Therapeutic Space

In my search for how others have thought about the issue of therapeutic space, I encountered some of the writing of Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographer. Tuan wrote a very interesting little book, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience in which he muses about how people think about space and place, home and neighborhood. One of his thoughts is that space is what we encounter when are are someplace new and unfamiliar and it becomes place as we learn its features and landmarks. This leads me to contemplate the fact that every time a new patient comes to see me, not only is the patient in a space which is not yet place, but so am I, because, though the physical features of the room are the same from patient to patient, the addition of a new person changes the space. As we begin the process of coming to know each other, we are each creating place, place which contains the other.

And I am pondering who the therapy space is for — the patient or the therapist? Or both? 

Psychotherapy in Darkness

I think often of this powerful quote from Jung on therapy:

“The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help (the client) acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering. ” -C.G. Jung

How very different this view of therapy is from what most people seek. Jung understood that suffering is a part of life, that it has meaning and that to live fully is to know that suffering will be a factor in one’s life throughout life. If I look back on my own life, I know that I have learned most from those times which were difficult and often painful, not because I wanted to but because of the choices and consequences i faced at those times. The good times, the times of great happiness are wonderful and I have celebrated and cherished them and look forward to more. But it has been in those dark times when I have had to face myself and look deeply into my life and my actions that I have grown most.

Reflecting on consolations and desolations, joys and sorrows, is a part of many spiritual practices. Matthew Fox wrote in modern terms in Original Blessings about the Via Negativa, the path that takes us into darkness. So much of post-Enlightenment culture has been about the flight from darkness that many of us have lost sight of the meaning and value of darkness. New life begins in the dark. Seeds germinate in the dark.

Therapy which acknowledges and even embraces the dark times, suffering as well as joy, opens the door to that new life and creativity that can come from them.