Run to the roar!
About ten years ago, in my supervisory group (Supervision is the professional support of an experienced therapist when working with a patient. ) I learned one rule of the real therapist: Run to the roar! — “Run to the roar!” Do you know what that means? Do you know the interpretation, free of any other interpretation?
There’s an old German saying, “He who licks the blood will not give up his prey.” It’s about our animal, unsocialized self. It lives. It roars. Whines. Howls. And it demands. Goes to its beastly call.
Go scare and conquer your own fear!
Run to the roar!
The lion roars — run to his roar and roar even harder.
Go toward your fear and scare your fear.
Walk toward your fear and take it by surprise.
Attack it.
Fearlessly.
Uncompromisingly.
Unconditionally.
Categorical.
Determined.
No chance for the enemy.
At full speed.
At full speed.
Attack.
Attack.
Attack.
Assault.
Onslaught.
Storm.
Hurricane.
Storm.
And never give up.
Never.
In shooting distance.
Resistance in therapy has different faces and masks. Sometimes we go off into aggression, sometimes, on the contrary, we become compliant and quiet.
I am very fond of describing what happens between the therapist and the patient, not only in the form of existing dialogues, but also with metaphors, images and stories. Here, for example, is one of them.
Fortress. And I cannot go near it. There is a ravine on all sides. Water. Out the windows, cannons. Arrows.
I hear a voice:
- Stay back!
I stand at shooting distance. Unarmed.
I raise both hands slowly, showing that there is nothing in them. I turn around just as slowly. And I repeat one thing like a mantra: “You can defend yourself and attack. But I am unarmed. I am not a threat to you.”
A shot back. Aimed always at the heart, to kill. For good. And a second. At once. With a check.
I stand. I don’t duck. I don’t bend over. I don’t get scared.
I’m making eye contact. In the scope.
The patient is always looking in the scope, and though he’s aiming at my heart, he’s looking at my eyes. He misses. He misses. He aims again. He shoots. Misfires again. Angry. Rebellious. Yelling. Stomps. Changing weapons.
Heavy artillery. I get rebukes thrown at me. I’m being hit with accusations. They question my ethics:
- After all, you’re only here because I pay you.
- I don’t deny it. Yes, that’s how it is. It’s a job. We have a contract. And I’m not going to unilaterally break it.
- You’re here for the money!
- Yeah. That’s right. I’m here for the money. Let me work it off.
There’s another bang. Nearby shells explode. The patient looks through the scope. The smoke all around reduces visibility. The fog isn’t lifting, the ground hasn’t settled yet.
- Am I hit? Are you dead?
- No. I’m here. Still standing unarmed.
- Go away.
- No.
- Why not?
- Because through me, you learn how to handle yourself. Not to leave yourself standing alone in the rain in the cold outside.
- Go away. I don’t believe you.
- I don’t need your faith. I have faith that I won’t leave. That’s enough.
- You piss me off.
- I believe that too. It pisses you off that I’m different with you than you are with yourself.
- I will shoot!
- I know you will. I’m not afraid. Take the shot. Your sights are off.
- How do you know?
- You shoot me in the heart, you shoot me in yours. Let me go inside the fortress.
- I crossed the bridge. Get in.
- No. You’ve got mines all over the bridge. We’ll both explode.
- I don’t want to die here with you. Not with you.
- Yeah, it’s weird to die and be buried with the enemy in the same grave.
- Why are you here?
- I’m just doing my job.
- So it’s all about the money?
- Yeah. Exclusively. You pay. I do my job. And I walk away.
Nobody owes anybody anything. And no one will ever know that you let me into the fortress through the back door.
- Do you promise to leave?
- I promise to leave. I have a life.
- But it will hurt me.
- If you don’t let me in, yes, it will hurt that I missed my only chance.
- Is he the only one?
- If I’m here, he’s the last.
- And then what?
- You lure me into your looking glass. I’ll go in. You’ll lead me through labyrinths where there’s no way in or out.
- And that’s it?
- Yes.
- What do I need you for, then?
- I will invite you onto the walls of this looking glass, like the walls of a labyrinth. And together we will see how you built it, from whom you got the tradition to build it this way, why there are crooked mirrors everywhere, and why you should be there.
- I don’t want to see it.
- I do. But you don’t have a choice. You don’t see yourself. And you don’t invite anyone in. You lure, the man trusts, you deceive him. He gets disappointed and disappears in you. He loses himself. And you lose interest.
- I hate you.
- …disappears into your labyrinth. And you feel betrayed all over again. You’ve been abandoned again.
- Betrayed.
- Yes. You just didn’t let me in. You showed me the butcher shop window. And this is the torture room.
- Why are they all leaving?
- Because you’re afraid of being seen from behind. From above. In volume. IN 3D. You yourself are as flat as a target. What are they to interact with? Who do they have to relate to?
- Is that why I defend myself?
- That’s why you attack.
- Why don’t you leave?
- I already see you healthy. Whole. Deep. Voluminous. And I have a chance. And even if it’s just one chance, I’ll take it. Sometimes one chance is enough.
