemplate these words carefully and the thoughts, at least some of the time, stop me from ever assuming that I know what the person with me needs to learn. If I stop long enough to allow them the space- THEY will tell me what they already know is best for them and what they need to do. And in telling me they somehow re-learn it or consolidate it for themselves. Rather than a cognitive learning of strategies, they somehow just “find themselves acting differently”.

There are of course other important guiding principles but this one is critical to enable the people who come to see us as psychotherapists, to really feel heard and understood.

The glorious feeling of when we are “smitten” by another and for a certain period of time are obsessed with thoughts of them. We idealise the person; we fantasise and romanticise them; we can see no wrong in them and/or can easily overlook any imperfections- put any such slightly negative doubts to the back of our minds. Certainly, during that “in love” time, we don’t use those doubts as any sort of signal to our selves to step back and REALLY think about this. In fact very often it is almost impossible for us to step back and we even avoid those people who might not want to go along with our adoration of the person or might throw up their own doubts. That person “does not understand”! Our feelings for the one we are idealising at the time is virtually an obsession, an infatuation, an addiction even- we “lose ourselves” and our sense of a separate self in the other.

Sometimes – mostly in fact- something happens to cause us to snap out of this phase. Sometimes we are filled with grief and are broken hearted if we feel rejected by the one we adore. it might take moths or years even to ‘get over them”. There are many outcomes but I am sure the dynamic is familiar to us all. Sometimes we swing completely in the other direction and become infuriated with the one we had adored even to the point of total denigration of them. In this phase we can see nothing good in them at all- they have “betrayed us” etc etc. If they have not felt the same way as we have about them, the relationship can deteriorate into massive demands for the other to love us as we have loved them. At times in extreme situations this phase leads to violence.

At best we come back to see the person in a more realistic manner and sometimes we may even be able to pursue a more real relationship. This is when that initial “in love” feeling turns to some more enduring love and, if the feelings have been mutual, we can look back with pleasure on the beginnings of our relationship.

In other cases we can only look back and feel shame or humiliation that we had felt the way we did, perhaps “made fools of ourselves” etc.

What my colleagues and I were talking about was the origins of this dynamic. We see it as coming out of the totally natural merging that is necessary between mother and infant. Falling in love with your newborn is not only natural but necessary. The newborn infant actaully needs the mother to be able to merge with it so she can learn how best to care for the infant. Donald Winnicott called this initial phase “maternal pre-occupation” and said that if it was NOT for the presence of an infant it might almost be called madness- rather like the madness of that adult infatuation.

However, in the normal course of growth, the infant begins to develop his or her own separate self and requires different things from the mother. In the normal course of events mother has a more realsitic view of the infant, meets its needs as required but can allow for the necessary degrees of separateness in gradually increasing doses as the child grows up. Sometimes things go wrong and the infant is left without having the initial need met or only partially met. Some mothers have not been able to “fall in love” with their infant- perhaps they are completely depressed and cannot show their love. Other mothers have not been able to allow for the gradual natural separateness of the child.

I believe that the infatuation I spoke of earlier that often puts adults in turmoil when they seek relationships and sometimes leads them into relationships that are actually totally unsuitable- even abusive- comes out of the longing for a repetition of or the wish for a different experience of that initial merged phase with the mother.

In some families if the infant has not been able to get what they need from the mother in the way they need it, the toddler turns to the father to have that need filled. When that turns into a good experience it can go a long way to fill the void for the child. When it is not a good experience- either because the father takes advantage of the child’s love and exploits the child, or is just frankly unavailable, then the void remains and the longing persists.

Often the result is that the child grows into an adult who “falls in love” with anyone who shows them any sign of interest- for whatever reason. Alternatively they may fall “in love” with anyone who calls up the vestiges of the idealised mother or father that they so long for.

Forming a good enough relationship with a therapist who can help the person to understand themselves and develop a separate sense of self so they can love without losing their own self is sometimes the only way this issue can be helped.

If I understand the situation correctly, he has been associated with joint ventures with the Indian Psychoanalytical Society so began to go to art galleries and museums in India. This fostered an interest in the subject, the universality of the Mythology and he has done a lot of thinking regarding the links to psychoanalytic thinking. For the first time ever, I began to get an inkling of the richness involved and got a tiny window into the many gods and the stories surrounding them.

Then over the early part of January this year I have been in Bangkok and in the middle of my trip, visited Cambodia in particular to see the ancient ruins of the temples at Angkor Wat and surrounds. I was most fortunate to have an excellent guide who had been a teacher and had quite extensive knowledge of the stories surrounding the temples- the stories told in the reliefs along many of the walls, the inscriptions, and the statues of the various deities , kings etc. It seems that the religion of the Khmer was largely infulenced by Hindu India with the later addition of Buddhism. The general feeling was of the similarities too of visiting Stone Henge or the ancient ruins in Rome etc.

I still feel most decidely ignorant on the subject but loved various aspects of the temples. The sheer scale and size of some of these temples rightly qualifies for the over used description of “awesome”. I came away quite often speechless after trying to take in the workmanship, the labour over thousands of years and what was clearly the opulence of what once was there. I loved best of all the walls at the smaller and oldest Roulos group of temples that were covered in Sanscrit. Oh to be a Sanscrit scholar who could read these walls- the temples there having been built in the 800′s.

And I loved the stories told in the stone reliefs along walls in Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat where for instance one depicted the thirty-two punishments in hell. And everywhere, as in Bangkok there were Buddahas by the hundred- similar to Italian cities where there are multiple “Mary and Child” or “Christ on the Cross” images.

We humans have clearly always had that universal need to have our gods and dieties; our heaven and hell. I was reminded of a lecture in a subject in my Arts degree many years ago in my most loved subject called “The Morality of Power”. What does religion give us? It gives us rules to live by, someone or something greater than ourselves to believe in, stories that make sense of our world and our lives and, most seductive of all, the promise of an after-life.

I think somehow feeling like we have answers to these matters gives us some sense of having at least some control over our own lives.

Jeff has been fundamental to the training and education of Somatic Psychotherapists in Australia since 1983. He was enormously influential for me in my journey toward working and developing as a psychotherapist. And some of us who were invited, including myself, actually knew and were trained by Jeff long before the establishment of his College.

With only a few exceptions, Jeff has been the main educator of most Melbourne members of the former Australian Association of Somatic Psychotherapists (AASP) – (now amalgamated with the Australian Somatic Integration Association to become ASPA- The Australian Somatic Psychotherapists Association). Jeff also taught a great many of the Sydney members of the former AASP as well and for many years his college was the main source of new members.

It was thought by many that it was well time to express our gratitude to Jeff. Gena Fawns and myself were asked to speak formally on behalf of the many people present.

I spoke of the early years from when I began with the first training in 1984, soon after Jeff arrived back in Australia from his study in England and Europe. I spoke about the fact that over the years what has stood out for me is Jeff’s passion for his work and for providing the very best in the teaching of psychotherapists. Jeff’s scholarship and his generosity in sharing his knowledge and experience has been outstanding, while his persistence in maintaining high standards when many others would have opted for financial gain by lowering their standards, has been exemplary.

And primarily, Jeff’s integrity has meant that his influence on a large number of people has been invaluable and enabled many to reach beyond what they imagined for themselves. I further spoke of Jeff having been instrumental in the founding of our professional Association and also of the former Somatic Therapy Centre- a Co-operative through which many of us worked together for about 13 years.

Gena spoke of the more recent years since Jeff formed his College about 15 years ago and her experience of having been a teacher in the course for seven years. Here is a little of what she had to say:

“…hundreds of students ….. embarked on the three-year journey of experiential, practical and theoretical learning which most of us agree has profoundly changed our lives and our sense of self, and often led to a whole new career-path.… The transformation I have witnessed in students has been a joy and a privilege to be part of. …… Jeff was a great role model in being a teacher who is authentically present, walks his talk with students and does not hide his vulnerability.

The principles of emotional safety, intellectual rigour, and respecting each student’s individual journey are what made the course so valuable, at both a personal and professional level…
Many graduates of the college have said that at seminars by overseas experts they realise how deep their understanding of contemporary theory and research is, thanks to what they learned in the course. And likewise, at skill-based courses, graduates say they realise the robustness of their self-awareness, thanks to their personal therapy and the deep personal learning they were able to integrate during the course……

……. Graduates also say how valuable it was to observe Jeff working therapeutically with individuals and the group as a whole; they feel privileged to have “learned from a master”. Not only did they learn the theories of embodiment and intersubjectivity, but they got to witness and experience these qualities in the way Jeff works and teaches.

Another frequent comment from graduates is how resilient they now feel in their work with clients and in their personal relationships. The experiential process and interpersonal skills they learned, with Jeff and the other teachers, have prepared them well for the challenge of being a psychotherapist.”

Jeff’s input into the basic training of psychotherapists will be sadly missed and the fact that the costs to set up and maintain quality training courses in psychotherapy in Australia are, now-a- days, formidable, is a great indictment on our society.

Boundaries ideally need to be open enough to allow the other “in” under some circumstances; to be able to empathise with the other; to be able to “see” the other. They also need to allow us to be able to take some risks with another, appreciate where they may be coming from while knowing we can say “No!” and be assertive about what we can or cannot do. If we are strong enough in who we are – in our sense of self- then our boundaries can be elastic enough to make a conscious choice about how much or for how long or in what way we may to some degree “give ourselves over” to the other.

All in all boundaries that are too pourous between ourselves and the “other”, leads to many of the reasons why people seek out therapy. It leads to a loss of self which with some can be almost total. For some there will have been psychotic symptoms as they feel that literally, parts of themselves have been taken over by or into the other. Others find themselves having taken some vital step in their lives even though an “inner voice” told them it was the wrong thing to do. They went ahead because of pressure from outside themselves or out of some “driven- ness” to “do the right thing” or make someone else happy. Others have lived lives with so-called “intimate partners” where they have suffered abuse simply out of their own need to “have someone”.

Some of my self- pshychological colleagues nowadays like to call some forms of this, “pathological accommodation.” And it is true it can be given that name. I like to stay with the simple “giving yourself over to the other.” Of course it arises originally out of deprivation, loss, abuse, the domination of a particular parent or even the fear that the parent will, for one reason or another, not survive if they don’t “accommodate”. If at all possible, the child MUST at all costs to themselves, survive. There are children who have been too young or otherwise unable to accommodate themselves enough to the needs of “the other” and some do not survive. Infants and young children do actually die under some circumstances.

And what about those whose boundaries have to be kept so rigid they cannot allow themselves to have an intimate relationship? This may be the only way they can feel safe or maintain a sense of self. In the end it is the same as boundaries that are too pourous as the basic sense of self is so compromised that intimate contact with the other may threaten their very existence. Being on their own is the price they pay for being able to live life exactly as they need it to be without having to accommodate to the needs, wants or wishes of another. At least they then know who they are and that they exist.

Can psychotherapy help? Most definitely, but psychotherapy of this type under such circumstances is not of the “quick fix” variety. Reclaiming a sense of self is something for the long haul. The way is to find a psychotherapist who will stay with you for the duration of that long haul and one who will help you deal with the pain along the way. The long term result is worth the hard work.

The situation in Australia seems to me to be much healthier than is the situation in other countries in the world. At least here, according to a report by the banks a couple of weeks ago, (the ABC news) the ordinary person becomes more conservative with their money and tends to save rather than spend. In some other countries people can go the other way round and spend the money that they do not really have.

However, have we gone a bit too conservative? Are we retracting too much? Are we influenced by panic and therefore rush into quick actions that may contribute to an experience of a domino effect?

When we are affected by panic we lose our thinking and are swept by a tsunami wave of emotionality: fear, worry, doom and gloom to name only a few. We can’t hold on to hope. We try desperately to cut our losses, act quickly in order to get rid of the terrible panic feelings and in years to come we may realize that we acted in haste.

We need to remind ourselves to calm down. We can help ourselves by vigorous physical activity, relaxation techniques, breathing and meditation. We can talk to friends or a therapist and work through the panic to restore hope.

And Dr. Gabbard was well worth the high conference fee especially when the conference also included such local psychiatrists/ psychotherapists as Dr. Louise Newman and Dr. Ed Harari. I was really impressed with Dr Newman’s capacity to put together and articulate recent findings in neurobiology and attachment as they related to her client population of very disturbed young people. She opened the conference and Dr. Harari ended it on Sunday with a wonderful case study from his work in the Gastroenterology Department at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne.

Dr Gabbard gave a number of lectures- the first of which was on the research on what actually works in psychotherapy. I may not totally accurately represent what he had to say but what I took away from his lecture was a validation of what we all know in our gut- that the prime “curative” factor is the “alliance” between therapist and client- or we might call it the working relationship.

On themuch debated question of whether we should “zealously pursue” transference related interpretations as our major tool- if I heard correctly what Dr. Gabbard said-the answer is “No”. Contrary to long held psychoanalytic dogma, transference interpretations are really not so much required by our higher functioning clients/ patients. They do just as well with out them and in fact are likely to find them distracting and annoyed that we seem to be narcissistic in constantly wanting to “take everything back to being about you.”

On the other hand, some more disturbed clients with real attachment issues do benefit from transference interpretations. They may do much better if we can very much stay in the present with the two of us who are right there in the room. And in those cases when we do make transference interpretations they have much more impact when they are preceded by a lot of empathic validation of the client.

Somatic Psychotherapists have never believed that transference was the be all and end all of psychotherapy. We do know, though, that working with the relationship between us and using that relationship to elucidate the long held patterns of relating and the way we ourselves contribute to the dynamic between us, can ultimately change problematic psychic processes and even the way the brain (and the body) works.

Being a “stranger in a strange land” is not the only reason why people may experience that they do not belong, have feelings of estrangement, alienation and a sense of lack of roots.

These feelings are not felt exclusively by migrants; they may be experienced by people who for some reasons never “fitted in” within their family or school or society. These feelings may be felt also as a result of sudden sweeping changes in life conditions, being a minority, feeling different in whichever way, etc.

Meaningful connections with people allow for the growth of a new root. Just like the new seedling, when in an environment that meets its needs in a good enough way, it grows stronger and stable and with time can withstand the rough winds and variety of weather conditions.

For some people the meaningful connections are not easily established or not possible at all. They may live their lives in social isolation or they may grow bitter and have a sense of being “shrivelled up”
These are some of the issues that are worked through in the therapeutic relationship.

So I would like to share my thoughts in this matter as well.
My thoughts are based on my clinical experiences working with both modalities. For me it is important to know the differences between the two because that determines what the client needs from me, what is possible to achieve in the work and what are the limitations of the work.

When I get the sense that I can work from within the relationship between the client and myself, when I can connect the past – what happened in the life of the client there and then, – with their present life in the outside world – what is happening in the here and now between that client and myself, then I have a sense that I am engaging in psychotherapy. In a sense the client is letting me into deeper places and levels in their being. These experiences can be life changing.

However not everyone wants life changing experiences, needs them, or is capable to delve into the deeper recesses of their selves. These clients come with a presenting problem or issue that they want to resolve, they want something from me that will make it possible to handle or resolve that issue.

For example, a client tells me that he had always been treated unfairly or feels that he had always been taken advantage of.
I then think about what the client has just said and wondering in myself whether the client feels that this treatment is happening with other people in his life in the present and also maybe with me in the room.

I may then ask: “and how is this playing out between you and me” or “maybe you are telling me that I treat you unfairly”. When the client can relate to this question and find the connection between the past experience and how it resonates in the present with me, than I have a sense that we are engaging in psychotherapy.

A question like this becomes irrelevant even impossible to ask when I am engaged in counselling therapy.