Tony White

In the previous post myalterego talks about what is bad with a no-dependency life?

Jacob Bronowski of book fame, “The ascent of man” refers to humans as social solitaries. I have found this a good descriptive term. Humans like their solitude, independence and individuality. At the same time they are communal beings and have a need to be in relationship and belonging with another person and having a sense of belonging to a group of people. So in this sense they are dependent on that other person and group to be there to fulfil their need for belonging.

If I ever present the idea of the dependency hump inevitably there will be comment by someone that once they get over the hump then they can be independent and thus wont need to depend on anyone. Indeed many psychotherapies promote such an ethos - the healthy state is not a state of dependency but a state of independence. Self reliance is highly regarded in some counselling systems.


Belonging



My response is - dependency for life is a healthy state. Without a doubt self reliance, independence and the like are very good qualities to possess in life. I would encourage people to seek those personality qualities and use them in their daily lives.

Just one problem - they are not enough on their own. We need other people to be psychologically strong ourselves. When we depend on a dependable person/group then we are much more psychologically robust than the person who does not have such dependence in their life. So one needs a person(s) on which to be dependent their entire lives until the day they die.

Let’s take a transactional analysis explanation of this.



Person A has a problem in that they feel sad. However they go and use their own internal resources and use internal nurturing to assist their sadness and after time the Child is soothed and the problem is solved. A clear example of a person being self reliant and independent. A most desirable state to have for anyone I think it is safe to say. Some times however it is not enough and consider person B.



Person B feels sad and uses their own internal NP to assist in soothing the Child. However they also ask another person for help and that person offers their caring and kindness. So the Child is self soothed and soothed by others as well. Person B in the long run is going to be much better off than person A because of their willingness to engage others in their time of need. This person is not being self reliant and independent at this point, which I am suggesting is a healthy state.

However person B has one extra problem. As soon as person B transacts with the other, all sorts of very difficult and thorny psychological issues come rushing to the surface. Issues of trust, reliance, need, importance, closeness, dependence and so forth all come rapidly to the fore. As we know these are major issues of psychological importance that sometimes are not easily dealt with. If you get soothing from others then you have to also deal with these issues.


Trust



For some they are simply too difficult and they choose to rarely seek soothing from others. They will never allow themselves to be in that dependent position and thus they will live an emotionally crippled life.

I suggest that the healthy state is where one allows self to have some kind of life coach, mentor, confidant, therapist for the rest of their days. They allow self at times to be the dependent like party in such a relationship and this is a much more psychologically healthy position than the person who is completely self reliant and independent.

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I have mentioned before about the dependency hump.



How in normal development the child in the first year of life develops a high degree of attachment and psychological dependence on the parents. Some people make it to the top of the hump but then get stuck there and live life like line C. The most obvious example of this is the Dependent personality.

There are others who follow line A and never make it up to the top of the hump and these are sometimes called the “Hurried child syndrome”. They are forced to grow up in a hurry before they are psychologically ready to do so. These people find it very hard to become dependent in relationships and thus can suffer greatly because of that. Sometimes the goal of longer term therapy with character disorders is for the client to go through the dependency hump with the therapist.


Do I trust him to catch me?



Dependency is an interesting thing in that it is a double edged sword. It leaves the dependent party in a paradox.

On the one hand dependency can leave the person with secure and comfort feelings as they know and trust that the other party will look after them and protect them in a competent way.

At the same time the dependent party knows that they are dependent on the power figure and needs them to survive. This can lead to feelings of resentment and anger at the powerful figure. In addition when one is dependent on another person, then that is ‘stopping’ them from growing because to grow and develop one must eventually leave the dependency at least to some degree. So the dependency is indeed inhibiting the dependent party from growing. This can also lead to some resentment at the powerful figure by the dependent party.

Adolescence is a classic example of when these two contrary emotions can exist in one person at the same time and indeed they can both be felt at the same person at the same time. This of course can lead to relationship difficulties because the parent and the adolescent may be confused about the conflicting emotions being felt and expressed.



Sometimes however they can be split between mother and father. Where mother gets the negative emotions expressed at her for the dependence inhibiting development and father gets the good emotions expressed at him for the security the dependency offers. This can particularly happen when the parents have separated.

This can also be reflected in the process of transference development. See this diagram that I have blogged about before.



Clients will initially go through a period of positive transference in relation to the counsellor. At this time the positives of the dependency is felt by the client where their Free Child at last feels like it has a secure dependency on which to rely and it feels great.

But sooner or later the Free Child starts to feel like it wants to grow and develop into its own person and hence an anger or resentment starts to be felt at the counsellor because the dependency is holding it back from developing. Hence the negative transference arrives and the angst gets felt towards the therapist.



I have long suggested that it is wise for therapists to encourage the expression of adversarial feelings towards the therapist by the client in the positive transference stage. This probably reduces the excessive dependency whilst still allowing and permitting a functional level of dependency in the client so that he can proceed through the dependency hump.

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This is the relationship the evolves between client and counsellor over time. As the counsellor is attributed with more archaic qualities and emotional energy by the client then he/she will begin to perceive the therapeutic relationship as a replay of the archaic relationships that they had in childhood with their parents.

For instance if the client came from a background where mother and father were angry, humiliating and unpredictable then the client will begin to see the counsellor as doing those things. They will begin to misperceive things like tone of voice, looks on the face of the counsellor, imagining the counsellor is angry about things which they are not, selective perceptions and reinforcing memories. So over time the client finds them self in a relationship that is a replay of childhood even when the therapist is not doing that.





Why would a client do that?

There is the eternal battle in all of us between our drive or natural tendency to grow and self actualise, and that drive of the repetition compulsion to repeat the same self defeating relationship patterns over and over.



Transference neurosis transaction

All of us battle with this especially in out most intimate relationships.

One of the most crucial factors in the selection of a mate involves the transference neurosis exercise. Answer this question:
In the first decade of life.
The thing that you always wanted from Mother and never got was...... ?
The thing that you always wanted from Father and never got was...... ?
(Usually people answer things like love, time, encouragement, affection, information, direction and so forth)

Most people in some way will select a partner that also never gives the things they always wanted and never got


In your relationship with mother and father which glass did you drink from?

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The supervisor transaction
The supervisor transaction is a type of transference transaction.




Diagram 1.


This is a transference transaction - so it is a crossed transaction. The supervisee mistakenly sees the supervisor as a parental figure and will react to that person in the same way that they reacted to their mother or father as a child. So in childhood when a child was told it had done something wrong it often felt bad or angry, sad and so forth. So if a supervisor has to tell a supervisee they have done something wrong or needs to be improved the supervisee will often feel the same way. So information may not be perceived as being information but as an accusation.


Some supervisors are wieners



This can happen in any relationship where there is a perceived power difference. That can be a formal power difference such as at work with a boss - employee, or in the armed forces. It can also happen in a relationship where one person perceives the other as having more power or potency even when there is no formal difference. This can and does happen in many a marriage often with disastrous results.


The supervisee transaction
Counter-transference transactions are also crossed transactions. In this instance the supervisor will mistakenly see the supervisee as a child like figure and will react to it in a way that it learnt in childhood. The person will tend to see the child as being incompetent, manipulative, needing rescuing or criticism and so forth. As a result the supervisor will respond from the wrong ego state (ie not Adult and instead come from Critical Parent or Rescuing Parent).



Counter-transference transaction

Diagram 2


Instead of hearing the clear Adult information from the supervisee the supervisor will respond inappropriately because he hears the supervisee as whining, playing poor me, being rebellious when in fact they are not.

This is a more problematic transaction than the supervisor transaction and has the potential to cause more damage. In the supervisor transaction the supervisor can confront the supervisee with more ease as it is assumed that the supervisor is more knowledgeable than the supervisee. Indeed in many types of supervision this is expected to happen.

In the supervisee transaction it is the supervisor who is in error or has the problem. It is much harder for the supervisee to expose or confront the supervisor’s error because they are seen as less knowledgeable and the party of less potency in the relationship. Indeed even when the supervisor is in error he can often convince the supervisee (and himself) that this is not the case and it is the supervisee that has the problem. Thus this can at times go on for long periods of time and can in fact harm the supervisee's sense of self worth and so forth.


Showing the more powerful party in a relationship that they have a personal issue is very difficult. Often the less powerful party automatically assumes they are the cause of any relationship difficulties, when they are not.



Of course the same applies for the client and therapist. If the client has some personal issue with the therapist that is interfering with the therapy then the therapist can quite easily bring this to the surface and have it dealt with. Indeed many therapies actively suggest this happens.

However sometimes it is the therapist who has some personal issue with the client that is interfering with the therapy. This is much harder to deal with because the client is much less able to confront the therapist about his own problems. Again the client can often be convinced it is his problem in the therapy relationship when it is not. This can lead to damaging the client and can go on for long periods of time.



Indeed I recall a situation a number of years ago when I was supervising a psychology registrar. She stated that her previous supervisor had said to her, "You will never make a competent psychologist". Such statements clearly indicate that the supervisor has a personal issue in the supervisory relationship.



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What to do?



Been working with this guy for some time now. At one point about 2 years ago he was very suicidal. In my assessment of suicide risk I discovered that he had purchased the necessary items which included a piece of tubing which was to go from the tail pipe of the car in through the car window into the car. He had been out to the place in the country where was going to take his life on a few occasions. Such details like this combined with his personality and he was very close to having a serious attempt at ending his life.

Fortunately however that has past and now he is currently at very little risk. However I recently enquired about what had he done with the tubing he bought. He has small children who have a small blow up swimming pool in the back yard. He stated that he now uses the tubing as the way to empty the pool when syphoning the water out.



I dealt with this in sort of a mildly humorous manner with him. Generally speaking it is good counsel if the client came come to see their neurotic symptoms in a humorous way. That will tend to disempower them because something that is viewed as funny is usually not perceived in a overwhelming or frightening light.

But there is something about this that has been gnawing at me. There is something about it that does not feel right in this specific instance. He sees and touches this piece of tubing most days. At the same time it is a symbol of him almost dying at his own hand. Whilst this could be described as a neurotic symptom making light of it feels different than making light of excessive hand washing or insomnia or panic attacks and so on. Whilst it feels different I cannot really articulate why it is different. And if it is different what course of action is better to take.



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