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I bumped into Harry Hill on the way to a comedy evening. He was a surprise guest. He had his trade mark big white collar, thick glasses and goofy expression. When he came on stage he looked like he might trip up over the microphone cable that dangled between his legs as he pranced about the stage. I had to stop myself shouting out “be careful”. His put down to a mild mannered heckler was “your the sort of guy who buys a pack of strepsils and sandwich for lunch at boots.” It sounds innocuous but there was something caustic about its timing and delivery. The heckler-contributor was duly silenced. He seemed to put his feet up on the seat in front of him in a strop. Harry Hill also insulted an elderly couple who were audacious enough to be sitting in the front row. He made jokes about their contribution in the war, care homes and shock that they were still alive. They laughed the first time and then seemed genuinely upset. Did they not get his rudeness was part of the joke. Or was he not joking.

Therapists and comedians share much in common. We have to use words and timings to have an effect on our audience. How we deliver our lines is key. How our words are heard is unpredictable. Free association and the meandering path of psychotherapy is much like improv stand up. The unconscious and a good joke share much in common. We are both seeking to find the “mot juste”, the perfect one-liner, to help the patient.

At the end of his piece Harry Hill danced a goofy dance. He alluded to his five years training as a medic. But in truth his comedy is a form of medicine for the side of us that the doctors in white coats dont have much time for. The irrational, chaotic, messy, speaking and laughing human.

The Matchmaker in this piece of feel good orientalism started as a hobbyist. Married to an industrialist she didn’t need to make a living. Now she charges $1000-8000 per family for any matches she makes. On screen she attempts to temper the narcissism of the heterosexual couples she works with. She meets privileged young people often with a very rigid view of what they want. She attempts to dilute there psychological fundamentalism by introducing a third point of view. In many ways she works very psychologically. She listens carefully,she notes points of resistance, she tries to only introduce a prospective client to one or maybe two matches at a time. This process of holding a couple in mind is something that an app or computer programme can’t do. Families and individuals have faith in her, but she keeps things fairly down to earth. She acts as a container. Even though she listens to the fantasies about the “magical other” who will make life worth living…tall….poetry lover…kind…she brings it back to earth. No real person can meet these fantasy projections and she helps these couples work with a real relationship. Although, it appears this is harder done than said. So far there have been no marriages resulting from this Matchmaker series.

The sweetness of the show is of course underwritten by the deadly violence of the Indian class, caste and interfaith politics. The match maker essentially helps to reproduce and recreate this highly stratified system. In India infractions will lead to ostracism and lynchings. Interfaith marriages are all but outlawed in modern India. State and civic brutality is commonplace.

Still I was struck when Sima Taparia gave her blessing to a match outside her purview. A young Hindu woman didn’t like the matches Sima Taparia found her, but went on to find a Pakistani Muslim kick boxer. They appeared besotted with each other. Sima appeared to give her blessings. In India the man would likely be accused of “love jihad” and face police and morality police brutality. Sima also worked with a divorcee. Perhaps these more 1970s themes will boost ratings

California has recently passed legislation against caste discrimination. Let’s see if the next series brings this into the public eye. Indian courts are hearing petitions for gay marriage. Perhaps this ultra conservative show focussing on ultra orthodox upper caste, upper class, heterosexual Hindus will need to change if it wants us to really fall in love with it.

This great new show on Netflix is a must watch. Psychologically it demonstrates some concepts that I find especially helpful when working with couples. Although the key characters in this drama are not in a romantic relationship they share plenty with couples who are.
They first meet in a car park in a “road rage” incident. They spend most of the rest of the episodes attempting to damage one another. She is upper class, works in a creative field. He is a broke manual labourer. He urinates all over her pristine designer bathroom. She daubs his car with graffiti.

In close relationships these types of skirmishes are common place. Aggression erupts. Attacks are made. Even if no bathrooms or cars are damaged egos are scratched and battered.

We may choose to project aspects of our personalities on to our partner. They may become the screen for various aspects of our less conscious selves. We may then denigrate or even attack this aspect which we find unbearable in ourselves. It’s always easier to attack it in another. An intimate other. Some psychotherapists refer to this as the “intimate enemy.”

Or perhaps we project into them and keep them close at hand like a processing plant. Perhaps they will be able to take the mass of ugly material we put into them and make something beautiful out if it. When we see what they do with our loaned psychic baggage we may wish to reintegrate it.

In Beef aspects of ideas about money, sex, race, ambition, childhood are constantly being passed between the two characters. Somehow they can’t get away from other. They are held together in a strange fascination. They become more and more depraved and the psychic material passed between them becomes more and more primitive. But there are epiphanies too. Bruised, battered and caked in blood they find themselves driving off a cliff edge.

They mistake some berries for food and end up vomitting and hallucinating. In this altered reality they become closer and the “beef” between them seems to evaporate.

If you choose to watch this drama have a think about who is an intimate enemy in your life. What psychological function do they serve? We all have a “Beef”, usually several. But such beefs maybe an important part of our development as we constantly project our dissatisfactions outward and then reintroject them in a never ending cycle.

I was lucky enough to run upto the London Marathon this week. The smattering of rain kept the crowds just manageable and it was possible to weave around the spectators.

You can see the elite women in the photo as they cruise through Greenwich. We all need a bit of help on an event like this. Apparently, around half the field, or 20,000 runners, shelled out £220 for a pair of the latest bouncy shoes.

Still, whatever fancy kit you splurge on, time doesn’t stand still. Freud famously said that the unconscious has no sense of time. Whilst our biological bodies age our minds might think we are still young.

Age batters our athletic pomp. This was billed as Mo Farah’s last marathon. I remember him smashing it on the track at the London Olympics. However, this time, a younger man whizzed by him on the final 400 metres. He had no response. In his mind he might still feel 20, but his 40 year old body lacked the kick of his youth.

Maybe, in our youth obsessed culture the new trainers from Nike and Adidas are a godsend. Cheaper than a trip to a dental clinic in Istanbul, they allow us to cheat the gods of decay and decline another year.

Yes, sure, perhaps you’ve considered trialling a one meal a day Californian youth boost. But this is surely a better return on the risk reward ratio. Zero more effort, no deprivation, five colours to choose from, and a guaranteed chunk off your personal best. Life is tragic, no wonder we are in thrall to shoes that will keep us dancing, even if its just a few steps more

I read that Naomi has gone AWOL…which reminded me of this piece i wrote a while back…

I recently persuaded an old friend to allow me into his tennis club for a knock about to celebrate the end of lockdown and the start of summer. I had heard him rave about Timothy Gallwey’s book, The Inner Game of Tennis. Mr Gallwey explores how tennis is as much a psychological game as a physical game. Gallwey writes:

“The inner game: this is the game that takes place in the mind of the player, and it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt and self-condemnation. In short, it is played to overcome all habits of mind which inhibit excellence in performance.”

Well my celebrations didn’t last long. My normally mild-mannered friend seemed to take an unseemly pleasure in out-playing me. Perhaps it was the hard surface, or the net that was dividing us, or the sports kit we were wearing that allowed us to play out different aspects of our personalities? The psychotherapist Winnicott talked about the importance of adult play, and finding true freedom in such creative acts. Tennis players talk about striking the ball in the sweet spot.

In my desperation to make the game more even, I thought I’d try some mind games. “Out”, I’d shout, aware that there was no umpire, no camera to adjudicate, buying myself a small, if guilty, reprieve. It all came to nothing, and I was duly defeated. Later, he graciously commented that my forehand had some potential. But as a psychotherapist, I was equally attuned to what he had omitted. He didn’t even mention my service, backhand, or net play! Clearly, I reasoned, they were so bad, it wasn’t even possible to talk about them. Nevertheless, my imagination sparked up, as I secretly plotted a comeback match in my head.

This week Naomi Osaka, the 23-year-old Japanese-Haitian tennis player, revealed some of her own “inner game”, away from the court. She withdrew from the French Open, citing the fact that she had experienced long bouts of depression since her first Grand Slam victory in 2018. In recent years, more and more top sports people have shared their inner difficulties. The psychotherapist Winnicott would have a tough time in thinking about the lives of modern sport stars as being about play. Indeed, it seems far away from play, as they are assessed according to their performance and success.

Even so, us ordinary folk might find it hard to imagine how a sports star could be depressed. Osaka is the second most highly rated female player in the world. In 2020 she earned $34 million dollars from endorsements alone. Surely, we would imagine that she is very happy indeed. She seems, at least from the outside, to have achieved most of her goals. But Freud wrote of patients who were “wrecked by success.” Paradoxically, success can engender a set of complex and unbearable feelings. We may wish to go back to our previous less successful state of being. After all, being successful can provoke feelings – real or imagined – of envy and hostility, amongst our friends, families, and rivals.

As we hear her story, who do we side with? Do we back the austere sounding authorities, packed with old white men, who fined her, and threatened to expel her for not following the rules? Or do we back those who support her stance, the fans, the players, the mental health advocates, and feel that the authorities have acted too harshly? Which is correct, the paternal side (fines, rules, punishments), or the maternal side (support, care, rest)? Is she being punished for her outspoken views on gender and racial equality? Do, as she hints, the tennis and corporate organisations need to change, to accommodate her needs?

With a psychotherapy perspective, we might also wonder if Naomi unconsciously wanted to be fined or punished by the authorities because she felt guilty. In therapy, we might look at the unjust institutions, the unfair rules, and so on. But we will also be aware that we may be projecting parts of our inner conflicts onto these institutions, which require closer self-examination. Perhaps the punishment, however temporarily, would provide some relief? Perhaps being expelled by the tennis authorities would allow Naomi to outsource a decision that would be too difficult for her to make for herself. For instance, she might not want to let down her team, family and friends.

But what is she guilty of, apart from being an exceptional player, and a quirky media presence? We might wonder if she feels guilty about being so wealthy, or beating her sister (who was also a professional tennis player and retired aged 24), or achieving more success than her parents (who by all accounts underwent various hardships). We might wonder if she is rebelling against her tennis upbringing, which according to her father, followed the “blueprint” of the famous William’s sisters? However, unable to rebel against her father, perhaps she is now taking on a rebellious stance against the tennis authorities?

Naomi has said that she is introverted. We might imagine that she doesn’t like being looked at all day. We know Freud didn’t like being looked at all day, and that’s one of the reasons he asked patients to lie on the couch, looking away from him! In any case, the global exposure, and press scrutiny, is clearly very difficult for her. For a shy 23-year-old, the constant imperative to perform, talk, entertain, may be exhausting. However, like all of us, Naomi is a mix of contradictory things. She doesn’t want the media attention, but in recent months she has also sought media attention, battling against racial injustice, through wearing clothing on court, highlighting the names of Black people who have died in police custody. Is the outspoken political activist, or the reclusive introvert? Which is her true self, and what is her false self? In her case, given the huge demands of a professional tennis career, which is all consuming, she may not have the privilege of working these things out in private. However, it does seem that she has managed to create some space away from the unrelenting demands of the tennis circuit to focus on what really matters to her. For this, she seems to have drawn support across the board.

The “blueprint”, which has given her so much outward success, is no longer working for her. Tennis is a very physically demanding and solitary sport. There are only 20 seconds between points. 90 seconds between games. Serves fly at 200 kmph. A single mistake can alter the course of a game or match. The sport is relentless and gruelling. But perhaps the outer physical game is the least of talented Naomi’s challenges. Aged 23, a creative personality, who doesn’t fit into the box of professional tennis, is exploring the bigger challenge, her inner game. And I will return to Mr Gallwey for the final shot:

“The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard.” ― W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

Free Speech?

Elon Musk has recently purchased Twitter, his views on free speech being a seemingly key motivator in his decision
Psychoanalytic psychotherapist Ajay Khandelwal explores the difference between uncensored speech and free speech

The only space rocket I’ve designed was made from a Fairy Liquid bottle with a valve attached. The only car I’ve designed was in pencil and paper in an art class at school. Frankly, I don’t see the answer to the world’s problems being a community on Mars. I don’t see the answer to consumerism and pollution in being the purchase of a new Tesla car. So, what would a mere psychotherapist know about Elon Musk and his recent purchase of Twitter for 44 billion dollars?

Twitter is a reflection of our times. Short, sharp, on point. We live in an era when long form essays and psychoanalysis are considered outmoded. Who has the time to read 10 pages? Who can afford to see an analyst several times a week?

Depth and reflection are out of fashion in our healthcare systems and our culture. We seek concrete measures, metrics, fast results. Our patients seek a mantra, or a tablet that can provide salvation. We seek something we can digest and metabolise quickly. We love stories of transformation, surface, speed and efficiencies.

Perhaps we like Twitter because we need to do something with our hands? We used to smoke, drink tea, knit, and have sex. Our hands were busy; now we have phones which act as additions to our body, which require our hands to swipe and scroll. (For more on this, see Darian Leader’s book Hands)

The psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas has argued that the world has become horizontal, where everything is equivalent. Vertical thinking, where there is a hierarchy of thinking, has become harder and harder. Twitter celebrates the horizontal, where each person’s view is the same. That is what its fans celebrate, but there is a loss. Trump did lose the election, and the experts are right.

Where politicians fail, Elon Musk sees an opportunity to improve the lot of humanity. From a psychoanalytic perspective we might say Elon Musk has raging amounts of narcissism and mania. He likes to be talked about and thought about, and that is exactly what I am doing here in writing about him.

Who hasn’t spent at least some of their waking hours thinking about Elon Musk? His takeover of Twitter has resulted in him featuring in news bulletins around the world. In fact, perhaps he gets more attention this way than he does by launching a rocket into space. We all read accounts of his manic activity, not satisfied with running one huge company. He runs many others. He appears too busy to take part in ordinary life. When Tesla was having difficulties in hitting its production schedules, there were stories about him basically staying in the factory 24/7.

So should we feel pity for him or should we be envious? What should we make of his incredible work ethic? Perhaps we need individuals with a fair degree of narcissism and mania to undertake such huge gambles in our civilisation and culture?

Indeed, it could be argued that Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, had good amounts of narcissism and mania. Otherwise, how would he be able to have written so many books? How would he be able to spread his revolutionary new ideas? How would he have been able to bring up six children? And how would he have been able to have dealt with his unpopularity? Mr. Musk has crashed a fair few rockets and many cars.

It seems to me his latest venture is perhaps the most complicated. Psychotherapists have spent a lot of time thinking about free speech. People consult therapists so that they can say what they really think. Outside they may have to put on a front to their family, employer or society; but in the consulting room, they can speak freely.

Freud started off with hypnosis to get his patients talking. Maybe he even put his hand on their forehead. Then he asked them to lie on a comfortable couch while he sat behind them. He created a private and confidential space which made it easier for them to speak freely. His consulting room was full of rugs and ornaments. Patients had a positive transference to him and this made them less inhibited. His dog would sit by his feet and add another dimension to the work. Since then things have changed, but perhaps not a great deal.

Each therapist begins their sessions differently. I wonder if the silent therapist is in the minority. Perhaps, in London at least, the session maybe with some chat, echoing the vibrant activity of the city outside, before the patient really speaks. Some therapists begin with “say whatever is coming into your mind without censoring it”; others may begin with the more ordinary, “so how are you?”

Each analyst has their own character, their own ritual, and it quite possibly changes with each patient. Some people find a receptive and unhurried silence the perfect environment to speak freely; others may find it intimidating and feel they require permission to begin speaking. The point is that most therapists wish to create a dream-like atmosphere, free of inhibition and judgement. Our minds are good at editing, erasing, and distorting our experiences. We may be out of touch with ourselves; we hide things from ourselves and our therapists; we may swerve the truth. Some therapists may point this out; others may proceed cautiously with the concern that any perceived criticism may halt the patients free associations and ability to speak.

It may take days or several years for an individual to speak freely. Perhaps longer term therapy becomes one of the few places left where this is possible. Interestingly, it takes two minds to think our thoughts. The therapist listening allows the patient to think original thoughts.

What happens on Twitter? It allows a type of non-thinking. It allows a type of disassociation, group-think, hatred and violence. In therapy, the therapist’s consulting room and mind can act to contain hatred and negative feelings. These can be spoken about and thought about. On Twitter there maybe moderators that seek to censor some of the most vitriolic outpourings. Yet it also seeks to amplify and generate controversy. It seems to generate splits rather than dialogue and depth.

Musk has said he might introduce different levels of Twitter, just like we have film ratings. So users can chose to have adult or safe settings. He has introduced paid verification for users. But he will never really introduce free speech. Twitter is banned in China and he builds his cars there. He needs money and advertisers are controlling what he says.

Leaving these problems aside, the animus filled nature of much communication on Twitter means that while there may be uncensored speech, that is not the same as free speech.

I was sitting in Leicester Square IMAX, on my second bag of popcorn, having drained my free rose, when the mic was passed to me.

I said, “This is a question for all the cast. It’s a dream-like mystical film. At its heart is a prophetic dream. Did you have any dreams whilst making the film, and if so could you share them?”

There was laughter in the audience, perhaps a bit of unease. The congenial director, Denis Villeneuve, suddenly became coy. Timothée Chalamet became uncharacteristically reserved. His screen mother (Lady Jessica)– played by the actress Rebecca Ferguson – bellowed – “I’m not telling you my dreams!” Zendaya smiled, but didn’t help me out.

When the mystical psychoanalyst James Grotstein was a was a medical student he “witnessed” a dream in which an angel asks, “Where is James Grostein?” Another angel replies, “He is aloft, contemplating the dosage of sorrow upon earth.” This dream was indeed prophetic because he went on to be an analyst, and spent his career contemplating the suffering of his patients.

For Grostein, he did not have the dream, rather the dream “had” him. His lifelong experience of reading and thinking about dreams made him curious about where dreams come from. Who directs them, who experiences them, where does the cast come from, who is the audience?

He often referenced the ancient Assyrians who believed that dreams were the language of the gods, that the gods spoke to each other through human dreams, and that humans were forbidden from attending to them or remembering them. Dreams were a form of celestial eavesdropping. He found such musings much more fitting to describe the dream world than the simplistic brain scans of neuroscientists.

For Grostein it would be hubristic to try and reduce dreams into an ordinary language of science, or even psychotherapy. For him, dreams are revelations of an ultimate or ineffable reality that choses when and how to show its self to humans (Hewitt, Legacies of the Occult, p. 79-81).

There is a quality in the film Dune, where Paul Atreides dream does not belong to him. It is bigger than that.

In Dune, the central dream, experienced by Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet) prefigures everything of significance, the war, the loss of his friend, and his future love affair and destiny. Time and space are collapsed into series of haunting images.

Similarly, Carl Jung had a series of prophetic visions and dreams in 1913, just before World War 1, which he writes about in his memoir, Memories, Dreams and Reflections.

“… I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realised that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilisation, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood. This vision lasted about an hour…. Two weeks passed; then the vision recurred, under the same conditions, even more vividly than before, and the blood was more emphasised. An inner voice spoke. “Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it”

Similarly, Paul Atreides, the hero/anti-hero of Dune “witnesses” his dream. It tells the story of his life and the downfall of a whole civilisation.

He is a unique man, the product a eugenics programme, he is able to both fight, and intuit, inhabit both his masculine and feminine aspects, and is able to identify with the ruling class and the exploited Fremen people.

He is born into privilege, but he gives it up to fight with the Fremen (the exploited inhabitants of planet Arakis).

In Dune there are no computers. Civilisation is carried forward by humans and their minds. Paul Atreides has the ability to suffer pain in greater doses than any human before him. Therefore he has the ability to dream a big dreamer than anyone before him.

He is welcomed by the oppressed Fremen people as a Messiah. In 1982 I was an extra in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I was an Indian slave, liberated by Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). As I watched the Dune, I wondered if Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) was another modern re-incarnation of Indiana Jones? I don’t think so. I’m not sure if the late Mr Grotstein ever went to the movies – he was a serious-minded man – but I think he would have said that there is some ineffable about the film, and it reveals some hitherto hidden aspects of ultimate reality.

Marriage….dead or alive????!!!!

Marriage

Post-lockdown I was asked by a couple in their 30s to perform the role of celebrant at their destination wedding. Does love offset carbon I wondered? I accepted and yet I felt strangely perturbed. The bride told me I should make jokes to make sure she didn’t cry. However she found my jokes to rude or off colour and so I was in the predicament where I had to make jokes which were not funny. But joking aside did I have anything to say about the nature of marriage as a psychological arrangement?
How could I hint at the profound decision they were making, this gamble, this entry into an unknown period of life? In previous eras we needed to be married for the purposes of sex or property or religion. Nowadays none of that applies. Furthermore we used to die at the tender age of 40 or 50. Nowadays we live until we are 100. Surely it must be crazy to get married? As soon as you find out who you’ve really married the projections were off no doubt they will change again. You really don’t know what you’re getting in to. And there is no end in sight. Isn’t this really a form of extended psychological torture?
Given I was in Spain I looked up some appropriate sayings about marriage. I found, “getting married is like buying melons you have to be lucky.” I guess this alludes to the fact that a melon can look attractive smell fragrant and pass every other test and yet the moment of truth only comes when we get home slice it open and taste it. Is it sweet and fragrant or rotten on the inside? We cannot tell simply by appearance. Fruit shopping just like marriage is a gamble.
I decided not to use this Spanish phrase but it reminded me of a Hindi saying which had stayed with me from decades ago. It goes “marriage is like a sweet made of pebbles, if you eat it you will regret it and if you don’t eat it you will pine after it.”
In modern day culture where magazines are full of advice about how to have more sex communicate better maximise your potential live your best life marriage is an anomaly. Sure it looks sweet from the outside but as soon as you put your teeth into it not so much gives you a sugar-kick but jaw-ache. It’s not something that can be easily digested we might say.
Another strange thing about marriage is that who we might call disasters of marriage are sometimes more bonded together than masters of marriage. Couples who appear to be in some ill-fated doom spiral often stay the course. Perhaps they have more to work out over their lifetime! Or perhaps they realise that marriage is really a process of mutual confrontation until death. And the more you can bring to the party in terms of that confrontation the more interesting painful an yet ultimately satisfying it may be.
Of course I knew my brief and my speech dwelled heavily on love and the joys of marital union. I really didn’t want to expose them to the more tragic aspects of marriage! And yet as I spoke I was able to mention mount Teide which stood behind me. I knew this volcano was active and also overdue an explosion. When it does explode there is no escape; the north of Tenerife would simply collapse into the sea the bracing waters of the Atlantic will give little respite. It made me think also in marriage there are aspects of ourselves which cannot be escaped and have to be faced. There is no running away. At some point a psychological tsunami will come whether it is called or not.
I might say that marriage is an intricate dance which involves all thoughts of forms of mutual projection and fantasy; it may also involve the dissolving of some of those projections as we come to be known by another more deeply and in doing so we come to know ourselves.
I didn’t say all that. No doubt I recycled something more well-trodden to imbue them with hope. I noted how the marriage takes form in front of our very eyes through a foilorm of mutual witnessing. The assembled guests heard them express their love for one another. The volcano remained peaceful and the sea was calm. The only hint of turbulence were the noisy oil powered lawn mowers from the adjacent golf course.
In thinking about the psychological arrangement of marriage my favourite book is a rather out of print and out-dated obscure book, Marriage Dead or Alive, by Adolf Guggenbuhl Craig. You can get hold of a second hand copy for £15; or borrow an online copy for free. I am thinking of giving a copy to the newlyweds but perhaps I’ll wait until the honey moon is over and make sure it is heavily redacted!
I cut and pasted some quotes from the internet (goodreads) below to give you a flavour.

“The marriage of Zeus and Hera can hardly be reframed into a “happy one” and yet Hera is the Goddess of marriage. Hera and Zeus could be described as quarrelsome predecessors of the Holy Family. For the Greeks they symbolized marriage par excellence.”
“Marriage is not comfortable and harmonious. Rather it is a place of individuation where a person rubs up against oneself and against the partner, bumps up against the person in love and in rejection, and in this fashion learns to know oneself, the world, good and evil, the heights and the depths.”
“For us the question is, has the marriage to do with well-being or with salvation? Is it a soteriological institution or a welfare institution?Is marriage, this opus contra natura a path to individuation or a way to well-being?”
“A marriage only works if one opens to exactly that which one would never ask for otherwise. Only through rubbing oneself sore and losing oneself is one able to learn about oneself, God, and the world. Like every soteriological pathway, that of marriage is hard and painful.”
“For those who are gifted for the soteriological pathway of marriage, it, like every such pathway, naturally offers not only trouble, work, and suffering but the deepest kind of existential satisfaction. Dante did not get to Paradiso without going through the Inferno. And so also there seldom exist “happy marriages”.”
“The noble images of physician and clergyman are forever accompanied by the shadow figures of quack and false prophet. Now the psychotherapist, the analyst, constitutes the meeting ground, in our day, of the images and the practices of physician and clergyman, of physical and psychic healer. It is thus that he carries a double shadow.”
“Through the act of getting married, one has taken on the task of mutual confrontation until death.”
“Many marriages dry up and miss the path to individuation because the couples try to ease their situations through excluding and representing their most essential characteristics, whether these be peculiar sexual wishes, neurotic traits, or whatever. The more one confronts everything, the more interesting and fruitful becomes the path to individuation.”
“Many of the pains and efforts taken to deal with the contemporary marriage are dominated by considerations of well-being, happiness, and biology. This corresponds to the position of contemporary psychology, which distinguishes itself through a deep skepticism amounting to a rejection of anything transcendent.”
“The central issue in the marriage is not well-being or happiness. It is, as this book has tried to demonstrate, salvation. Marriage involves not only a man and a woman who happily love each other and raise offspring together, but rather two people who are trying to individuate, to find their soul’s salvation.”
“We are creatures whose behavior cannot be simply explained as a striving for survival and happiness, for release of tension and contentment.”

“Marriage is one salvation pathway among many, although it contains different possibilities.”

“As soon as we confront concrete marriages with other foreign images-such as well-being, happiness, a home for children-marriage appears to be senseless, withered, moribund, and kept alive largely by a great apparatus of psychologists and marriage counselors. Marriage is dead. Long live marriage!”

The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion wrote that two personalities meeting results in an “emotional storm”. That’s why therapy sessions general last fifty minutes. There needs to be a break to protect both parties from the intensity of the encounter. The time limits allow ongoing and complex work that might otherwise be unbearable. There are of course exceptions. Lacanian analysts may “cut” the session at a key moment, or a significant word, in order to jolt you out of the same old pattern! Other analysts, like Christopher Bollas, have revealed that they sometimes work with patients for intensive periods of one or two days back to back, especially at times when they are breaking down and attempting to build new identities. However, by and large, most therapists stick to the convention of fifty minutes. Furthermore, they go on holiday at what for many people is the most difficult time of the year, Christmas. You might wonder what good a therapist is if they can’t be around when you need them most. So here are some thoughts about how you can survive Christmas without your therapist.

If two people meeting is an “emotional storm”, a whole family meeting over Christmas creates nothing short of an “emotional tornado”. You’re being buffeted by 100 mile an hour gales and there is no escape. Sorry, therapists are on holiday. Except maybe Christopher Bollas, but he lives in America and he’s full booked. Your office is shut. The shops are shuttered. The family doors are sealed and the decorations are up. You could easily get picked up in powerful and unpredictable argumentative blast and end up landing – with a bruising thud – in a unfamiliar or far too familiar psychological territory. Whatever plans you have to be civil and reasonable go out of the window. You regress back into childhood ways. Old wounds are reopened. You have to face the very thing you have spent your whole life trying to get away from. You may wonder why your family is so strange. Are other families like this? All that exposure to each other over the holidays, all that intensity, there is just no relief from “other” people. Your family look like you, and there are similarities, look at the noses, but they are also strangers, “other” than you. They are definitely not like you, you whisper under your breath.

Analyst Michael Eigen says that we all have “psychic taste buds”. As well as tasting your goose and wine, you will inevitably end up tasting each other, psychologically speaking. You may love or hate the taste, or spend hours trying to make sense of the taste, picking out the finer notes, but close proximity with each other means you can’t avoid it. The taste will get into your clothes, skin and bones. Just like odours from the food, the unconscious atmosphere will permeate your mind and body. The closed nature of Christmas family gatherings means that you will be cooking in each other’s juices, like one big stew, even if you try and try and hold onto your own identity.

Jungian theorists believe that the temperature needs to get quite high, and the container needs to be robust, if you are really going to bond as a family. Family members change you in unpredictable ways. The more you can tolerate, the more intense your encounter will be with one another. Watch out for collisions, explosions, and fire. You will be exposed to both the bitter, sweet, and in-between aspects of each other. Siblings, parents, cousins, spouses, friends, children, grandparents, you will be in the mix with them all. You will be confronted with all the things you find difficult to deal with. If you notice yourself getting hot under the collar at the behaviour of a relative, it’s quite possible your relative really is disturbing, an alcoholic murderous brute, but it could equally be you’re encountering a buried, shadowy aspect of yourself. Maybe you need to get a bit more assertive yourself, you limp so and so? In encountering your family you encounter yourself. Families, rather like therapy, can put you in touch with uncomfortable truths. So uncomfortable you may quite rightly want to skip dessert, get some cool air, and get out of the door. Or, follow the example of one of my colleagues, who enjoys his own solitude on Christmas day and in his mind just thinks about each family member one at a time. His rather unusual solution to Christmas seems to work for him.

If, however, you are going to stay in the furnace of family life then maybe Jung has a few ideas to help. In his old age he became very interested in obscure 16th century alchemical texts. These pre-scientific texts relayed how alchemists attempted and failed to turn lead into gold. Many families over Christmas are trying to do the same thing. Modern day alchemists scour the Internet and cook books for the perfect recipe to turn ordinary dull potatoes into a delicious golden creation. Similarly we are all trying to turn our ordinary, complicated familial relationships into something special, even if only for a few minutes. Turning lead into gold is an impossible task, but for Jung, festive and symbolic occasions like Christmas provide an opportunity for us to try our hand. So whack up the oven at 220C, and throw the potatoes into the goose fat, and relish the rich complex flavours that come your way. In January, therapists’ phones begin to ring, service will resume as usual, and many of you will be sharing the aftereffects of the family alchemy.