Becoming Ethical

"We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life."

...

“It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together.”

These are lines from an essay written by Marina Keegan, a 22-year-old Yale graduate on her experiences at Yale university. She died in a car accident not long after it was published.

To me the opposite of loneliness is the rather elusive feeling of belonging: the experience of connection to or solidarity with a particular group, identity or collective (Halse, 2018). There is something innate about our need to belong and the feeling of yearning, or to ‘be- in- longing for’, that takes hold of us so strongly when the need to belong is not met.

I have felt the yearning to belong at many points in my life - however I think it was somewhat at a febrile peak when applying for training to become a clinical psychologist. There was a consuming pull to get on to/ to belong to a clinical psychology training, any clinical psychology training. As an aspiring psychologist, I felt I had mined into some kind of secret social seam filled with diamonds and gems of people, people who were wise, kind and thoughtful - who seemed to know what was important, and knew what was normal. As someone who had no idea about what was normal, this felt extraordinary.

After several years of trying, thanks be to the gods and a reserve list, I got on. Similar to as Keegan describes, my experience of clinical psychology training was one full of ‘tiny circles’ that were “pulled” around me: Training cohorts, work teams, specialism faculties, social media groups, reflective circles, supervision spaces and ranting friends. These tiny groups that made me feel I could be part of something bigger - if only I could keep my act together. It wasn’t love and it wasn’t community - it was a sharing of experience and a feeling that this group we were joining was somehow defining and doing something important in the world. Whilst I doubt anyone felt an explicit sense of individual identification and belonging to training there was a sense that as a group we represented something meaningful, the group was part of something bigger, the group belonged. The lack of individual belonging whilst being part of a special group - a group that we think does deserve its success - can inflate a feeling of imposter syndrome. So that even when we have evidence of our accomplishments, individual group members remain convinced that they need to keep trying harder to follow group rules to fit in.

During training the feeling of the specialness of clinical psychology, its necessity and belonging in society, felt everywhere and I loved being around it. I didn’t quite know how to grab hold of it and make me part of it too, but I had a sense that if I could just stay close to it for long enough (and in the presence of these people) it might rub off onto me and stick. When I reflect on my experiences of training I recall repeatedly in lectures being told, if something is too difficult you can leave the room - now I suspect this might also include ‘you can turn off your camera’. We were encouraged to be mindful of ourselves, and to hold in mind the feelings of others before we speak. These statements at the time felt wise and generous, maybe because they were so familiar to me. Sometimes it was expressed that we need to be able to manage difficult conversations and practice not getting overwhelmed: clinical psychology training is not therapy and if you need this then you should seek this out privately. I’m not sure if it was ever said please try and stay, bring yourself and your bodies responses, we will all help each other get through this.

The cultural message was hidden but clear if you are in distress then that is private and what is necessary for the acceptance into this professional identity is to keep personal reactions and feelings away in order to keep your professional mask on. This I think was done with the intention of offering both compassion and privacy to the trainee and also in service of instruction on how to behave when acting as the container for others; no-one wants to encourage a therapist that prioritises their own feelings over the patient. Which is important except the pace of learning and changing contexts was so intense and relentless when was there time for processing?

There is a difference between acting or performing emotional containment and actually being a container for others. Importantly, how can anyone know the difference and discern between the two if they have never experienced it? When you don’t know the difference between performance of containment and actually being a container, then there can be a blurring of narratives: a thinking that boundaries are equivalent to rules. This can then lead to a lack of meaning making when events (such as overwhelm or distress) occur at the borders of professional versus personal identities: there can be a lack of discernment between encouraging self-respect through privacy and a passing on/colluding with shame. Instead there is a pressure for the group to be seen to know the right rule to follow and inevitably scapegoat someone when they prove we do not.

"Loneliness does not come from having no people around, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible." - Carl Jung

When thinking about belonging I returned to a favourite film I first saw as a teenager: Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Audrey Hepburn. This story is based on a novella written by Capote. As an awkward teenager I resonated with the yearning expressed by the main character Holly Golightly, in her search for a place to belong; for a sense of kinship and love and also how this search is constantly tempered by Holly's difficulty to trust and her need for independence. She navigates her situation in the world by offering herself as what Capote describes as an ‘American Geisha’ in her social group. Geisha have long embodied the height of refinement and they are undoubtedly custodians of Japanese culture and traditions.

Culture is “like the air we breathe, it is both in us and all around us” (Hofstede, 1991).

In the Breakfast at Tiffany’s story we see a culture of wealth, social status, and a striving to belong. Holly is consumed by the idea of wealth and status, as evidenced by the fact that she goes to Tiffany’s—a jewellery shop famous for its diamonds—when she’s feeling down, finding that the shop gives her a feeling of calm. I wanted to be Holly, she made the feeling of loneliness look so glamorous and desirable. The film elicited in me the same pattern of striving to belong through special status and wealth - that somehow if only I could be more like Audrey Hepburn. Whilst I had little interest in real diamonds, I certainly felt that if I could just get close to people who shared my values and truly knew what’s important in life (like helping others) that I might be able to find a place to belong and I too could be transformed into something sparkly and valuable.

When I think about the story some more, what is tragic about Holly’s preoccupation with Tiffany’s is that she feels as if her actual life is not good enough when she compares it to what Tiffany's shop represents. As such she doesn’t bother to properly furnish her home or name her cat - she doesn’t feel as if her current life contains the happiness she’s looking for, so she doesn’t want to claim it as her reality. She says she would finally do this if she could find “a real-life place” that made her feel like she feels when she’s at Tiffany’s. This suggests that Holly’s attraction to Tiffany’s is directly linked to her unhappiness, though she never quite admits that she’s dissatisfied with her life. All the same, it’s obvious that her trips to Tiffany’s are attempts to feel something that she thinks is sorely missing from her actual existence.

Interestingly, the type of wealth that Tiffanys symbolizes and Holly idolises is in sync with the life Holly already leads, since she has successfully become a popular and respected “girl-about-New York” who is an integral part of the city’s high society. Holly significantly contributes and curates the group culture that she simultaneously does not quite feel that she belongs in. Accordingly, viewers can see that Holly yearns for something deeper than the supposed happiness that comes along with superficial wealth and status.

Indeed, what Tiffany’s represents to Holly isn’t just status and wealth, but a sense of belonging. Although she socialises with the city’s elite, she herself doesn’t come from a wealthy background. Ironically the more she denies and hides her past, acting in a way that reinforces and tragically validates her feeling of shame, the less she feels able to be a part of the group she so desperately aspires to be in. If Holly could be a customer at Tiffany’s in her own right, it seems, she might feel like she actually belongs in her life.

All we have to do now

Is take these lies and make them true somehow

All we have to see

Is that I don't belong to you

And you don't belong to me

George Michael - Freedom

Abraham Maslow famously defined a hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy is often portrayed as a pyramid, with what is described as the basic needs of food, house etc at the base and more complex needs such as spirituality near the peak. The need for love and belonging lie at the center of the pyramid as part of a social needs description. While Maslow suggested that these needs were less important than physical safety, he believed that the need for belonging helps people to experience companionship and acceptance through family, friends, and other relationships. Experiencing not belonging through isolation, loneliness and low social status can harm a person's subjective sense of well-being, as well as his or her intellectual achievement, immune function and health. Research shows that even a single instance of exclusion can undermine well-being, academic performance and self-control.

With adult eyes I can see how Maslow studied what he called the master race of people such as Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt as he felt "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Maslow studied what he described as the healthiest 1% of the population. The healthiest also happened to be the most privileged and celebrated in society. The subtext of this is that the hierarchy might be better understood as the hierarchy of motivations for the privileged, than exactly a hierarchy of need. Maslow’s hierarchy to me has always felt almost intuitively accurate, of course we need physiological needs met before we can attend to matters of belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation. Yet if I pause and wonder what the implications of this are, it starts to make a little less sense as a hierarchy. Even in my limited understanding I know people's sense of belonging and safety hugely influences whether someone feels able to take in physiological care; and many people (adults and children) will sacrifice physical safety, food and shelter - such is our drive to belong to a desired group. From a group analytic perspective our need to attach and belong to our groups is the primary task for survival, both physically and psychologically.

It is also essential to speak about how racist the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s is. The only character in the film who is not white is played by Mickey Rooney, a white man in yellow face - his story arc there to provide comic relief for the white audience. The punch line being as a white audience we all know who can never belong, who will never pass as elite. My wanting to have Breakfast at Tiffany’s held as something only good and beautiful as part of my cultural identity, makes it tempting for me to split off all the active abuse in the film. What does it then mean about me if I keep the racism in mind and still am drawn to the film? Is it as simple as throwing everything racist in the bin and never looking back? Is there a way to hold it differently - to hold all of it? What is created if I do? Or is this simply just my ego refusing to give something up? I don’t have the right answers to these questions. I don’t think any one person can - this is a social problem and as such we need social methodology - we need group conversations and multiple understandings to hold all the parts.

With adult eyes I can see how there is much for me to learn from the story of Holly’s white woman position in her social group. Her white femininity, elitist conversation and socially sanctioned beauty are the things she can trade on to help her access the social elite group. She hides the reality of her external and internal poverty, as well as the existence of her traumatic past, in order to put conditional belonging first.

When trying to discuss the antiracist book club for psychologists one of the concerns that gets raised amongst white peers is that as a white psychologist wanting to discuss racism, I am coming from a place of shame and self harm. There can be a fear that by naming and exploring something so ugly within our collective identity, I might be trying to encourage a collective experience of self-flagellation, or, self-hate amongst my white colleagues. There have been several times verbalised a fear the bookclub is a way of promoting ‘struggle sessions’ - that is to say ritualised public shaming to elicit conformity. Other questions that get asked are why would anyone with privilege give it up - what is in it for them?

Whilst I am sure these self hating/masochistic aggressions exist as motives as part of the unconscious group experience , my practice of anti racism has little to do with self attack and I have no interest in harnessing this in the space. In a community with so little experience of collective containment from a secure base, it is easy to understand why a request for self-examination of aggression, trauma and pain might be experienced as potentially abusive, disturbing and shaming. When the feeling of belonging is so elusive and our social script is built on damaging belief that belonging is achieved through denial of painful realities and of believing boundaries are rules, it makes sense that this is a concern. However, to my mind integrating something painful so that I can be less self-destructive is not quite the same as simply ‘giving something up’.

To speak directly, my hope is that in continuing to try and have conversations about racism and white supremacy we might create a better understanding of ourselves, own contexts, our own psyches and therefore the psyche of groups we belong to. My desire is to belong and I know my ability to belong is woven into the fabric of our community's ability to be conscious of its need to heal.

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." Alice Roosevelt

Longworth

This quote always makes me both laugh and feel alarmed. I am the fourth of seven siblings and

as such envy and Schadenfreude are inescapably deeply familiar territory: the inward groan

when a sibling triumphs, the relief or smirk when a sibling fails and the delight mixed with fear of

sharing my own glory. In childhood these feelings were relentless- anything and everything

could be a competition. You learn quickly there is no such thing as fair and that all is fair in love

and war. How quickly can you eat your food? Who gets the longest in the bathroom? Who is

taller? Who is thinner? Who has the best grades? Who has more friends? Who can run

fastest? Who can punch hardest? Who can cry loudest? Often it didn’t really matter who won,

rather we just wanted to make sure someone absolutely came last. A lethal tactic was to get

the majority to claim there was actually no competition going on and only later, when everyone

else had accomplished the task, to let the appointed target know they were indeed the loser.

These competitions were never about just winning - they were about who deserves to exist and

who doesn’t.

There is a particular story from childhood when in a fit of envy and rage I pinned a little sister to

the ground and gnawed her ponytail off with a pair of red Fisher price scissors. My own hair

refused to grow beyond a tufty few inches whereas she had long, thick lovely hair. I couldn’t

bear that she could grow hers and I could not. She was younger than me, it just wasn’t right.

Every time she plaited it or put it up into a ponytail it was like she was flaunting her superiority

and success in my face whilst exposing my inferiority. She needed to learn a lesson and so

when the moment came I seized my opportunity. Sadly, cutting my sister’s hair, as triumphant

as I felt, was never going to help mine grow. The momentary excitement and relief in realising

my aggression and the initial thrill of seeing the grief on her face, was quickly replaced with the

shame of having behaved such and thus further evidence of my inferiority. The problem was

not solved. Though the solution to just double down and try to cut even more of her hair off

lingered with me for quite some time.

Now we are all adults, most of the time, these feelings are contained and held in what might be

described as ‘rough play’ amongst my siblings with only the occasional bloodthirsty battle: we

each of us know and can name envy and in its collective naming we are all given relief. It

seems to me that when we were finally able to recognise and speak of the envy and the many

different feelings we can have in the face of each other’s existence, we grew bigger in size (we

matured) and the envy became just one part of the whole. Our bond is found in valuing all the

parts of our relationships that exist together, rather than emphasizing what should have been -

based on fantasies of fairness or entitlement. In this way the envy softened and transformed,

albeit sometimes painfully, into a humorous, aggressive and creative part of the intimacy of our

loving.

Envy is sometimes described as a social myopia. - when someone else’s success activates a

sense of injustice, one cannot see the bigger picture of that person as real - someone who is

many different things: complex and wounded, When envious we see only their triumph and our

lack, and we can become sensitised and ruminative, obsessing over interactions with these

self-appointed rivals; comparing ourselves to them and over analyzing the situation. Allowed to

fester we become judge, juror and executioner.

When we are envied we are being pushed to focus and isolate our attention onto a particular

aspect of our own identity or behaviour, seeing it through the aggressive gaze of someone else.

It typically provokes a forceful negative reaction. Many of us, when envied, want to retaliate.

When feeling this hate, we wish to hurt the other as we have been hurt. Alternatively when

envied we might want to collapse into despair at the injustice, or filled with self doubt, we run

and hide; avoiding the envier at all costs.

I have been in training as a group analytic analyst for over three and a half years, moving from

foundation course, to diploma and beginning the qualifying course - now needing to press pause

on parts of the training to deal with juggling life and COVID living. The group analytic training

space is a joy and a torment as it is full of deep and real connection. One of the many things

that has made an impression on me, is how the group has and does navigate envy. The

inevitable relentless comparison with others, the relief to not be the only one to not be sailing

through life, the fear of hurting people and being envied if we do succeed. From these group

discussions it has become clearer to me that the experiences of the envied and the envier are

greatly alike. Both parties can feel violated, invalidated and turned into someone else’s play

thing. Both can feel helpless to fix the problem and a sense of dependence on the other to

repair it. Both feel put into a position where their identities can be obliterated. They seem so

much the same and yet they are very different realities.

Given the powerful feelings involved and our potential for highly destructive behaviour, it is no

surprise that if not contained sufficiently we typically answer encounters with envy with

avoidance. We suppress or deny feelings and behaviours, keep away from those who both

inspire envy in us and who we feel envied by. However, as the Ethiopian proverb states: “he

who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured” and envy bottled up, hidden or denied,

shapeshifts into individual and collective scapegoating and encourages self-sabotage. As such

containing and navigating envy is an essential task in becoming ethical (that is to say becoming

conscious) and it is certainly essential to emotionally and psychically surviving any psychology

related training - where typically the dynamics of sibling rivalry are fiercely activated.

So how do we talk about envy in our psychology community? The bottom line is I don’t think we

do very often, or very well. The culture and the values of clinical psychology might well be

summed up with the phrase “If you don't have anything nice to say then don’t say anything” or

alternatively “If you have something aggressive to say, find a way to make yourself sound gentle

or thoughtful when you are saying it so you don’t get caught out.” This cultural value is taken

deeply to heart and people will bend over backwards to avoid being seen to be aggressive or in

any way consciously hurting someone else’s feelings through speaking directly.

So where do these aggressive feelings go if they cannot be verbalised honestly and are indeed

actively encouraged to be storied up into what is often described as caring communication or

more destructive still “psychological mindedness”? There is a concept in psychoanalytic

thinking of Reaction formation. Typically when we use this defense mechanism sometimes we

might be able to recognise the aggression we feel, but then choose to behave in the opposite

manner of our feelings. Sometimes in this dynamic I might not even be aware of the feeling of

aggression but I will be aware of a need to somehow act in a way that is compensating for

something. Essentially it is about trying too hard to cover up a feeling: bringing biscuits to the

meeting I don’t want to go to; buying a gift for the supervisor that couldn’t remember my name;

or inviting a colleague I have been gossiping about out to coffee. It is seen in someone who is

gay who has a number of conspicuous heterosexual affairs and openly criticizes people who are

out as gay. Collectively this might look like publically encouraging people from marginalised

groups and communities to join the clinical psychology profession, whilst doing nothing to

address the psychology culture of supremacy narratives, so people might have improved

access to join, but they may not be able to stay safely.

In effect we are enforcing a false congeniality and a dehumanising rhetoric of “We all just need

to be nice to each other!” This way of being leads us into a labyrinth of difficulties as our

aggressive feelings become buried and denied both to ourselves and our collective gaze. What

we are engaged in is ultimately an overly socialised way of communicating. (That is to say it is a

middle class, straight, whitelady social script of privilege.) A social script so easily endorsed by

the one who is attacking and not quite so easily for the one being pinned to the ground whilst

their hair is being sawn off with craft scissors.

I think most of us can connect with the gut wrenching feeling of a friend or colleague gaining a

training place interview when we don’t get one, or the dread in telling a group of peers that you

have one yourself. The disbelief that such and such got ‘that’ placement on training or the rush

to reassure someone that they will get their 8a soon. How quickly do we split ourselves-on one

hand being the person who smiles and says nice things and then also the person who thinks in

terms of who deserves to get their next step on the career ladder and who does not. How much

do we say Black Lives Matter then worry about limited funding being used up by “these sorts of

things’?

So what do we do about it? For me a helpful place to begin bringing these personal and social

scripts into consciousness is to turn to archetypal stories from myth, folklore and fairytale.

These stories, from the oral tradition of sharing knowledge, speak to permanent truths about

what it is to be human. With regard to thinking about envy, there are two stories in particular

that come to my mind. The stories are different but both speak to envy as exhibited in

individuals and collectively: the Surinamese story of How Dew tricked Anansi and European

version of Cinderella.

The first story is How Dew tricked Anansi:

It came about that Anansi became friends with Dew, and that they both helped each other develop their own crops. One day, Anansi saw his friend Dew's crop and noticed the corn Dew grew was much finer than his own. Anansi became very jealous of Dew and craved the corn that Dew had grown more than his own, so he decided he would trick Dew.Anansi approached Dew and bragged, saying that his corn was better than Dew's, and suggested that Dew cut his corn so it would be as fine as his. Anansi promised Dew that if he cut his own crop, his corn would grow back and be the same quality as Anansi's corn was. Anansi however, was lying.

Nonetheless, Dew fell for the Spider's schemes and agreed to cut his corn crop in the mistaken belief that his corn would grow again. Later that evening, neighbors in their village saw Dew's corn had been cut down and wondered why he did so, noting that the corn he had was very fine once. They asked Dew who'd convinced him to cut down his corn crop, and he replied that Anansi had convinced him to do so, in the hopes that his corn crop would be better than it was before. The neighbors sighed and told Dew that he'd been tricked, for his corn would not grow again. This upset Dew, but he promised them that he would trick Anansi just as he had tricked him. Dew, however, would trick Anansi with his

mother instead of with corn like Anansi had him.

As time passed, Dew worked especially hard and tirelessly to build up a large amount of wealth. He bought a scythe, hoe, axe, new clothes, and other equipment. Dew then told his mother his plan: he would tell Anansi that she had died and would then make a mock coffin in which to bury her. In the meanwhile, Dew wished for his mother to hide in their home upstairs while he prepared, so she did. Dew then made a coffin and announced her death to the village, inviting them to come see her burial. Once they had arrived, he snuck his mother from upstairs and had her hide underneath the

floor where the mock coffin lay, as well as the many things he'd purchased, as he knew Anansi's greed would spurn him to steal from Dew if he saw them laying around. Now that the plan was in order, it was time for the mock burial to begin.

Dew began to cry and lament that his mother had died so suddenly and left him nothing to remember her by, not even a single tool. On-cue, Dew's mother extended the scythe and other tools he'd purchased through the plank in the floor. Anansi saw what was happening and grew jealous of Dew, wishing his very own mother was dead so he could get what Dew was getting from his own mother as well. Dew continued to mourn, and lamented that he longed for a blessing from her in the form of money, so Dew's mother took the money he had also given her alongside the equipment and threw it through the floor at him also. Thus his display was successful, the burial they'd staged went well, and those who had come to mourn his mother's passing went back to their homes.

Anansi's jealousy of Dew caused him to bicker with his own mother for days, on all matter of issues. Then, one day, they were arguing and the Spider asked his mother why she herself couldn't have died just like Dew's mother did. Soon,the arguments reached a climactic point and Anansi smote his own mother with a stick in a fit of rage. Anansi's mother then died and he soon set about preparing for her burial just as Dew had before him. Then came time for the funeral, and Anansi cried just as Dew had, and told her all the things Dew had told his mother while grieving. Yet, nothing that he told his mother, no matter how much he cried, caused her to do the things that Dew's mother had done for her son. The funeral was a failure, so Anansi went ahead with his mother's burial.

About a week passed, and Dew had his mother come visit him while he worked outside in the fields. Anansi noticed Dew's mother had come and asked if the woman he saw was in fact her. Dew replied that it was his own mother, and that it was payback for Anansi deceiving Dew about his corn crops. Dew then bragged that he instead had tricked Anansi about his mother, rather than his corn, and such was true: Dew's mother was still alive, but Anansi's mother was now dead because of his own jealousy.

(wikipedia)

The second story is Aschenputtel (The tale of Cinderella):

A plague infests a village, and a wealthy gentleman's wife lies on her deathbed. She calls for her only daughter, and tells her to remain good and kind, as God would protect her. She then dies and is buried. The child visits her mother's grave every day to grieve and a year goes by. The gentleman marries another woman with two older daughters from a previous marriage. They have beautiful faces and fair skin, but their hearts are cruel and wicked. The stepsisters steal the girl's fine clothes and jewels and

force her to wear rags. They banish her into the kitchen, and give her the nickname "Aschenputtel" ("Ashfool"). She is forced to do all kinds of hard work from dawn to dusk for the sisters. The cruel sisters do nothing but mock her and make her chores harder by creating messes. However, despite all of it, the girl remains good and kind, and will always go to her mother's grave to cry and pray to God that she will see her circumstances improve.

One day the gentleman visits a fair, promising his stepdaughters gifts of luxury. The eldest asks for beautiful dresses, while the younger for pearls and diamonds. His own daughter merely begs for the first twig to knock his hat off on the way. The gentleman goes on his way, and acquires presents for his stepdaughters. While passing a forest he gets a hazel twig, and gives it to his daughter. She plants the twig over her mother's grave, waters it with her tears and over the years, it grows into a glowing hazel

tree. The girl prays under it three times a day, and a white bird always comes to her as she prays. She tells her wishes to thebird, and every time the bird throws down to her what she has wished for.

The king decides to proclaim a festival that will last for three days and invites all the beautiful maidens in that country to attend so that the prince can select one of them for his bride. The two sisters are also invited, but when Aschenputtel begs them to allow her to go with them into the celebration, the stepmother refuses because she has no decent dress nor shoes to wear. When the girl insists, the woman throws a dish of lentils into the ashes for her to pick up, guaranteeing her permission to attend the festival, if she can clean up the lentils in two hours. When the girl accomplished the task in less than an hour with the help of a flock of white doves that came when she sang a certain chant, the stepmother only redoubles the task and throws down even a greater quantity of lentils. When Aschenputtel is able to accomplish it in a greater speed, not wanting to spoil her daughters' chances, the stepmother hastens away with her husband and daughters to the celebration and leaves the crying stepdaughter behind.

The girl retreats to the graveyard and asks to be clothed in silver and gold. The white bird drops a gold and silver gown and silk shoes. She goes to the feast. The prince dances with her all the time, claiming her as his dance partner whenever a gentleman asks for her hand, and when sunset comes she asks to leave. The prince escorts her home, but she eludes him and jumps inside the estate's pigeon coop. The father came home ahead of time and the prince asks him to chop the pigeon coop down, but Aschenputtel has already escaped from the back, to the graveyard to the hazel tree to return her fine clothes. The father finds her asleep in the kitchen hearth, and suspects nothing. The next day, the girl appears in grander apparel. The prince again dances with her the whole day, and when dark came, the prince accompany her home. However, she climbs a pear tree in the back garden to escape him. The prince calls her father who chops down the tree, wondering if it could be Aschenputtel, but Aschenputtel was already in the kitchen when the father arrives home. The third day, she appears dressed in grand finery, with slippers of gold. Now the prince is determined to keep her, and has the entire stairway smeared with pitch. Aschenputtel, in her haste to elude the prince, loses one of her golden slippers on that pitch. The prince picks the slipper and proclaims that he will marry the maiden whose foot fits the golden slipper.

The next morning, the prince goes to Aschenputtel's house and tries the slipper on the eldest stepsister. Since she will have no more need to go on foot when she will be queen, the sister was advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper.

While riding with the stepsister, the two magic doves from heaven tell the prince that blood drips from her foot. Appalled by her treachery, he goes back again and tries the slipper on the other stepsister. She cut off part of her heel in order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves alert him again about the blood on her foot. He comes back to inquire about another girl. The gentleman tells him that his dead wife left a "dirty little Cinderella" in the house, omitting to mention that she is his own daughter, and that she is too filthy to be seen, but the prince asks him to let her try on the slipper. Aschenputtel appears after washing clean her face and hands, and when she puts on the slipper, the prince recognizes her as the stranger with whom he has danced at the festival. The stepmother and the two limping sisters were thunderstruck, and grew pale with anger. They wanted to kill Aschenputtel, but the prince put her before him on his horse and

rode off.

During Aschenputtel's royal wedding, the false stepsisters had hoped to worm their way into her favour as the future queen, but this time they don't escape their princess' rage. As she walks down the aisle with her stepsisters as her bridesmaids, Aschenputtel gets her revenge not killing them but summoning the doves to fly down and strike the two stepsisters' eyes, one in the left and the other in the right. It was their last chance of redemption, but since they don't give up, when the wedding comes to an end, and Aschenputtel and her beloved prince march out of the church, her minions fly again, promptly striking the remaining eyes of the two evil sisters horribly blind, a truly awful comeuppance they had to endure as beggars for the rest of their lives.

(wikipedia)

When I try and connect with a story I think about the tale in a number of ways; one of which is to

imagine each character representing a different part of the group or social world. Another way I

think about a story is to consider each character to be an aspect of just one person and in

doing so exposes how we relate to ourselves. It is also interesting to think about these stories

and the influence of world histories and socialisation on the storytellers; who the version of the

story was being told to and what the symbols and imagery at the time might have spoken to …

I will not offer a specific interpretation of either story, I think many could and do apply; this is a

collective problem and as such requires collective conversations with multiple narratives and

multiple seeds to be sown and tended to. However I will offer a few thoughts that might begin

some conversations.

For me, the story of Anansi and Dew shows how envy and competitiveness can go to deeply

aggressive places in human nature where we can envy people for their suffering. How we can

pretend to triumph over emotional pain as a form of competition that misleads people into

believing we may have mastered suffering, and in doing so are superior. Do we envy our

patients and perform our own wellness? Do we envy people from marginalised groups,

disregarding their suffering and seeing only the reward of empathy, soul or spirituality they might

get, without really considering their pain? This story also makes me think of the pressure

aspiring psychologists are put under to share personal parts of themselves to get onto training

courses that do not require personal therapy. Or when practitioners make recommendations

such as mindfulness when they themselves do not practice it. I begin to associate this story

with conversations of social justice when rather than staying with a particular narrative such as

addressing anti blackness, the conversation is derailed by bringing in another form of injustice,

to compare and put in competition with (rather than intersectional relationship to), thus instead

of working together it becomes a conversation of one up manship.

The Cinderella story feels somewhat different to me and shows us envy in several different

relationships: envy between the mother/or a figure of authority and a child/someone of lower

status; envy between siblings/peers; envy between the sexes; envy as a collective

phenomenon. In the earliest Greek version of Cinderella, she is enslaved. Are the ugly sisters

akin to white psychologists envying our black and brown bodied Cinderella peers. Does the

envious gaze of the ugly sisters require a pecking out by birds, a slow, painful but thorough

blinding - before we can stop looking outward to compete and instead focus on the internal

world so that introspection can occur? Might each character represent a different part of

ourselves - the part that is more socially celebrated is in fact quite ugly, the part that suffers, we

will not let go of the ball?

In reflecting on envy I think it is important to hold onto the concept that envy is not solely bad:

envy is a sister of ambition. Both strive equally for development. Envy is a normal and important

function for the development of individual and collective consciousness, and that it only

becomes destructive when its creative function is not sufficiently contained. My hope is that we

will be able to create the container in our community. That similar to my experience with my

siblings, we will collectively mature and become more conscious of our envy; that we can grow

bigger than our envy; and that it can take a place as a part of the whole in our collective

experience. In doing so facilitating a sense of belonging in our profession that so often feels

lacking a secure base. Maybe we can put down the scissors, leave the hair of marginalised

siblings alone and use our words instead to seek the containment we crave?

Weariness

I'm weary, I hear myself say

My eyes closing as I walk on my way

The day just beginning when all I wish it to do is go away

Weary of the day ahead, what's gone and what's yet to come

This weariness draining my heart through my noisy head

The chill of the breeze my weary heart wanting to cease

And then the loving sun shinning her rays upon me, come closer I beg of thee

Take me to another place

Do not disappear near that cloud I say

wash away my weariness today

By Anon Apr 2016

Weariness Oxford Dictionary:

extreme tiredness; fatigue.

reluctance to see or experience any more of something.

Lately I have been feeling weary. I imagine many of us are having these feelings; as though there is insufficient time, insufficient energy, insufficient patience, and insufficient resources. To feel tired and the feeling that all the hard work and effort put into life is taking me precisely nowhere. Meeting the insufficiency in ourselves and others breeds a deep longing, and terrible pain that, left unattended, turns into bitterness and loathing of either the self or others. Traditionally my defense against meeting my limits is to create ambitious goals for myself and then charge towards them whilst abandoning self-care; often my causes look ‘healthy’ yet require rather more resources than I have available at the time. For example: during clinical psychology training I took up competing in half marathons and when I became pregnant I developed a need to eat food that was only home grown. Both very wonderful, neither wise given my responsibilities. I like to be in both fight and flight, to avoid connecting with my overwhelm and sense of helplessness.

Within the context of the last year and noticing myself yet again taking on rather a lot, I have found myself engaging in increasingly angry social media conversations regarding social justice and antiracism. Following a particular Facebook “discussion” on freedom of speech and racism I became actively upset. I was disappointed with myself for my foolishness in opening up to such a predictably racist dialogue and disappointed at the collective lack of personal reflection that was going on. My fantasy of having influence and being in conversation with colleagues interested in introspection was being shattered. I felt shame at my lack of ability to connect, disgust at what was being exposed in my absurd attempts and the futility at the task of trying to encourage people to care about something beyond a defensive intellectual philosophising. In my turmoil I deleted my post, thus also erasing everyone else's contributions. I had wanted the whole thing away from me and if people were not going to engage the way I wanted them to then no one was going to!

After a few days' space I recovered from my tantrum and apologised for my deletion in a second post. In doing so I stumbled across some unsolicited feedback from an angry source suggesting if I found conversations too triggering I might be wise to leave the facebook group and that our profession really is about having difficult conversations.

After a degree of reactivity, rather than be defended and continue to engage in childish fights, I decided to try something different and explore if the comments might hold some wisdom for me - albeit delivered in a rather sharp package. Maybe I did need to have a think about what I am doing. As much as I believe there is truth in my observations about the facebook group, I was also projecting: my lack of reflection about where the group is really at, my refusal to feel deeply alongside them and then ultimately my engaging in drama on Facebook rather than being in the mud of my daily chaos.

Not really knowing what to do, but needing to acknowledge my limits was my beginning point. But then what? As I often do, I turned to stories and discovered a book ‘World Weary Woman – her wound and transformation’ by Cara Barker.

Happily only about 150 pages or so long, Barker’s book explores the fairytale of Frau Holle and the concept of world weariness and what Barker refers to as Type A women. Barker describes the defining feature of being a Type A woman as being the woman who charges towards productivity and problem solving when in emotional crisis rather than staying with their vulnerability:

“Barely breathing. They pause infrequently. Too busy trying hard to never miss a thing, leaving no stone unturned. Hyper vigilant in endless search – searching and searching and searching. When will it stop? All floodlights scanning for their fatal flaw. That one thing … that one perfect answer; that simple explanation which will, at last, redeem … let them rest. Take in, digest that promise of peace that eludes the clutch and grasp. Anything but casual, their quest has been relentless. Looking, ever looking, for the answer. So that then, finally weary of strong-arming themselves against the world, from a pain that comes from too deep and dark a well, they can at last, weary of the battle, sink into those Arms. Rest. Renewal. A place in which to contain what has been neglected for far too long…. They have made it a full-time job… to change, alter, cut away, suck-out, like liposuction, anything which seems imperfect, too human, too ordinary, too plain, too small.”

Hmmm. This felt alarmingly close to home. Not just for myself but for many of my friends and colleagues. Particularly in the context of the pandemic when I have looked bewilderingly at those who were taking time to explore hobbies and DIY, gushing about the gift of time to reflect. This has not been my pandemic.

The fairy tale of Frau Holle also resonated deeply in a way I had not attended to before.

This is an abbreviated Brothers Grimm version of Frau Holle:

A rich widow lived with her daughter and her stepdaughter. The widow favored her younger biological daughter, allowing her to become spoiled and idle while her older stepdaughter was left to do all the work. Every day the stepdaughter would sit outside the cottage and spin beside the well.

One day, she pricked her finger on the point of the spindle. As she leaned over the well to wash the blood away, the spindle fell from her hand and sank out of sight. The stepdaughter feared that she would be punished for losing the spindle, and in panic she leapt into the well after it.

The girl found herself in a meadow, where she came upon an oven full of bread. The bread asked to be taken out before it burned. With a baker's peel, she took all the loaves out and then walked on. Then she came to an apple tree that asked that its apples be harvested. So she did so and gathered them into a pile before continuing on her way. Finally, she came to a small house of an old woman, who offered to allow the girl to stay if she would help with the housework.

The woman identified herself as Frau Holle, and cautioned the girl to shake the featherbed pillows and coverlet well when she made the bed, as that would make it snow in the girl's world. The girl agreed to take service with Frau Holle, and took care to always shake the featherbed until the feathers flew about like snowflakes.

After a time, the girl became homesick and told Frau Holle that it was time for her to return home. Frau Holle had been impressed by the girl's kindness and hard work so much that, when she escorted the girl to the gate, a shower of gold fell upon the girl. She also gave her the spindle which had fallen into the well. With that the gate was closed, and the girl found herself back, not far from her mother's house.

Her mother wished the same good fortune for her biological daughter. She also set her to sit by the well and spin, but the girl rather than work bloodied her hand in a hedge and then deliberately threw the spindle into the well before jumping in herself. She too came to the oven, but would not assist the bread; nor would she help the apple tree. When she came to Frau Holle's house, she likewise took service there, but before long fell into her lazy, careless ways. Frau Holle soon dismissed her. As the lazy girl stood at the gate, a kettle of pitch spilled over her. "That is what you have earned," said Frau Holle, and closed the gate.

Other versions describe the first girl having a piece of gold fall from her lips every time she speaks, whilst the second has a toad fall from her lips every time she speaks.

Carl Jung theorized that all elements of a dream or a story are parts of the Self. In the path to adulthood, we seek to integrate the different parts of our identity into conscious reality. This includes bringing light and awareness to our shadow or hidden side. In the story of Frau Holle we might imagine how the two sisters could be the light and shadow sides of the same person. Likewise the two maternal figures of the critical step mother and also the compassionate but limit setting Mother Holle might also reflect the two sides of an inner voice.

In the fairytale the girl seeks to find a spindle, an object at the time essential both to access an aspect of her creativity and also for economic sustenance. It is also a symbol I associate with psychology and the task of weaving life stories and theory in formulation. The girl lives in a world that is discordant: a highly critical step-mother and a preferred step-sister who is both stupid and lazy. Her loneliness is palpable, a familiar theme in fairy tales, as is her struggle to find a loving atmosphere in times of cruel inhospitality. The intensity of her pain and suffering is poignantly represented by an image of the girl spinning until her fingers bleed. Inevitably her blood stains the shuttle and, in an attempt to wash it off, she drops it into the well.

At the end of the tale she, somewhat surprisingly, returns to her homeland and her stepmother. Was she still hoping for some form of kindness from her stepmother, a projection of the good mother? Now resourced independently, maybe she feels able to face them in a different capacity? I wonder if this speaks to how the call to connect with family and community is something that never goes away. How many times have I returned to a space I know has no capacity for care, with the hope that this time it will be different? Then finally, when I had changed, I was able to return with it being the space being the same but with a new found capacity to hold myself much more safely.

The girl’s voluntary submission opens up a new world and a new way of experiencing life. She awakens in a world filled with symbolism. In this world, the tasks confronting her are experienced as serving a more benign mother. Thus picking the ripe apples and taking the bread out of the oven are pleasurable tasks done gladly, and not with a sense of burden. Fulfilling her daily chores for Frau Holle, she is submitting in a very different way from the rigid, cruel constraints imposed by her stepmother. These seemingly trivial daily tasks are the necessary substrate that create order, the very nuts and bolts of life, that we denigrate at our peril.

After her return, she is changed and seeks to tell others in her community of her experience . The girl attempts to do so when she shares her story with her step-mother and step-sister.

The story however also presents the potential for a far darker outcome. The ugly sister emerges from Frau Holle's realm cursed till the end of her days. Her refusal and failure to fulfil Frau Holle's tasks has had long term consequences: when she returns home in some versions she is covered in tar and others she is belching out frogs. Both symbols offer intriguing associations. Tar or `pitch is obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation, it was traditionally used in boat making to waterproof wood and sails. The idea of destructive distillation makes me think of a negative gaze when the self is filled with self loathing and hatred. The symbol of the frog is also potent as it is often a symbol in fairytales of a state of pre-transformation (the frog prince is one example).

In some Scandinavian traditions, Frau Holle is known as the feminine spirit of the woods and plants, and was honored as the sacred embodiment of the earth and land itself. She is associated with many of the evergreen plants that appear during the Yule season, especially mistletoe and holly, and is sometimes seen as an aspect of Frigga, wife of Odin. She is associated with fertility and rebirth. Her feast day is December 25, and typically, she is seen as a goddess of hearth and home, although in different areas she has clearly different purposes. Like so many winter rituals celebrating her and this story is about finding the light in the darkness.

In her book Barker also explores the antidote/ path to wholeness for the World Weary Woman:

“From my first meetings with World Weary Woman, it was clear that she could work. She could analyze, psychologize. But she had not learned how to play… It is in pausing to connect with her own inner wisdom that World Weary Woman learns to create…to cultivate what brings joy, to savour her connection with cosmos. Thus she transforms her suffering through a sacred return to creative living…Little by little, World Weary Woman discovers that living vibrantly is a creative process, an intimate experience whereby she becomes fully known.”

As both a psychologist and mother I know that play is the natural way that children discharge the tensions of their daily life. When children are teased at school, they come home at the end of the day and enlist siblings, friends, or toys to play out a drama in which the child transforms into the teacher and gets to tell off the bully and send him or her to detention.

But when children are too anxious, afraid, or traumatized to play, they can't make use of this natural resource. Instead, they must use their energy to compartmentalise their experiences, keeping them out of direct awareness. Because play is both releasing and disarming, it may be too threatening for the child to give up control sufficiently to enter into it.

The events of this year have been and continue to be overwhelming: the painful worldwide witnessing of murder and violence on black bodies; the birthing into consciousness of white supremacy narratives through the Black Lives Matter movement; people beginning to grasp the urgent need to bring about collective change; the collective losses due to COVID; the endurance of isolation and loss of our physical connectedness and daily routines and community rituals. Dazed and exhausted, rest and replenishment feels so needed - but how?

This is where I think we need each other to support us - we need our professional siblings to act as people to play with and containers of our suffering and weariness.

There is an old Hasidic story of a rabbi who had a conversation with the Lord about Heaven and Hell. “I will show you Hell,” said the Lord, and led the rabbi into a room containing a group of famished, desperate people sitting around a large, circular table. In the center of the table rested an enormous pot of stew, more than enough for everyone. The smell of the stew was delicious and made the rabbi’s mouth water. Yet no one ate. Each diner at the table held a very long-handled spoon—long enough to reach the pot and scoop up a spoonful of stew, but too long to get the food into one’s mouth. The rabbi saw that their suffering was indeed terrible and bowed his head in compassion.

“Now I will show you Heaven,” said the Lord, and they entered another room, identical to the first—same large, round table, same enormous pot of stew, same long-handled spoons. Yet there was gaiety in the air; everyone appeared well nourished, plump, and exuberant.

The rabbi could not understand and looked to the Lord. “It is simple,” said the Lord, “but it requires a certain skill. You see, the people in this room have learned to feed each other!”

For me personally I have begun to create spaces for myself to play professionally - holding reflective practice spaces with a creative focus such as Stories as Medicine (a space to discuss fairytales) and also Greek Myths and Therapy. These are extraordinary spaces where I have frequently been left thrumming with inspiration and a sense of connection and growth. I invite anyone to attend them. I also would invite people to explore in their teams and groups their own ways of creating soulful connections and opportunities for play. Now more than ever we need creative, symbolic selves. We need art, music, dance and creative life. We need to explore what is meaningful in life.

From being in these spaces there feels to me now a faint hope of dawn, of light returning at the end of a long tunnel. I’m feeling a huge loss at the endings and changes to my life I am experiencing but also a peace that in engaging in my limits I might be able to make wiser choices about how best to live both personally and professionally.

In these strange times, the distress around the COVID-19 pandemic is bringing into consciousness both how connected we all are and how disorientating it can feel to be away from our everyday rituals. However, amidst the want and need to keep safe, life trundles on. Is there a space or need to keep thinking during this time? Issues that may have before felt important can take on a new perspective. Is it useful to maintain our gaze on issues of power and privilege when survival is at stake? My thoughts move around with this hourly, but given the new legislation being passed, regarding increased state power for the police to arrest people and the rationing of care in the NHS, maybe it is necessary to keep thinking about who we deem as contaminant or benign? Who do we prioritise our care giving to? Who is left on the outside; who is seen as less necessary or less fragile?

There’s is a poem I love that I return to repeatedly that helps me a great deal:

Invitation to Brave Space By Micky ScottBey Jones

Together we will create brave space

Because there is no such thing as a “safe space”

We exist in the real world

We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

In this space

We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,

We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,

We call each other to more truth and love

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.

We will not be perfect.

This space will not be perfect.

It will not always be what we wish it to be

But

It will be our brave space together,

and

We will work on it side by side

My experience of clinical psychologists is that, as a rule, we tend to be people motivated by the want to understand others, relieve psychological suffering and promote wellbeing. We want to create brave spaces for ourselves and others. To do this we are typically invested in the use of formulation and when psychologists make connections between human experience and academic understanding they can be very powerful. When we connect the dots we can use our positions to effect real change in the lives of many individuals, groups and communities. So with a spirit of curiosity, as opposed to blame, why is it that we seem to be stuck in patterns of white supremacy narratives? How might we turn our own gaze of enquiry on to ourselves?

Last week I heard about the report of a racist hate crime that occurred at the DCP conference I attended in Solihull in January, where a conference delegate was seen defacing an academic poster with racist comments. This has led to various conversations with other white psychologists, many of whom are expressing feeling sad and confused by what, to some, appears to be a bizarre increase in isolated racist actions in our community. The conversation typically moves between wanting to hold the perpetrator to account, how someone might have behaved had they seen it and then thinking about systemic formulation and accountability taking as a group. Very rarely did the conversation move to what it might have felt like to be any of the people involved - either victim, aggressor or witness. Whilst isolated incidents must be addressed and individual accountability is necessary, I think at some point as a collective we need to own that these systemic problems of racism (and other inequalities) are alive in our community. In my opinion this requires considered and conscious effort to understand all of our contexts, particularly our socially racialized identities, and then drawing from this the full meaning of the acts and resulting felt experience of those involved.

I do get the want to distance myself from these acts, particularly now, however if I just focus on the awfulness of the behaviour of an individual person I might miss the opportunity to examine myself and my culture; the only factors I have any control over influencing. So … what might drive me to do something like this, how might it feel - is it aggressive, hate filled, exciting, funny, impulsive, careful, dangerous, brazen, regretful, powerful, would I want to be seen? How might it feel to be treated in this way - alone, isolated,caught off guard, shaming, unwelcome, publically humiliated, morally superior, vulnerable, exhausting, familiar? How might it be to be the observer: shocking, angry, titillating, overwhelming, disbelieving, numbing, obligated, powerless, powerful? The more reading and understanding I have of group dynamics, power narratives and how society adapts around them then the more I see explicit racist acts like this as being like the metaphor of an opportunistic infection that can occur because there is a lowered immune system. The treatment is not just about addressing the opportunistic infection but also strengthening the immune system to prevent it from vulnerability to these kinds of threats in the first place. We have culturally inherited a lowered immune system (from colonialism/slavery) that we have to work to build back; and in doing so start actively caring for all the individuals hurt by our current culture.

Prior to learning about the racist attack, I had already twice raised concerns about various other problematic occurrences regarding the event in both its planning and execution: The opening address included a white speaker, who in an attempt to address the racist acting out at the GTiCP conference in Liverpool, stood holding an anti racist book declaring they had yet to read it, but held good intentions to do so and that we all need to “crack the whip” and face this. Sadly as a white conference delegate my sympathy instantly went to the person speaking and I just wanted them to be seen for their good intentions; yet many in the room were attending with fresh hope that these dynamics were finally going to be taken up and validated; as I encouraged myself to recognise the less dominant narrative, the symbolism of a leader holding an unread anti racist book whilst making an unconscious reference to being a slave master became beyond alarming. The speaker apologised immediately, their shame was clear and I have no interest in scapegoating that person as I believe the experience, including my reaction, are a repetition of the dominant white narrative of the psychology community: Good intentions for change but a lack of ability to sit with our collective ignorance and not knowing on this subject - being too distracted by feelings of guilt and inadequacy and a want to appear competent.

I know for me, this intolerance of fearing looking stupid or bad, can be so strong it’s tricky not to act out. I am used to being seen as competent, particularly in my professional role and when thinking about human rights, and so when I am not the shame leaps in and I can feel the need to avoid it as it feels so fraught with discomfort and humiliation. I feel hot, then cold, then numb and my brain quickly scrambles to find the right thing to say -so that people wont notice my awkwardness, my not knowing. By then it is normally too late. I can feel irritable and eventually just nothing as I move myself away to let someone else, or maybe just no one, deal with it.

"THE CURIOUS PARADOX IS THAT WHEN I ACCEPT MYSELF JUST AS I AM, THEN I CHANGE." ~~CARL ROGERS

I believe each person is accountable to themselves and I think the ‘work’ to be done requires me to develop the emotional maturity necessary for sitting with conflict and pain, so I can stay with these present day conversations about systemic racism in my community. I need to actually connect and accept the feelings of distress before I try and tidy them away by using theories and clever thoughts to protect myself without ever getting close to my own or others feelings. Trying to truly connect with all the parts involved. I think maybe I might be like most other psychologists working hard to be kind and thoughtful yet stuck with these difficult and abusive historical discourses. With life as we know it so under threat, now more than ever we need to be understanding each other as equal and connected. We are all each other’s context.

Indeed the opening address did set the tone of the event: This address ran over by 10- 15 minutes which meant the morning sessions (nearly all of which were on addressing diversity, power and privilege/ anti racism themes) were cut short resulting in them stopping and starting at different times leaving the program schedule in chaos and group facilitators wrong footed by timings. There then seemed to be an open door policy, with significant numbers of people coming and going randomly to the sessions which made it feel unsafe to speak my mind. Later a key speaker advised the audience to hold our breath during the difficult bits of their talk that were addressing the evidence of structural racism in our community and instructing us when we could breathe out again. No one person is to blame. Good intentions and good work were present everywhere just being simultaneously undermined by the cultural script of prioritising the taking care of white people in the room and attending to their discomfort not leaving much space for the upset and distress of everyone else. Some of these things are more innocuous than others, but it felt like the metaphor of a constant slicing of a salami, where there was a persistent action to diminish bit by bit the efforts to tackle the subject and making for a highly unsettling and upsetting morning. The communication of ‘we don’t know how to do this’ felt very clear.

A common exchange I have had in discussing these events resonated with me considerably as I think it speaks with honesty and clarity about the feeling and perspective of many in our community. I thought I would share a mock Q and A here giving the response I wish I had given ...

Question:

I struggle with this idea about racism in psychology and I'm noticing this a lot at the moment because things seem to keep happening. I feel awful about these events but I can’t make sense of them as it is not what I recognise in my daily interactions in our profession. I feel nervous to voice my puzzlement because I fear I'll be attacked! I can see how upset people are about these terrible incidents, and I don’t want to say anything to invalidate their experience, but at the same time I really believe that most psychologists are not racist and do attend to the subtleties of power, culture, discrimination....I certainly do. I might be white and middle class, but I have faced my own discrimination and life experiences and I spend a lot of time reflecting. And yet, I read a lot that suggests that many think our profession is racist. Help!”

My Response:

I think what I’ve noticed on my exploration into this area is that I have huge amounts of gaps in my knowledge base that I just didn’t know were missing. So I would regularly feel confused by accusations or experiences that felt incongruous with my identity. It’s that feeling that led me to start enquiring more. Have you had any opportunity to read books like ‘The good immigrant’ edited by Nikesh Shukla or ‘It’s not about the Burqa?’ edited by Mariam Khan. They are really interesting and helpful. Akala’s book Natives is also an excellent place to begin.

Sometimes I just have to admit that I can’t know what I don’t know. Then pay attention to who does have knowledge and experience in this area and pay attention to what they are saying.

Given racism is such a painful area, it draws out high levels of emotion for all. Projections are flying around everywhere in these narratives and often as a white woman I don’t realise how much I am projecting on to other people - I have discovered as I learn more I hear and see these exchanges very differently - in that the attack I may have perceived happening or feared might, I can now see as distress and hurt from the other person and also the contribution of my fear, my reaction to my feeling shame as triggering my fight or flight or in short my own aggression; However when I cannot see that this is occurring it can be hard to trust anyone who is telling me that it is - it feels so far away from my self image. My blindness can be such that it can feel like I am being willfully misunderstood and as such it is impossible for me to know who to trust. I can only invite others to start to read and talk more about our white history of slavery and colonialism and use our understanding of the human experience to help join the dots - when I do my victim fantasy can withdraw pretty quickly and I am able to contain my feelings and not act out.

I often like to reflect on yoga as a metaphor for my personal development; Bringing these narratives that feel so hidden to me into consciousness is a bit like using with my left hand for a pose when I am strongly right handed; I find this process clumsy, painful and slow. It requires persistence; however in using it I bring myself more into physical alignment: there is more balance in my posture, I become more flexible and I am stronger for it.

The Yogi BKS Iyengar said

“We often fool ourselves that we are concentrating because we fix our attention on wavering objects.”

We need to stop being distracted by the wavering objects of individual acts of racism, and personal morals of right and wrong and concentrate on the felt experience of ourselves and others and how they sit in the context of our collective narratives. The only way to gain understanding is to focus on the fixed object - the system/ our community and its historical context with resulting present day narratives. This is how we move towards emotional and social alignment. To do this we need to commit to practicing staying with the less conscious narratives, the difficult conversations and not avoid or deny.

Or finally to repeat what Micky ScottBey Jones writes:

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.

We will not be perfect.

This space will not be perfect.

It will not always be what we wish it to be

But

It will be our brave space together,

and

We will work on it side by side

The anti racist book club for psychologists is a book club and reflective practice space for psychologist for the purpose of developing understanding and awareness of the issues raised in this piece. You can find out more on the Facebook group or at my website www.libbynugent.com

I’d like to acknowledge Dulcie Cormack and her contribution to this blog when sharing her thoughts, ideas and personal experiences with me in the February Wrexham Anti Racist Book Club meeting. I have her permission to share them here.

I recently asked psychologists, on various social media groups I belong to, to share with me their favourite childhood stories, as I’m interested if there are any commonalities. This mini survey is an ongoing interest, so please feel free to share your favourites with me. Someone mentioned The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and I took the opportunity to revisit it. In the story a toy rabbit wishes to become a Real rabbit - to become Real the rabbit must allow itself to be at the mercy of its fate provided for by his little boy owner: he becomes damaged, worn down, with busted seams, tattered fur and threadbare paws. The faerie tale, to me, holds a metaphor of how vulnerability can create change; that radical self acceptance breaks open our understanding of humanity, so that we can truly live life rather than remain a toy or object.

The story begins this way:

‘There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.…

For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.

For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. …

Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse. ...

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nanna came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ’

The Velveteen Rabbit OR How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams

Now on first reading this could be a metaphor for embracing masochism, to charge towards painful experiences and humiliating relationships. However that’s not quite how I perceive it. I see it more as a call to radical self acceptance. To be open to honest communication and risk taking in our intimacies. To let people in. The rabbit must let go of it’s vanity, it’s belief about what must be avoided to keep him desired for and therefore loveable. He must trust in the process of love, but this is a love of life as it is, not the romantic hopeful version. When the final task of initiation is complete the rabbit painfully grieves; his hope to be eternally loved by the boy is held together with his acceptance of the real life limits of the boy’s ability to provide this. It is only when this acceptance occurs that the velveteen rabbit is turned into a plain everyday rabbit, his specialness is truly lost and he hops away into the woods unrecognisable to the little boy who previously owned him. At last he becomes Real.

When I think about this for myself - what are the parts of me that I might need to stop avoiding - is it my greed, my entitlement, my whiteness, my neediness? If I accept these parts, will I not be outed as broken, damaged and bad - who would love me then? What does radical self-acceptance look like? I also wonder about the idea of a little boy being in charge of my life.

Psychoanalyst Fairbairn, described a pattern of relating called the “Exciting Object”. Besides my liking the name I find it a really helpful way to think about some relationship and cultural problems. In his description of the pattern of the “exciting Object” Fairbairn states that this pattern of relating develops in childhood, typically when a child’s emotional needs are taken care of by an intermittently neglectful/absent parent. So sometimes the parent is present and caring and sometimes they are not. To make sense of these changeable ways the child develops two very different stories about the relationship. One is that of idolisation - my parents are wonderful and meet my needs, the future looks full of hope. The second is that of despair and hopelessness - my parents are useless and nothing will ever change. When these interact, rather than being held together to get a good enough view, they flip flop and cancel each other out to create an Exciting object narrative. In this Exciting object narrative the child is always hopeful and longing for a great future, they can see the potential of what could be if only they could work out how to keep the good times going but at the same time the child knows things will fail. So like buying a lottery ticket and hoping you will win, whilst at the same time knowing the chances are extremely low. The excitement of wondering if you can beat the odds, the comfort in being right in knowing you can not.

What this looks like in adulthood is the experience of continuing to emotionally invest in a partner, work environment or social structure when you know it is toxic; however the hope that it might transform into something new is compelling. Whenever the bad behaviour becomes apparent, we recover fast hoping for a bright future full of change, sweeping the negative experience under the carpet, quickly forgetting pain in the name of hope; at the same time striking another internal scorecard against the abuser with a sense of satisfaction that I knew they would do this to me. It’s like our internal world is at the mercy of a child’s changeability. The way to develop a new narrative is to try and hold on consciously and compassionately to both parts rather than flip flop between the two. If we can persist eventually we are able to become a bit more clear eyed. We can feel the yearning for more, the grief, anger and hurt at real life limits - we can become a bit more grown up or Real with our understanding. We might then make different choices. Maybe.

The story shows how as the rabbit starts to understand what it is to be human - and to let in intimacy, we also begin to recognize that all thoughts and ideas the rabbit had about the other toys were projections - he was seeing the other toys the way he viewed the world himself. In real life as we mature we also start to recognise that aspects of others we encounter in life, that create an emotional response, are often a mirror. The superior and inferior toys all reflected the rabbit’s own world view. In psychoanalysis it is thought that nobody truly knows anyone else until they recognize that everyone is them.

You may have seen the actor British Laurence Fox and his recent appearance on question time; his response to an audience member Rachel Boyle, was an example of white privilege in action. Boyle, a researcher on race and ethnicity at Edge Hill University, had raised the issue of the racist treatment of the Duchess of Sussex. Fox responded by describing Britain as the “most tolerant, lovely country in Europe”, adding his opinion that “it’s so easy to throw the card of racism at everybody and it’s really starting to get boring now”.

My initial reaction was one of repulsion and horror as Fox’s nonchalant aggression was casually hurled out: his lack of humility in his attitude and his sense of entitlement to equal footing on the subject racism with a woman, who is both a scholar of racism and a person with lived experience of racism in the uk, was clear; his assumption that his boredom mattered and that this was therefore relevant to the conversation was cringeworthy. Whilst I had previously quite liked him in ‘Lewis', I could feel myself distancing from this mental connection quickly and rescripting my appraisal of him: yes we are both white, but he is clearly being so male, so upper class, so southern. His ill informed, lazy, entitled and boorish manner has nothing to do with me. Lewis is rubbish anyway: My taste in programs can often be terrible. He is so rude; I am nice. He is such a typical man; I am a woman. I am middle class, but not that posh. I am not him. I am a proper progressive; I am thoughtful. I run an anti racist book club - I bet he doesn’t read those books. He is not part of my identity. He is other.

Laurence Fox came up in our discussion at the Wrexham Anti Racist Bookclub. As usual it was a small gathering, only this time it was just two of us: Dulcie and I. We have just read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and it was fascinating to use it as an example of a step by step guide to reactions that occur when white people become defensive talking about race. We then tried to apply this to ourselves and our own paths into trying to be more conscious of these narratives. Dulcie noted how surprisingly new and uncomfortable it has felt being on the back foot with this subject of examining whiteness. Her experience growing up was one of always being a fast learner, the one who gets it, she would lead on the ‘challenging the status quo’ conversations and launch herself into difficult conversations about feminism, classism etc. This resonated deeply with me. It has felt extremely humbling to experience myself in this way - of honouring the position of not knowing, and maybe being the person who needs to catch up, rather than being the one leading the way or, at very least, in the middle of the pack. Dulcie shared with me the idea of a window of tolerance: That somehow thinking about whiteness required finding that spot where the discomfort can be felt and stayed with rather swept away into despair and immobility or flip flopped over into idealisation of white culture and denial.

As a self identified liberal white woman, I often know something has been racist and unfair but all too easily I can quickly sweep it under the carpet going back to my lovely, playroom life. Like the rabbit maybe I can become Real through experiencing the full range of myself reflected in others, and recognising that it is a reflection of my own state? With practice I’m learning to accept what I see whilst holding on to compassion for myself, inviting in an adult accountability. If psychoanalysis is right, only then can I truly be relating to ‘the other’. All the wear and tear is sometimes uncomfortable but equally isn’t this just the human condition and always will be. In adult reality there are no easy answers or pain free options but I imagine how much more alive and potent I and our profession might feel if we could let our threads show knowing it is what makes each of us Real.

References:

Fairbairn and the Origins of Object Relations, ed. James Grotstein and Donald Rinsley (Free Association, 1994).

Pines, Malcolm. “ON MIRRORING IN GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY.” Group, vol. 7, no. 2, 1983, pp. 3–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41718185. Accessed 7 Feb. 2020.

For a short time I had a daydream about running a coffee shop. I thought I could make it a community psychology project. It would be a kind of cake and therapy combination. I took this project up with various degrees of earnestness: at one point I bought a book “setting up your own coffee bar”. I kept it by my bedside table unopened whilst I engaged in trialling various coffee making paraphernalia and eating a lot of cake. It took a good few months for me to realise I had little to no interest in the realities of running any kind of shop and that what I actually wanted to do was spend my time relaxing, drinking coffee, eating baked goods whilst feeling valued. I wanted the feeling of community and the hustle and bustle of everyday life in a cosy and safe environment. However I couldn't just go to my local cafe for this and be a customer. That felt too uncomfortable and small. I wanted an experience that felt socially important and somehow more meaningful and less mundane than me feeling lonely, tired and hungry.

The desire to attend a community coffee shop only would come to life if I was running the show: facilitating and not just being a regular customer. I wanted to belong, to indulge in cake eating and rest, but only feeling able to access these desires through the symbol of leading - not just joining in. Somewhere I had learnt that my being an average person who is wanting to belong and has basic human needs was not acceptable or sufficient reason to do this regularly. So whilst part of me longed to join in, I resisted the idea of this occurring through anything other than high achieving. I interpreted my average, human self as a defeat and evidence of my lack of creativity and uniqueness. In my therapy we wondered what this was about. I also noticed running a coffee shop is a remarkably common fantasy in the psychology community. It made me wonder about both my personal and professional scripts about vulnerability, community and belonging.

It is also about this time I heard about the story of Edward Mordrake:

Edward Mordrake (originally spelled Mordake) was a young, intelligent, and good-looking English nobleman, as well as a “musician of rare ability.” But with all of his great blessings came a terrible curse. In addition to his handsome, normal face, Mordrake possessed a terrifying disfigurement: another face on the back of his head.

This horrifying second face was that of a “beautiful girl” — “lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil.” The strange visage possessed an intelligence “of a malignant sort.” Whenever Mordrake cried, the second face would “smile and sneer.”

Mordrake was constantly plagued by his “devil twin,” which kept him up all night whispering “such things as they only speak of in hell.” The young lord was eventually driven mad and took his own life at the age of 22, leaving behind a note ordering the evil face be destroyed after his death, “lest it continues its dreadful whispering in my grave.”

Gina Dimuro, Published May 29, 2018

https://allthatsinteresting.com/edward-mordrake

When thinking about this story and my coffee shop daydreams I began to see some links. I reflected on the following interpretations:

The coffee shop owner is the face at the front - my persona. The part of me that defines who I would like to be and how I wish to be seen by the world. The word “persona” is derived from a Latin word that literally means “mask,” however in this instance, the word can be applied metaphorically, representing all of the different social masks that we wear among different groups of people and situations.

At the back is the Shadow Self, the bit of me that I have learned, (rightly and wrongly) that is bad or unacceptable: the part of me that is the coffee shop customer, who I will not allow to just join in and eat cake unless I do something deserving.

I cannot see what is at the back of my head - These needs and my reactions are hidden from my own conscious view, yet they are there and often visible to others with different scripts and can I ever truly see this part even with assistance.

If I am Edward Drake, do I want to “know” there is another hidden part of me?

I cannot entirely ignore this part as I hear the whispering at night, yet to fully acknowledge that it exists feels extraordinarily challenging. How could anyone want all of that? My instinct is repulsion. But given this is the reality is it better to at least try and know and acknowledge what is there or better to chose to live in denial?

According to Jungian psychology good/bad splits occur in all of us, in many places in our psyche. It is easier to see these divisions in others rather than ourselves. These splits can be encouraged in the scripts we learn from our families and cultures. If we think about cultural scripts from different parts of the world we can see how arbitrary some of these “good/bad” divisions are that create these Shadowed selves. In Europe, for example, making eye contact is often perceived as confident and engaging, whereas in Japan it might be perceived as arrogant and rude. And in America, TV shows depicting violent murders are considered more acceptable than showing nudity or sexual acts, whereas in Europe it’s the opposite. These are just two examples. If we are not aware of our personal and cultural scripts that inform us about what is acceptable or not, we can very quickly end up making decisions based on misinterpretations and misunderstandings.

https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shadow.pdf

The difficulty recognising shutt out narratives or hidden parts can be a huge barrier in any person or community’s journey towards learning, integration and emotional health. If these unwanted parts are left unexamined it will lead to our understanding of situations and then subsequent actions being made through a one sided vision of the world which results in unconscious bias. Whilst we may never be able to fully see what is at the back of our heads, if we know there is something there out of our range of visibility we can implement strategies to collect information and so that we can make more informed decisions. Knowing we have a personal and cultural shadow can actually transform how we approach information gathering and decision making processes.

https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shadow.pdf

So how might this apply to the clinical psychology community?

From our ‘work for free’ discourse for the budding aspiring psychologist, to the initiation into the competitive world of becoming an assistant and trainee and finally working as qualified clinicians within high demand services, we grow into a very particular narratives and ways of being: typically those narratives that allow us to engage in fierce competition, in a non-threatening way, and that will help us make very few demands on others whilst been given an overwhelming amount of work.

We grow into these identities over time, cohort by cohort. During the process of becoming a clinical or counselling psychologist we acquire the formulating gaze and we learn a scientific vocabulary for feelings. Clinical psychologists typically work in close proximity to trauma and despair and so we pay attention to our ‘new’ senses of transference and countertransference and learn phrases such as ‘sit with it’, ‘ be mindful’, ‘provide a space for uncertainty’ and ‘tolerating not knowing’. We are trained to always have an evidence base, and to jump through hoops, juggling essays, NICE guidelines, research and clinical work. There is little room for life to happen along the way.

What is our own reality of having our personal shame examined and pain contained? How much of these experiences of tolerating safe uncertainty are authentically experienced from within before we offer them to others? How available are our supervision spaces to deal with the inevitable fall out of with working up close and intimately with the naartives of violence, denigration, self loathing, sex, hate, envy and humiliation.

We are required to have both a need to tolerate not knowing and a necessity for evidence base in our work. Both narratives, when not allowed to be processed at depth, foster an approach of ‘getting on with it’ and being seen to be ‘coping’ often leading to an avoidance of the limits of ourselves and what is happening in our personal lives. Most courses discuss numbers of plus 99% pass rates and and rarely offer discourse regarding the people that don’t make it through. Only recently have some training courses begun to offer part time training and I don't think any have module systems of career progression or indeed staff with fingertip knowledge of alternate paths for trainees to take when they fall out of step with the general flow of the group.

The national non-completion rate for NHS trainees for the academic year 2017/2018 was only 0.6%, which includes both people who withdrew from a course and people who failed. This is in line with the rate for the previous 5 years which was between 0.5% and 1% each year.

Leeds Clearing House

Given the intensity of the training and the fact that life continues to go on regardless this to me feels bizarrely high. Of the approximately 600 people per cohort only 3- 6 people didn’t make it through. How do people cope and what narrative is given to people who don't make it? Presumably people manage by doubling down on their defences. From my own clinical observations a toxic combination of doubt, guilt, and an exaggerated sense of responsibility is a common finding among psychologists.

From these scripts and in my clinical work with psychologists, I have noticed to survive these conditions certain cultural attitudes seem to occur which have an emphasis on:

self-reliance

high ethical values

pride in endurance

discomfort in asking for help

An inclination to learn through teaching rather than learn by joining in

denial of pain/stress

overachiever but may underestimate self

If these attitudes are left unexamined and the hidden scripts within them are unacknowledged it is clear how they can lead to the development of a trickster culture: One which speaks of self care and compassion but shames asking for help and dependency. Ideally we would rely on our training course, or our psychology team members to provide caring minds to let us know when we are reaching our limits. However, how much are we able to connect with others who are also living these silent scripts. It can feel like the blind leading the blind.

A strong theme permeating through my conversations with psychologists is the belief they are the only one who feels like this - that they are alone. I think for many psychologists, the social group primarily relied upon for providing self-esteem and a sense of belonging is their professional group. In my experience, the reflective groups I have been a part of and have facilitated enable psychologists to become vulnerable in a safe environment where they can drop their professional masks. It has been helpful to cultivate a sense of unconditional friendliness and self-compassion as without this it is difficult to look at our darker parts.

If psychologists are serious about cultural change and addressing our problems of structural racism and systemic stuckness in supremacy narratives, then as a group we probably need to begin this work by accepting our own humanness and embrace curiosity for our limits and hidden parts. These excavations are where our striving and collective pride in being seen as ‘good’ people are actively unhelpful - As if we are too judgemental, it will be difficult to tolerate ourselves and we will need to avoid. As a collective I think we are too accustomed to avoidance of direct communication that is also caring. Instead we are polite and politically correct whilst silently nudging - conditioning each other to hide all our humanness, and our being average. We need to transcend these emotions with honest conversation, friendliness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. As a group we have a profound amount to offer and I think understanding our hidden scripts and parts of ourselves we do not see will allow our collective to exist with more depth and realness in our professional identities and maybe finally allow us to embrace the changes towards authentic inclusivity that are so long overdue.