The Shift in Relational Healing

What then are the implications for therapy if we truly understand and respect this oscillation between the self and the relational paradigm?

Relational healing is shifting from looking at individuals as relational beings to seeing being as relational. Given this, then when we sit with clients or a couple we sit with the profound understanding that in every moment our ‘self’ is being formed fluidly moment by moment - what potential for change!!

We now know so much more about how this is actually happening in our body-brains through things like mirror neurones and Limbic resonance and the Brain Bridge. It seems that it is not just our conceptual selves that are being formed minute by minute but our body states too. Which affects how we experience things… and then what stories we make up about the moment to make sense of it … and so what feelings we have about it … and then what actions we do…well, you get the story!

"I am, because we are"

So thinking a little deeper into this oscillation between the concepts of the individual paradigm and the relational paradigm, the article I was reading goes on to say that for some people the self doesn’t exist as a separate entity that can be studied on its own. Now that I can agree with!

For me the self only comes into focus through the lens of the relationships it is embedded in. And likewise the relationship only comes into focus through the lens and co-creation of the individuals – back to two sides of the same coin!

I think Africa captures that exactly in a proverb saying: 

‘I am, because we are.’ This is a fundamental philosophy of African Ubuntu.

The fiction of the "self" - Relevant or not?

I was reading an article on the relational paradigm and how it is developing conceptually all over the world when I came across this thought that we should acknowledge the fiction of the ‘self’ – that this concept of the individual is no longer relevant to therapy. I found myself agreeing and yet uncomfortable with the statement and it’s taken a few days to put my finger on what it is that makes me uncomfortable, and it is this:

The wording to me implies the abandonment of one concept, ie: the individual in the favour of the concept of the relational paradigm. I see it more as a spectrum oscillating between the individual and the relational – two sides of the same coin as it were. To abandon one of those indivisible sides in the favour of the other puts us surely right back at square one which is a concept, rather than concepts in relationship to each other…just as we can be seen as individual humans rather than humans experienced in relation to each other!

Rekindle the Light

This quote by Albert Schweitzer comes to us via Hedy Schleifer:

"At times our own light goes out and it is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has great reason to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."

This quote resonated with me because there have been so many instances of  ‘re-kindler of the light’ in me! As I reflect on this quote I can see that this not only beautifully demonstrates that we are all, as relational human beings, connected energetically – we can either quench or relight each other! We can turn away from each other or turn towards each other. We cannot not be connected and influencing those around us and I believe that in our essence people want to lighten others' experiences and paths. 

My personal challenge is to increasingly stay aware of this as I move through my own life inviting myself to both stay a giver and receiver of light…

Wired for Connection

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Sir Isaac Newton

So I was watching the hour long video that Hedy Schleifer has released on her website, www.hedyyumi.com, and she was talking about a natural law that we all know about to do with magnets, called the law of attraction. She talks about how when a couple are in their survival dance with their neurochemistry set on ‘anxious’ setting they end up repelling each other - even when the intention is to get through the conflict and stay connected.
And she talks about how, by using the brain's wired-in need to connect relationally, we can invite two people to turn from repelling each other to being drawn and attracted to each other again. In a sense we as couples therapists - and I think, as individuals therapists, are in the trade of helping people to build bridges back to connection. Connection with themselves firstly and then increasingly, connection with others in their lives.

We as humans just don’t do well when we are feeling the perception of disconnection. We are wired for connection and get distressed when we feel out of it.

Trust, Participate and Be Grateful

Recently I participated in one of those lovely peer group gatherings that nourish and strengthen me. A simple gathering of 4 humble, wise women of ages ranging from 40-70 that comes together to create a slow, sacred space where we flow organically around whatever comes into the space. We are all increasingly trusting that whatever questions, clinical cases or reflections are presented, that a common thread evolves which draws us together wondrously resonating with four very different lives and women.

The thread yesterday emerged simply and powerfully from a book one of us had been reading, a book of Buddhist type reflections that invited the reader to follow three energies with awareness:
To Trust that life is happening just as it must; to Participate and turn towards what life is inviting you to; and to be Grateful for all that supports and enriches our lives moment by moment.

This came as a gift to us all in the complexity of all that living our lives with vision calls us to – a map that lights the way ahead….

Our Social Brain and the Web

So back to my ipad. 

We can’t stuff the genie back in the box that is the web. We can however stay curious and vigilant with our growing understanding of how our social brains function to grow practises that will allow us to have the multiple benefits of the web, and at the same time help us grow in a new mindfulness or meditational practise of slowing down and bringing our full presence to the moment.
Any ideas out there about all this?!?