Pankaj Suneja

A young boy in early 20s comes to once-a-week psychotherapy session with me for over six months now. He has troubled inner life and growing up feels overwhelming and severely anxiety provoking. It is not that anxiety has surfaced just now. It has surfaced at various periods in his life. Most prominently he remembers during his high school in 11th grade. At that time, his aunt was struggling with depression and was visiting a psychiatrist regularly. She was on antidepressants that were helping her. She also suggested her nephew to visit the same psychiatrist. The mother of this young boy became alarmed and was skeptical of antidepressants at such a young age.

Thankfully in the young boy’s school, there was an English teacher who became aware of the young boy’s challenges. She called the boy during the free periods to her office and asked him to share about his concerns. He opened up to her and she took deep interest in his life. He finally had a space to be listened. She listened to him for hours and he opened up about his frustration of school life, loneliness of being a single child, the pressure of being responsible and the neglect of his emotional life in his childhood.

Now he recollects with me this experience with English teacher as one of the significant relationships in his life where he could have some space to be himself. The relationship did not heal his challenges but for time being provided a mentor that made him feel less isolated in his journey.

Though there are various aspects to therapy, we can say that in this relationship between young boy and English teacher, there are elements and glimpses of therapy, a therapeutic relationship.

Perhaps the whole life’s struggle in the society is to be authentic. To live an authentic life. By authentic, it would mean to feel the feelings, as a person would feel their veins. The feelings in the psyche flows out through the ground of veins and blood. The person’s way of acting in the world corresponds to the inner life. Carl Rogers, a humanistic psychologist, would frame this cohesion and symmetry of inner and outer life as congruence. Like how we studied in mathematics about congruent triangles whose angles are at same degree and sides are of same length. In another way, the size of a person and their shadow is same. But often we neglect parts of us as process of growing up in the families, schools and workplace. We learn to shun off our pain. We ourselves move away from awareness that something is deeply buried in us. But we may feel something is wrong and it looms in the edge of our psyche and existence.

In parenting, the child is made to feel ashamed if the child has scored less in exams. Sometimes the child goes through sexual abuse by a stranger or familiar. Sometimes there is years of deprivation of no one actually seeing the inner life of the child. This child or person would seek a space where they can be with their whole self. The psyche is inherently and naturally driven to feel whole. The painful aspects of the person needs holding and containing space. In this seeking and search, the person may encounter few relationships in her life that provides them opportunity to move towards being whole and authentic.

Psychotherapy is one such relationship that provides this opportunity to the seeker in a sustained manner, to get to deeper core buried experiences, filled with conflicts, and bring them to awareness. This kind of relationship improves the quality of life. The person can breathe their skin and body deeply and with expansive space in self. The therapeutic relationship removes the obstacles and conflicts in the psyche.

A person may have encounters of few to many instances where they had such relationships in their life whether short or long term (with sibling, grandparents, teachers, cousin, friend, parents, uncle or aunt, partner, colleague), frequent or infrequent (email exchange with penpal for over a decade but exchange takes place twice or thrice in year and emails are 4–5 pages long) that provided them to be with all kinds of experiences. A relief and pause from the hustle, positivity, busy culture. Sometimes the relationship gave an insight or a perspective that facilitated to look at difficult situation differently with more openness and flexibility, less rigidity.

One of the primary therapeutic relationship a person has is with their mother and father. The mother function is to provide warmth, emotional connection and holding of all kinds of experiences of child. If the child shits in his clothes, the mother checks it, removes the shit and cleans the child’s body. The child is fixed. The similar dynamics is played out in emotional life. But sometimes the mother may have her own issues and depending on her capacity she may not be sufficient container. D. W. Winnicott, a psychoanalyst, terms the capacity of mother to be able to hold the emotional life of child sufficiently as ‘good enough mother’ which makes the child believes in the goodness of the world and can trust the relationships and life.

Similarly, the father function is to bring the child closer to reality, to help her carve out ‘life of her own’ amidst social pressure. To help the child in pursuing her passion and interest. But sometimes, the inner gifts and vision of child is ignored and societal expectations like engineering, medical that provides employable security and status are imposed on the child. Thus, good enough father won’t neglect the child’s emotional life and inner aspirations.

These all relationships are symbolic of psychotherapy like. Though not as sustained, in absence of such relationship, a person may find similar elements of psychotherapy like qualities in relationship with art such as books, cinema, music, plays and photography. A teenager growing up with neglectful and abusive parents, and punitive school system may find moments of relief, refugee, relatability, connection, love, familiarity with the film ‘400 Blows’. An elderly person in 70s who has been abandoned by her children and her declining physical, cognitive health may find resonance with the film ’36 chowrangee Lane’.

A young adult who is scared of uncertainty and anxious about a transition in his life may find hope and encouragement in these words by Nida Fazli

‘safar mein dhoop to hogi jo chal sako to chalo

Sabhi hai bheed mein, tum bhi nikal sako to chalo’

(In the journey of life, there will be challenges and these challenges are given to everyone. Like everyone, you can also keep going)

Dr. Nooren Giffney, a psychanalytic psychotherapist, terms these relationship with art as culture-breasts. Films, music, poetry are cultural objects that nourishes, nurtures (like mother’s breasts) and deepen our understanding of society and life. The affect of such encounter maybe short lived but provides the nurturance in absence of a solid, sustained and stable therapy like relationship.