By Jane Halpert, PhD, TLLP
Let’s say a male client in his 40s comes in for therapy reporting that he is struggling in his relationship with his teenage son, who suffers from debilitating social anxiety. The client wants to support his son, but witnessing the boy’s severe anxiety provokes in the client feelings of anger and disgust. He feels ashamed that he can’t be more compassionate. What kind of father is he?
Let’s say the client, having confessed all that, falls silent, waiting. The look on his face seems to invite you to confirm his negative view of himself. He seems to want nothing more than for you to nod soberly and say, “I have heard all you have said, and I have reached my verdict. You are indeed a bad person.”
I’m being kind of jokey here, but this kind of dynamic plays out a lot in therapy. The client confesses some “bad” thing or other and then seems to want me to condemn or absolve them.
But that’s not how life is, right? You can love your kid AND find certain traits and behaviors enraging. Both can be true, and acknowledging the tension lets you break out of the polarity and examine the real issues at play.
The father’s anger and disgust with his son’s anxiety might point to his own fear of being vulnerable. Maybe he struggled in the same way when he was younger and despised that part of himself. Maybe he was shamed for weakness as a kid and learned only to project strength. As a therapist, you’ll never know what’s really going on if you simply endorse the client’s polarized view of things. The task for this client might be to integrate disowned parts of himself, allowing him to be a full, three-dimensional person, complete with strengths and weaknesses, capacity and need.
This way of thinking is referred to as “dialectical thinking,” and it’s the foundation of Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which emphasizes the need to cope with competing realities: I’m depressed, but I have occasional glimmers of hope. I am overcome with emotion, but I’m also alright. I did something that doesn’t reflect my values, but I can now act in a way that expresses who I want to be. I am overcome with grief and yet I will keep going.
This isn’t a new concept. Philosophers and other thinkers have been contemplating the topic of productive tension for eons. Writing around 500 BCE, philosopher Heraclitus offered the example of the bow and the lyre. When you shoot an arrow, there has to be the right amount of forced tension in the bow’s string, and if you play the lyre, the strings have to be tightened just so to allow for sound to be produced.
Psychological health is like that. It’s not about erasing tension but accepting it. Self-acceptance can’t wait until you’re finally good or deserving. It’s better to look with tolerance at the whole of who you are, even your most shameful qualities. Psychologist Carl Rogers has a line that makes that point beautifully: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Cool, right? Who knew that you can’t flagellate yourself into personal growth?
Clinically reviewed by Mel Whalen, PhD, LP — Licensed Psychologist, Michigan #6301015759.
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