Phillip Ellington, graduate of the Psychosynthesis Trust, shares his research on how psychosynthesis psychotherapists work when they have difficulties in finding love and empathy for a client.
Abstract
My advanced diploma research conducted in early summer 2023 explores how psychosynthesis therapists conceptualise and work with situations where they can’t find love for a client. It examines this question in relation to Firman and Gila’s (2010) position that psychosynthesis is a “psychotherapy of love” and in relation to the understanding that the relationship between therapist and client is the major determinant of therapeutic outcomes (Fluckiger, et al., 2012). This report focuses on four aspects of the findings:
- How psychosynthesis therapists conceptualise love in therapy and work with its absence.
- How the unique psychosynthesis concept of ‘bifocal vision’ supports therapists in holding a frame around adverse experiences in the therapeutic dyad.
- How the theoretical frame around love in psychosynthesis might lead to ’spiritual bypassing’ (Firman & Gila, 2010, p. 171), especially amongst new practitioners.
- How the role of the autonomic nervous system in adverse reactions to clients, especially in regard to intersectionality, highlights potential limitations in the countertransference model.
Introduction
Towards the end of an otherwise unremarkable session a middle-aged client launched into a diatribe against the “myth of the Holocaust”. The Jews “brought it on themselves”, she said, and “Besides, everyone benefited!” The shock was anaphylactic. My father was a Kindertransport kid out of Nazi Germany leaving behind a family that disappeared into the cauldron. That trauma had rippled through my childhood and now I urgently needed this woman out of my room. We had a few more sessions after which, perhaps sensing my skin crawling, she brought our work to an end. I never disclosed the impact her views had had on me or why. I didn’t trust myself to hold her best interest paramount. I was glad she was gone, but I was also troubled. During my diploma training I had come to identify with the way of love and to believe that irrespective of theoretical approach its love in the therapeutic relationship that effects healing. After this failure to love I no longer felt secure in my capacity, or indeed in this orientation.
Within the psychosynthesis literature I found no discussion of situations where love can’t be found. The implication seemed to be that because it should be found, it will be. I did come across some commentary on negative countertransference, but the classification seemed redundant to me since countertransference theory already encompasses positive and negative reactions. Getting bored, irritated, frustrated even outraged in session is surely the grist in every supervisor’s mill. Besides, Linn Walton & Pardasani (2014) find that while therapists disliking a client is common it is rarely conceptualised as negative countertransference. For the most part it is seen as personal failing. I was definitely in that camp.
Firman and Gila describe “traumatic countertransference” (1997, p. 241), where the therapist’s activated unconscious trauma might plunge them into a negative personality position. And Judith Herman (1992) speaks of shared trauma in the countertransference leaving therapists feeling helpless and personally incompetent. That felt familiar. Again, the resolution would seem to be in supervision, exploring the dynamic between my own psychological history and the client’s transference. In practice, the shock of my encounter with that casual racial hatred felt as remote from the abstractions of countertransference as a man coming at you with a blade. Whether my countertransference was negative or traumatic or plain vanilla, the problem was not just cognitive. My stomach rebelled at the thought of sitting with her. I could, probably should, refer her on to another therapist. Perhaps another clinician, one without my particular background, would be better suited. But referral is not harmless. Must I, in due diligence, explain the reason for the transfer? Should I explain to the client honestly and risk the impact of that directness as an end point? Or do I excuse myself with some white lie? As it was, the dilemma between working through the transference, or passing her off with a white lie was resolved by her quitting. I was left wondering how other psychosynthesis therapists had met similar situations. This wondering provided the focus for my research question. How do psychosynthesis therapists conceptualise and work with situations where they can’t find love for a client?
Methodology
From a range of qualitative research methodologies, I chose Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). It uses in-depth interviews to explore participants’ lived experience from their own point of view including the impact of the interview and the interviewer on the process (Alase, 2017). Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews allowing open dialogue to throw up broad responses to the question.
The respondents
Given time constraints on this project, I interviewed only four participants. Such small numbers typify IPA studies and are generally considered sufficient to capture a flavour of the issue at hand. Of the respondents: three are female, three are practicing supervisors and all have been in practice for over eight years. One participant objected to the pseudonym ‘Mary’ that obscured her Muslim heritage. In my effort to disguise her identity, I’d unconsciously stripped her of a distinct intersectional position in relation to the question. This was corrected and she now appears in the findings as Halima.
1. What’s love got to do with it?
How psychosynthesis therapists conceptualise love in therapy and work with its absence.
Much of psychosynthesis literature asserts unconditional love as the essential determinant of therapeutic outcomes. For Roberto Assagioli, the counselling relationship is founded on ‘altruistic love’ (1973), the platonic exchange of the unconditional form of love Plato called ‘agapé’ (Schneider, et al., 2001, p. 383). Diana Whitmore writes that without such love “no growth is possible” (1991, p. 35). Firman and Gila agree, writing that the “primary job” of psychosynthesis therapists is to love their clients (2010, p. 5). Like Whitmore, they assert that without this love “healing and growth cannot occur” (ibid).
Despite this theoretical centrality, my participants had no consensus on what love is. For Sarah it’s a “state of being”. For Halima it’s more of a process, “a multifaceted journey”. Dan spoke of it sometimes needing to be an act of will, while Sarah was emphatic that love can never be an act of will but is more a matter of allowing love to emerge. On the other hand, she also said “Love is also about action. And sometimes that action can be fierce”. Lucy felt queasy about nailing a definition at all before crisply distinguishing love from, in her words, the more “passive acceptance” of “unconditional positive regard” (Rogers, 1961, p. 64) Certain qualities were referenced by all participants: “empathy”, “compassion”, “free flow of energy”, “patience” and “holding”.
These qualities may be associated with the “higher unconscious” (Whitmore, 1991, p. 114), but love is rooted in biology. It seems that our capacity for romantic love evolved about three million years ago, around the time our ancestors adapted to pair-bonding. This break-through neural technology persuaded hitherto absentee fathers to stick around and help raise their brainy but needy babies to maturity. Neurobiologists locate distinct neural correlates associated with maternal and romantic love in the brain’s limbic system (Esch & Stefano, 2005) (Zeki, 2007). Some claim to have identified the unique neural signature of unconditional love (Beauregard, et al., 2009). Lewis et al. (2000), propose that loving care in infancy effects a neural synchrony, or “limbic resonance” (Ibid p. 125), between caregiver and child that lays the foundations of healthy emotional growth. Lewis suggests that limbic resonance is an ongoing, plastic process and that earlier misattunements may be repaired. In principle, the more attuned the therapist is with the client’s emotional experience, the greater the limbic activation that supports plasticity.
So, while there is evidence to support Whitmore’s position on the centrality of love to therapeutic outcomes, love remains definitively elusive, ineffable and personal. Perhaps Sarah had her finger on why this might be when she said that love can’t be produced as an act of will. If what lies at the centre of our practice can’t be relied upon, we may feel we’re up a creek with half a paddle. Half, because the other fundamental drive in Assagioli’s thinking was the will and there seems to be some consensus around that concept in psychosynthesis literature. Perhaps this also explains the predominance of references to the will as opposed to love in the literature. For instance, ‘love’ doesn’t even appear in the index of The Primal Wound (Firman & Gila, 1997). Nevertheless, despite its definitive weakness, love remains central to my participants approaches.
In terms of being essential for healing and growth, Halima was unequivocal, “as a psychosynthesis counsellor, I believe it is love that heals.”. Dan also thought love an absolute requirement, but Lucy was more nuanced. For her, love isn’t essential although unconditional positive regard absolutely is. She sees authentic love as an altogether more “engaged” quality and is pragmatic about its theoretical necessity saying, “Though love is absent, the client may still be getting what they need.”
I was left wondering whether Whitmore and Firman and Gila’s ideal of agapaic love is an obstacle or is necessarily lofty enough to raise our aspirations. Where we normally bracket our theoretical deliberations with “This is not the Truth”, a shadow is cast by such certainty about love’s necessity, especially perhaps for the newly qualified. For Halima, for instance, the belief that only altruistic love had true therapeutic value was “a really heavy weight” when she first started out. It was the same weight of self-expectation that left me feeling demoralised and prompted this study. So, how do my participants who hold love so central manage situations where it can’t be found?
2. Working with the unloved.
Unlike the shame I’d felt at finding myself unable to love my antisemitic client, my participants spoke more to acceptance than demoralisation. It seemed they had learned to make accommodation with what is possible under difficult circumstances. Dan spoke of his commitment to staying in relationship with a tormentor. He could break off but, “that wouldn’t be in service”.
Halima had to keep her focus on her breath with a long-standing client who suddenly disclosed sexual abuse and murder. “My internal container was stretched, and it grew”. Sarah described framing her client’s irksome behaviour as necessary maladaptive coping skills. “One of the reasons they’re in the room with you is because they know everyone else dislikes them too”. Like Dan, she makes great efforts to stay in relationship, “just be able to tolerate being in the space with them”. The extent of her effort surfaced when she spoke of sudden alarm when she imagined her client moving towards her. Dan talked of using deep ruptures to strengthen his “understanding of my work as a therapist”. Sometimes, he said, “I needed to become that bad object”. Again, Lucy was pragmatic. Where she couldn’t find love, she relied on skills she likened to a doctor’s “bedside manner”.
The ethical dimension
Lucy and Halima both talked about referral as part of an ethical dilemma around continuing work with unloved clients, though neither had ever made such a referral. Like Dan, their commitment to staying in relationship mitigated that option. Halima summed up the view, “because even that guy who is acting out in a really disgusting way. I mean, the impulse, really, is to find love. Is to find attachment”. Sarah spoke explicitly of the harm potential in her bringing therapy to an end, “they would probably experience that as a rejection”.
Supervision
For three of my four participants supervision is relied upon for empathic support and professional guidance. Dan said they helped him “separate out what was my stuff and what was the client’s”. Halima inserted the qualifier “even”, when she said, “there have actually even been occasions where I’ve discussed in supervision my lack of empathy for a client”. Halima’s apparent diffidence around bringing negative countertransference into supervision echoes Linn Walton & Pardasani’s findings. Nevertheless, supervision proved one of the key aspects of managing the most difficult clients.
Transpersonal countertransference
The broadening that the transpersonal; defined as “where consciousness extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal” (Shorrock, 2008, p. 8), approach has brought to countertransference was evident in how participants held transpersonal aspects of themselves, and the client in the transferential frame. Sarah, for instance, spoke of how the therapists’ outpouring of love may actually constitute a defence, adding, “this makes being a therapist quite a lot easier sometimes than being a client”. Halima made a similar observation, saying how it can be difficult for the therapist to receive love without being defended against it. But “Clients need to love us” she asserted, “and we need to receive that love”. Harold Searles (1965) concurs that therapeutic value comes not only from feeling loved, but also from the client realising they are capable of arousing love in their therapist. I vividly remember my own therapist asking me how I thought she felt about me and stumbling to reply, “I think you like me”. She dared name the transpersonal quality in the room and told she loved me. It was a powerful moment.
Petruska Clarkson argues that transpersonal countertransference reactions stem from the therapist’s own unresolved transpersonal material (Clarkson, 2003) and naturally, recommends they be explored in supervision. On the whole, I find countertransference a tricky concept, not least in its propensity for producing divergent viewpoints. My training supervisor refers to it sometimes as ‘soup’, asking, what ingredients are floating around today? One of those ingredients might indeed be love and may, as Clarkson warns, activate the therapist’s fear of losing their own ego boundaries (Clarkson, 2003). Where the transpersonal does seem to appear consistently is around the concept of “bifocal vision” (Whitmore, 1991, p. 62).
2. Bifocal vision.
How this unique psychosynthesis concept supports therapists in holding adverse experiences in the therapeutic dyad.
Assagioli’s concept of bifocal vision proposes a balanced approach to personal growth and self-actualisation. Through one lens we might observe ourselves and our inner world objectively, while through the other we view our subjective sense of participation and self-identification. By disidentifying from the contents of our own psyche we gain greater self-awareness and capacity for self-regulation (Assagioli, 1973). The same principle applies to our work as therapists. Both lenses are turned towards our client, simultaneously holding a therapeutic focus on dysfunctional patterns and defences along with an inner awareness of the client’s fundamental wholeness and higher potential. Dan described bifocal vision as “the most profound concept Assagioli gave us”. And across the data, it was this twin lens that helped participants engender empathy and sustain the therapeutic alliance, however hair-raising the presenting personality. As Halima said, “A frame can be found through which the soul can be honoured”. Sarah said “…you sort of recognise the potential for the client, then let go of the progress under which they may get there”. And Lucy said, “it’s kind of me getting out of my own way with who I think the client could become. And accepting, that it’s their becoming.”
On reflection, it seems to me that bifocal vision combines two of Plato’s forms of love: agapé and eros. If agapé represents transcendent unconditional love, eros holds aliveness and will, immanent in the longing for wholeness that drives our aspiration for perfection (Liddell, et al., 1996). Plato called the combination of the two “philia”, meaning perfect friendship (Singer, 1966, p. 88). Carl Rogers writes that unconditional positive regard was inspired by agapé, but it also has parallels with Philia. Both emphasise total acceptance but are grounded in wisdom and understanding, not just
emotion. It seems to me that the psychosynthesis approach to love, especially as it informs the practice of bifocal vision, may also be found in a mash-up of agapé and eros.
3. The shadow of love.
How the theoretical frame around love in psychosynthesis might lead to ’spiritual bypassing’, especially amongst new practitioners.
Potential for ’spiritual bypassing’
In discussing Whitmore’s position on the absolute centrality of love in psychosynthesis, Sarah spoke of the danger of identifying with the ideal of an all-loving therapist. She felt the invocation to bring love might promote an identification with the transpersonal with all its potential for “spiritual bypassing” (Firman & Gila, 2010, p. 171). Halima spoke of the pressure to be “all-loving” as engendering a sense of “grandiosity”. It speaks to the appeal of psychotherapy to a narcissistic tendency amongst therapists which an article in Psychotherapy (2010) suggests is not uncommon. Transpersonal therapies like psychosynthesis, where the narcissist’s ambit might encompass the numinous, might hold a special appeal.
4. The disgust response
How the role of the autonomic nervous system in adverse reactions to clients, especially in regard to intersectionality, highlights potential limitations in the countertransference model.
I was intrigued that the visceral feelings my client had aroused felt out of proportion to explanations offered by countertransference. I had literally felt disgusted. Believed to be unique to humans, disgust is an autonomic response to perceived existential threat. It likely evolved to help us resist our main predator, pathogens (Herz, 2012). It may be evoked by physical stimuli like bitter tastes or by purely conceptual abstractions; the thought of stepping in excrement can be just as disgusting as doing it. Disgust may also be activated by differences between people. Moral or political differences even unconventional table manners can trigger the disgust response (Herz, 2012). And while it is a universal emotion, what we find disgusting is culturally specific. We learn from our peers what in our community might constitute a contamination danger. And what is learned can be unlearned. It once seemed impossible that sushi would be popular in the UK and, amazingly, children acquire a taste for olives. The disgust response’s suggestible, affective power is thought to play a major part in social tensions around intersectionality (Miller, 1997). In Mein Kampf, Hitler invokes it by describing Jews as “maggots in a festering abscess” (Rash, 2005, p. 106). In Rwanda, the genocidal attack on Tutsi “cockroaches” was presented as a matter of public sanitation (Herz, 2012, p. 193). Though I didn’t raise the question directly, I was alert to the disgust response appearing in my research interviews.
Lucy described feeling threatened by a woman who habitually arrived unkempt and unwashed. For her, it represented a giving up on life and she used the word ‘disgusted’ directly. Somatic responses, especially references to body elimination, strongly indicate the activation of the disgust response. And body odour is a universal trigger for pathogen-avoidance. She rationalised her response as the activation of unconscious material, but her description suggested an autonomic response flooding her with cortisol. Sarah spoke of finding one client’s self-pity literally repulsive, “I always wanted to move away from them”. I wondered if her client’s identification as victim hadn’t activated a form of survival instinct known as perpetrator disgust (Curtis, 2007) (Munch-Jurisic, 2022). This is often seen in the excessive cruelty victors express towards the vanquished. Sarah said she had, “that sort of feeling just before you gag”. Sarah recognised how we might objectify disagreeable aspects of the other “I really dislike you… because… you’re really dislikeable” she said.
Halima described one particularly objectifying client as “icky”, which Merriam Webster define as ‘offensive to the senses”. For me, ‘icky’ is more redolent of the beautiful people of Love Island, where it signals the apprehension of disgust. Feeling objectified doesn’t necessarily suggest autonomic pathogen avoidance, but the disgust response is ‘learned’ and certainly responds to conceptual triggers (Curtis, 2007). On many levels, Halima’s disgust may have been triggered by a collision with toxic masculinity. Overtly sexualised behaviour may have impacted her in ways specific to her belief system. It seems quite possible then, that intersectional outrage may have triggered the disgust response. In another case, Halima reported focusing on her breath to enable herself to remain in proximity to a client who presented child abuse and murder.
In all these examples, activated disgust response could be seen simply as countertransference reactions and opportunities for self-reflection. But I wonder if the general understanding of countertransference reactions as unconscious displacement may not obscure the full clinical significance of the disgust response. It may be present in every therapeutic encounter, to the degree that therapist and client differ. That doesn’t necessarily mean the visceral feelings which overwhelmed me in contact with my Holocaust denier. The beautiful people of Love Island use the slang phrase ‘getting the ick’ to signal the dawning apprehension of disgust. What they are noticing is the gustatory effect of cortisol impacting their parasympathetic systems in preparation for flight, fight or freeze. It seems important that we therapists are equally alert to the same effect.
Intersectionality
Along with our propensity for forming affectional bonds, John Bowlby proposed a powerful opposing force hard-wired into our psyches by natural selection, reticence towards strangers. Rachel Herz (2012) demonstrates how our tribe’s disgust model becomes an ‘external unifying centres’ (Firman & Gila, 1997), telling us who is, and who is not us. Ian Miller writes that disgust permeates “the contempt teenagers have for adults, women for men, servants for masters, workers for bosses, Jews for Christians, blacks for whites, the uneducated for the educated, and so on” (1997, p. 207).
Conclusions
My study found that although love remains central to my participants approaches, there is little consensus around its nature in the way I might expect around other core concepts like the will, for instance. The contention that without altruistic love no growth can occur is not supported. Rather, the data suggests that love itself is something that grows. Also, I’ve learned that love isn’t something the good enough therapist carries in their pocket like a tranquilliser. It’s always latent, hopefully blossoms and sometimes doesn’t. When it does, it is not a gift from one to the other, but something co-created within the dyad. Because it was so central to Assagioli’s thinking, it seems important that we bring to love the same academic curiosity we bring to other theoretical areas of psychosynthesis. The danger in our apparent lack of theoretical clarity is that we inadvertently foster bypassing and narcissistic tendencies within our modality.
I would suggest a training that positions love more securely in the psychosynthesis theoretical frame. As Assagioli said, “To love well calls for all that is demanded by the practice of any art, indeed of any human activity, namely, an adequate measure of discipline, patience, and persistence.” (1973, p. 95).
In terms of the impact on the counsellor of finding themselves unable to love a client, what emerged consistently was a mature resilience, a workaday commitment to sitting with whatever comes into the room. Sometimes that means relying on Lucy’s performative love, her ‘bedside manner’, which reminds me of CS Lewis’ advice “don’t waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did.” (Lindsley, 2012, p. 4). Perhaps sometimes, acting as if we love may be love enough.
What seems to support this tenacity is the practice of bifocal vision that reminds us that where we see a monster there also sits a soul. And this seems to me a reasonable answer to the question my study posed. How experienced psychosynthesis therapists conceptualise and work with clients they can’t find love for is, to keep on turning up for the hair-raising personality and holding the soul of them in appreciation.
I’d like to end this research report by returning to my experience with my Holocaust denier and the countertransference reaction I had no conceptual framework for. It seems to me that the disgust response should figure more prominently in countertransference theory. Had I known I was being flooded by cortisol when my client spoke of the Jews, I might have come to my senses a little earlier and been less ashamed when I brought it to supervision. It seems important that psychosynthesis training includes the autonomic disgust response in its exploration of intersectionality and unconscious bias.
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