CASE STUDY - CLIENT JANE

Schizoid Phenomena in a Healthy Neurotic

- Towards a Synthesis of the Analytic and Humanistic Modes

? . September 1990

.

Case Study ? Client Jane

Schizoid Phenomena in a Healthy Neurotic

? Towards a Synthesis of the Analytic and the Humanistic modes.

1 In his article "Psychosynthesis, Psychoanalysis, and the Emerging Developmental Perspective in Psychotherapy", Will Friedman, commenting on the different but equally effective strengths of the analytic and the humanistic approaches to therapy for neurotic clients, states, "In my opinion a hybrid of the two approaches is more effective than either is alone,? and also, earlier in the article, "I believe that the psychoanalytic developmental perspective has great explanatory power and clinical usefulness and suggest that psychosynthesis incorporate it...? His model, however, for this incorporation appears as a linear one, with analytic theory valuable particularly when dealing with clients at the borderline, narcissistic end of the spectrum. I am presenting this case as an example of the value of using analytic ego-structure theory with integrative techniques when working with a "healthy neurotic? client.

2 The Client

Jane is a small, slender young woman, quite lively and articulate. At the time of our first meeting, she was 26 and had been married to Peter for seven years. They have no children. Jane works as a primary school teacher. At that time Peter, a recovering alcoholic, had been sober for some time, and Jane had been attending AL-ANON meetings for several years, and more recently some ACOA meetings. Both sets of parents are alive, and Jane has one sibling three years younger. Jane decided on fortnightly sessions for financial and distance reasons, not lack of commitment.

3 Presenting Issue

3.1 Two months before her initial interview Jane, looking at her past in more depth following the stimulus of the ACOA meetings, had in conversation with her father reconnected to a distressing incident. He had reminded her of how, when she was 12, her mother had left them and he had asked Jane to come with him to meet her in a nearby town and persuade her to return. Jane repeated her father's words, "I thought we had lost her that day,? and "I was shaking like a leaf when I asked you to come,? and Jane asked now"And what was I feeling?"

3.2 This information about an incident that she had forgotten, and that still seemed "like a dream? produced a powerful emotional reaction in Jane. She knew she was angry, and with her father, but could only experience upset. The ACOA meetings had given her the concept "disfunctional family? and although her parents were not alcoholics, she felt the label fitted her experience and that there was much denial about it inside her. She felt she could not cope with the disturbing feelings that had been evoked, and knew that her childhood, of which she had few clear memories, needed "sorting out".

3.3 "I wonder if I am getting to rock bottom. All the strategies I used to avoid looking at it are not useful any more, so it's getting more and more painful to live with.? "I would like to have serenity and I would like to have more faith."

4 Background

4.1 This section contains the information that emerged during the initial interview that is relevant to the theme of this case-study.

Jane had been skinny as a child, a poor eater. She also described herself as having been sensitive, "Dad only had to raise his voice and I would cry,? and also as a sulky child who would take refuge in her room, her "sanctuary". Even as a child she remembered being obsessed by her possessions. Her collection of little ornaments had to be positioned "just so", and she could recollect getting into a rage with her mother for disarranging them while dusting. Jane was not close to her mother, and had spent a lot of time trying to be as unlike her as possible. Her mother was not happy in her marriage, and had various men friends because she was lonely but not, Jane thought, any sexual relationships.

4.2 The one vivid early childhood memory that surfaced in the interviewwas of an occasion when D, a man friend of her mother's, came to lunch and D's wife burst in upon them and shouted at her mother. Jane was six at the time and remembers being "stunned". Later a relative told Jane's father about the incident. Jane now knows that both her parents were very upset by this and were on sleeping pills for months afterwards. Jane's father has told her that she changed after this incident, as though she grew up overnight, becoming very mature for a child.

4.3 Her father often confided in Jane, turning to her for support long before the particular example described in para. 3.2. He explicitly told her that she was more intelligent than her mother and would understand. Jane described him as a man much involved on committees and in activities outside the home ? helping everyone but not his family.

4.4 Jane and Peter first met while both were at school. They dabbled with drugs and drinking, and Jane's father disapproved of the relationship, and particularly when Jane opted for marriage instead of University. Soon after their marriage, Jane and Peter went to live abroad for a while, and Jane quarrelled with Peter over his drinking and experienced much loneliness as she did not really relate to other people.

4.5 Eventually when they returned to this country, Jane obtained a place at University, became pregnant, and as Peter was rejecting of the idea of a baby, had an abortion. Jane was supporting Peter financially much of the time, that meant also supporting his drinking. She often felt emotionally shut out by him and had brief affairs from time to time. When the situation became intolerable, she contacted AL-ANON. For a few months she separated from Peter. Her parents were supportive at that time, and she recollected that although she was frightened of men, her social life blossomed and she felt self-sufficient though also guilty.

4.6 Having obtained her degree and completed her teacher training course, Jane made the decision to obtain a teaching post in London in order to give Peter a better chance, though she was very frightened of the move. She experienced considerable anger when Peter obtained a job well below his capabilities, but by the time she came to me was beginning to accept that he might need to do this to remain sober.

5 Self-knowledge

5.1 Jane's attendance at the AL-ANON meetings, and her reading, had already given her considerable self-awareness, including the recognition that she tended to get over-involved in playing around with concepts, and in rationalisation. She expressed the wish that I would help her to stop this.

5.2 Among her recent self-discoveries was the understanding that she is repeating some of her mother's patterns in her relationship with Peter, that she refuses sex to punish him for example. She saw her mother as very angry and as a result as having switched off, and in her turn how when Peter drank, the barriers came crashing down. Jane commented that her own anger "came out sideways", that she was usually  BOOKMARK  very tense, for example she had been "a manic driver? until recently, and was very controlling, particularly in the classroom, although she would have liked to give the children more autonomy. In relation to Peter she commented, "When we were first married I had him really well trained ? he would give me lots of love and security ? lots of cuddling and silly baby-talk.? More recently she had been afraid to bring up with him matters that angered her in case he could not cope.

5.3 Jane was aware of her tendency to isolate herself. Only recently had she discovered that friendship could be wonderful. This had resulted from making contacts with a couple in the same street, but even so she was only willing to showpositive aspects of herself, and "put on an act". She recognised that sometimes she made problems by always seeing the negative side. She described herself as impatient, a perfectionist, obsessed with material things. "I would like to be more spiritual? but, "I think I feel very angry with God.? This relates to her childhood. "How could you dump a little girl in a situation like that? I can't forgive God for that."

5.4 Exploring her emotions as experienced in the session, Jane expressed a feeling of being burdened, and of shame resulting from having actually spoken out about some of her issues.

The word "abandonment? came up during her description of an AL-ANON meeting. The word "chills her through".

?6 Direction of the Work

6.1 Initially I recognised Jane as a mind-identified "father's daughter", her feelings being denied and, in some unidentified way, her body also. In her relationship with Peter, I saw her as principally in the victim mode with her love up front and power controlling.

6.2 With a negative mother and, although regarded as the more positive, an essentially negative father, who had pressurised her towards achievement and used her as an emotional support, Jane had received little affirmation as a child and so suffered from a seriously damaged self-image, full of self-hate. She had carried the burden of responsibility for holding the family together ? of parenting her parents.

6.3 I did not at that time recognise as such the schizoid elements in the material presented, or the possibility of a history of abuse.

6.4 I saw the direction of our work as being the facilitating of Jane's process of grieving for her lost childhood and of building self-esteem and an acceptance of herself as who she truly is.

7 First Series

7.1 Our first series of six sessions brought to light, and gave Jane space to express, much information about her relationships, with Peter, with her parents, with her job, with other people and with her feelings of anger and all-pervasive fear. The visualisations that were the central feature of our work, and that in many cases stimulated the flowof story-telling, at the time felt directed and purposeful but in retrospect seem unfocused. The indications of the work that needed to be done were visible, but went unrecognised. For this reason I have included quite detailed descriptions of this work.

7.2 Jane's pattern of relating to Peter involved feelings of resentment and anger towards him, judging him as a failure and this produced behaviour that she characterised as "being horrible to him, nagging and whingeing", and this would be followed by a switch to clinging love, wanting to "stay safe in his arms.? First he was the enemy, and then they were together in the face of an enemy "out there". She experienced much guilt in the relationship and feelings of being trapped, but also at times expressed fears around losing him.

7.3 Jane put very clearly at one point the issue at the centre of her relationship with her father when she stated that, when they were in contact by phone she often felt as if she were the mother talking to a little boy. She had recognised that she protected both her parents from adverse realities, and recounted a recent incident when, having told them of the financial difficulties that she and Peter were facing, she received a manipulative response that seemed to blame her for speaking the truth. Her parents, she knew, wanted her to succeed, and appeared to be supportive, as with the gift of a car, but in reality were demanding and controlling. Her father, in particular, in unloading all his fears and worries onto her, had given her a pervasive sense of incompetence. She expressed her confusion over the relationship when she talked of their loving her, but not as she wanted to be loved and of the hopes with which she visited home and the emptiness of the actual experience. One significant comment was to the effect that she did not feel comfortable when her father hugged her ? "it felt alien.? Jane's parents are born-again fundamentalist Christians so that Jane's relationship to God and her spirituality as expressed in our sessions were very bound up with parental conflict.

7.4 Another major theme recurring through the sessions was Jane's relationship to her job, her perfectionism, the stresses of preparing "adequately? for classes, the fear of chaos in the classroom, her too high expectations of the children, her feelings that she "was not a real teacher."

Jane described in the sessions her feelings of sadness, guilt and principally anger, which she judged, and fear ? of inadequacy, of loss of security, of things falling apart ? a generally fearful state. As the sessions progressed and she experienced some of these feelings in our work she began to bring reports of incidents when she had managed these feelings a little more successfully in her daily life.

7.5 For our second meeting, Jane arrived very in touch with the sense of carrying a heavy burden, "a weight pressing down on my shoulders", brought on by the stressful task of writing autobiographical notes for me. Visualising the burden, a sack that she wanted "untied and emptied", put her in touch with the judging part of herself that criticised her for being frightened to look further and from that position she could image her frightened voice in terms of a photograph of herself aged 3. In describing this image she stated "She is frozen? and "she hasn't got a voice.? She also felt sad because she had not treated the child properly. Having as the child, asked for acceptance and respect, Jane could feel the child's pain for all that she did not understand and could not cope with and promised to start looking after her. However, though she and the child held out their arms to each other, "I can't reach her."

7.6 Among the memories which this piece of work brought up was one of being given a red rose bush by her father when she was little to plant in her own special patch ? which she tended as enthusiastically as her father did the rest of the garden, and of how later her father carelessly built a bonfire too near her rose and scorched it. On other occasions her father removed her carefully grown flowers and replanted them at the front, in his area.

7.7 In the next session, having failed to see an image of her fear, and so experienced the voice that said inside her, "You should be doing better, that's not good enough,? she had her first interaction with the Judge, the "Judge who is always there and who the child doesn't know howto defend itself against.? As first visualised it sat very straight and rigid on a marble throne dressed in black, but when she had expressed some of her fear of it and her wish that it should ease up a bit, she saw it as herself but pale and tall. Further dialogue made it, so it seemed, more fearful. Jane experienced feelings of smallness, badness and inadequacy. This was a very difficult piece of work for her, but not, she said, as earth shattering as she expected.

7.8 In the following session issues of self  BOOKMARK  worth came to the fore and in a disidentification and "who am I? exercise Jane obtained an outer image of a white building on the edge of a dark forest, which brought frustration and fear, and a second inner image of a grassy enclosed dell with flowers, a place for her to be at peace. All week she had longed for peace, and she saw that she resisted experiencing it in her life.

7.9 The theme of self worth was continued in the next session through a discussion of two aspects of herself that Jane named as Self and Mask. Self was the spontaneous child full of wants and needs who had had affairs during Peter's drinking days ? Jane did not like that facet of her ? but Self also enjoyed being frivolous. Mask did her duty and acted responsibly.

7.10 With a visit home looming as we reached the end of our first series Jane was led through an exploration of the reality of such visits ? feelings of oppression and disappointment ? contrasted with the illusion ? family togetherness ? to the realisation that to live the illusion she excluded herself. Imaging her anger thus evoked in waves crashing on a dark shore against a red sky, Jane connected to a memory of following a friend's advice to find a lonely spot in a field and scream her anger and so was enabled to scream, though only internally. The release of energy moved her imaginally to a field where she stood clasping a tree and feeling its strength. She recollected that it was in that field after screaming that she had first felt the need of a guide and following that hint I took her up the mountain to meet her wise person. She asked him, "How can I trust you?? and he replied, "I will take care of you,? and handed her a very beautiful red rose.

7.11 After the visualisation, Jane connected the red rose to love, and also to the damaged rose bush of her memory, but further discussion revealed that Jane felt unworthy of the love ? it had been the child that she had visualised going forward to meet the wise man and receive the rose. Jane was now attending church and linked the feelings aroused by the images to her experience when receiving communion ? the same experience of unworthiness. Nevertheless she felt somewhat strengthened by the visualisation.

7.12 In the final and review session of this series, Jane was able to report that the visit home had been less oppressive. She had been able to use the image of the rose, and of the wise man and his promise to strengthen herself. She had "held together.? The rose she had realised also held the meaning "peace.? But subsequent events had provided an opening for the Judge, and she came to the session with a number of physical symptoms ? shoulder and head aches, tension and stomach ache. These imaged as a trap door of black wood ? shut ? that she was afraid to open even though to do so might lead to peace. Her fear in turn appeared as a black figure but this she was able to speak to and send away. Then, feeling like a lost little girl, she could express her wants, "love and security? and this caused the white figure, the wise person to materialise. Although Jane wanted to go to him, it was again the child who ran forward to throw her arms round him. When I suggested it, for a split second Jane was able to be the little girl with the wise person's hand on her shoulder. "It was like a brilliant light,? but then again she was the observer looking on who could only express her gladness that the child was alright before the image disappeared.

7.13 In the review, Jane felt she had gained some self-acceptance and wanted to dig deeper, to take off another layer, to look at the trap "soon", but "not now". She recognised that the Judge came in whenever she did something for herself. She judged herself as selfish, but also talked of her knowledge that God cared for her however selfish and negative she might be.

8 Second Series

8.1 The second series began with some powerful visualisations and dream work involving the Judge and the Rose, and these allowed insights to surface that Jane experienced as dramatic. They also released a flood of memories relating in particular to anger and as the series progressed the work developed into a rehearsal of these memories allowing an understanding of the way her feelings had been denied and devalued throughout her childhood and leading to the expression of her anger towards her father. By the end of the series Jane had recognised her sense of guilt and responsibility for the rows between her parents, and how they pulled her, each into alliances against the other.

8.2 We worked specifically on Jane's "No? and she became more assertive in daily life, less anxious in her job, more able to share thoughts and feelings with Peter, and more at ease with the ebb and flow of her emotions. The stream of memories continued between sessions so that Jane could understand and experience the process as a bringing up, grieving, accepting and letting go. In between were patches of anxiety about whether what she was doing was "right", but she was learning to trust herself.

8.3 In the first session of this series Jane brought, in a rush of anxiety driven verbosity, the Justifier ? an aspect of the child that continually babbled explanations for her actions to the Judge. I attempted to work with this in sub-personality style, but no dialogue could be developed. The sight of the Judge brought immediate tears and Jane could only hold identification with the Judge for a split second, experiencing as she did so a stern strength. From the third place Jane could see the Judge and the child and no link between them, she herself feeling detached, "as if I'm not here,? on the outside.

8.4 Working on the "inside? "outside? issue ? frighteningly emotional or safely frustrating, Jane connected to a recent dream in which the Rose had figured. I gave this dream in full as it seems to me now an interesting example of a type I categorise as a life-story, or more accurately perhaps "psyche-history? dream.

8.5 The dream sequence opened with Jane walking by the sea shore, finding it very pleasant to look at the water, but suddenly being overcome by a feeling that she was being chased and must get away. The scene changed to a cosy sitting room with a fireplace but with several gangsters seated on the sofas. Jane knewshe had to convince these men with a plausible lie. In the dream she felt nervous but was surprised to find how successfully she talked her way through it. At the next scene change Jane was in an empty store where in the background stood a man, the image of one of those with whom she had had an affair, and she knew he was there with an ulterior motive. Trying to look nonchalantly at the goods on sale ? out of date Christmas calendars and other left overs she spotted a way of escape and bolting down a steep ladder found herself in a doorless cellar whose white walls were covered with posters. This was a safe place where she could enjoy looking at the pictures but then she saw that on one poster was depicted the Rose. She was stunned ? "like an electric shock? and woke up. At the time I did not interpret the dream through even then I could see the movement from B.P.M.1 through B.P.M.3 and back into B.P.M.2, I took Jane through the experience and having expressed her pleasure at seeing the Rose, she was able to take it into her hand and holding it was enveloped in a ball of light, and an experience of well-being and great peace ? an experience of being inside.

8.6 In Jungian terms this dream had indicated the direction the work should take and the exercise had taken Jane into a deeper B.P.M.2 experience of love. She came to the next session deeply in the victim mode, feeling pressed in upon by friends and unable to make choices, but also very happy with the insights that came around her self-pitying attitude and able to pray, to be in relationship with God. Her dreams by contrast were full of angry scenes in which she shouted and swore at people. She felt the trap was opening.

8.7 We had one further episode with the Judge in this series and this time a little dialogue developed. The Judge wanted the child to need and value him, the child  BOOKMARK  wanted space. When the Judge said, "I feel benevolent towards you,? the child moved close until the image disappeared. Nevertheless, this piece of work felt inconclusive and unsatisfactory and no significant progress seemed to have occurred in relation to the basic effects of the Judge in Jane.

8.8 In the review Jane articulated her shock and horror at the realisation of how dependent she still was on her parents, and the power they had over her. She knewher fears, anxieties, and guilts kept her painfully lonely and safe, cut off from people "behind a glass screen.? The issue that came up for future work was her own inner power and her ability to make choices and decisions, but Jane expressed anxiety that this identification of a specific issue might alter the style of our work. She expressed the strong wish that the process of re-telling and giving shape to her memories and current experiences should continue. She had recognised and commented before upon the fact that our way of working had altered since the early sessions.

9 Third and fourth sessions

9.1 By this stage of our work the possibility that Jane had been sexually abused in some way by her father had become an hypothesis that I allowed space internally and the stream of memories that Jane was bringing was becoming more focused in direction and pace. One theme was anger, Jane becoming conscious of her anger as an absence, something greatly feared for its uncontrollable and destructive power, and feared also as concealed in her father. She worked several times at expressing anger towards her father, and towards God, demanding the respect she needed instead of the approval she had previously sought. She experienced at times great vulnerability and feelings of "being exposed", with associated fears of annihilation. Simultaneously through the series she was reporting from her daily life a greater ability to take risks and be herself. For example, driving a long distance to a new place alone, expressing her negative feelings in a meeting and crying in front of her Deputy Head as she admitted to being in difficulties and in counselling. Receiving positive feedback from others on these occasions strengthened her and she was also learning to manage her feelings productively, using the methods I was suggesting, so that she was less a victim to them.

9.2 Jane's relationship with God, experience of a loving Providence, and issues connected with the church she now attended began to feature regularly in our sessions, in parallel with memories and incidents that revealed more and more clearly the likelihood of early abuse. This process was not deflected by the reviewsession and proceeded with gathering momentum to the point in the third session of the fourth series when she was able to speak the words, "I was abused.? At the next session she chose to suspend the work until the new year, some three months.

9.3 During this period there was only one confrontation with the image of the Judge when she spoke to it in the same terms as she had previously spoken to her father and to God, but with more power and more directly, saying, "My needs do matter.? On this occasion, the Judge softened and said he would try to understand small Jane.

9.4 The only major "fantasy? visualisation came early in the series and emerged from a descriptive remark made by Jane to the effect that she felt as if she were balanced on stepping stones in the middle of a river. In imaging this she saw herself two thirds of the way across towards a sunny, colourful, flowery bank. She could not go forward and to look back was very painful. Behind her the other bank was a dark, bleak wasteland. She could see there only a small white doll sitting at the base of a lone dead tree. She engaged in relating to the doll with great difficulty, but eventually this brought the doll forward to cross the stepping stones towards her and as she embraced it, it became a real child. They crossed to the flowery bank hand in hand. But this piece of work did not feel actual, and afterwards Jane said that she felt safe for only a moment, and in reality was all the while distant from the child. She was willing to look at it and try to understand. She was not willing to take responsibility for the Child.

9.5 Early on in this part of our work, Jane took the significant step of asking her mother about the incident  described in para. 2.1. Her mother's version was quite different from her father's. She stated that she had never threatened to leave home, and that he had over-reacted to a visit she made, and lied about, to a man friend. Her mother described to Jane the journey back from the nearby town with her in the back and the two adults quarrelling in the front, but claimed she could not remember what was said. Nor could she answer Jane's questions about herself, "Was I crying? What did I feel?? but talked only of her own disappointing sexual relations in her marriage.

9.6 This was a major turning point for Jane. It was a revelation to find how deeply she had taken on responsibility for her parents, and the conflict in her because of their conflicting needs. She talked of secrets and their destructive power ? if she told Peter of her past affairs it would destroy him, if she knew what was said in the car it could destroy her parents. She still had no memories of the occasion and still had a great desire to know exactly. In discussion she came to see how she used this missing knowledge. If she knew she would be free to get on with her life, and that would be to feel lonely, frightened and exposed. Not knowing was an available excuse to remain dependent, a powerless child. She saw that like her mother she avoided taking responsibility for her own life, and seeing this she felt "not ashamed, but humbled.? She did not have to judge herself.

9.7 Further evidence pointing towards early abuse included an incident when the teenager Jane was stranded one evening in London and unable to extricate herself from the helpful assistance of a strange man for fear of hurting his feelings, and so ended up in a hotel room with him. She was able to hold him off, however, and the incident resolved itself with him masturbating on the bed beside her.

9.8 It gave Jane great relief when she could express her fears and fantasies about sex and her body that had resulted from her practice of masturbating as a child and one painful memory was of her father's angry and shaming attitude when he discovered her in this practice at the age of five or six. Another powerful memory was of the quarrels between her parents about her hair, and how one day while her mother was out, her father sat her on a stool and cut off all her long, blond hair. "I had felt like a pretty little girl and now I was like a boy."

9.9 Jane came to realise how pressured and overwhelmed she had felt by her father's sexual feelings towards her, his fear of his own feelings, and his projection of the responsibility for them onto Jane. She came to the penultimate session in a state of shock, having read in a book that for a father to talk inappropriately to his daughter was a form of sexual abuse. Her father had spoken to her when she was a child about his sexual relationships with her mother (she had said to her father's image in a previous session that she could not handle the things he told her). When Jane, at my suggestion, tried out the words, "I was sexually abused,? they released great pain. Nevertheless, when Jane suspended the sessions she felt that the abuse had not extended to actual physical activity.

9.10 During this year of work, Jane was advancing her self-development through her attendance at AL-ANON meetings and her reading of spiritual and other books. She brought the insights she gained, and the feelings and issues raised in this way into our sessions. It was her own decision to keep a journal, and, looking back, I can see that the will-type homework I sometimes gave her was of minor significance in comparison with the use she was able to make for herself of the images and techniques from the sessions. A card sent at Christmas showed that she was experiencing well-being and freedom, and informed me of the couple's decision to sell up and spend a year going round  BOOKMARK  the world at the end of the academic year.

10 The New Focus

10.1 For the first two sessions after the break, I was working out of a general hypothesis to the effect that Jane needed to accept and own her power, and so separate from her parents and also that she needed to discover and face the truth about the early sexual abuse by her father.

10.2 To the first of these sessions, Jane came holding much anger, but all transferred to Peter's parents. From our last session to the Christmas break she had felt fine, and could see ways in which she had grown, but the counselling had receded into the background and the conclusions reached about her father's incestuous feelings towards her nowseemed remote and fantastic. She had ceased to attend Church or read spiritual books.

10.3 The days before the couple left for their Christmas visit to their parents, Jane had a crying fit, which she said she did not understand, although she was clear that she did not want to make the visit. However, she reported that the time with her parents had been good, it had "restored the balance", and she could see they did love her in many ways. Notwithstanding all this, she commented again on her discomfort when her father patted her bottom. The behaviour of Peter's parents in contrast had aroused great anger.

10.4 The period following this visit was a time of "blankness? for Jane. She was aware of having pushed the child away, of eating and spending money for comfort, and of persecuting herself with judgmental self-talk.

10.5 We worked with the image of the fierce pain in her shoulder ? a hand that gripped and wanted to destroy her. Identifying with it for a split second, she felt a great surge of angry power, and saw the tiny self the hand would crush if allowed. She wanted liberty from the grip of anger which could kill ? but if the hand let go she would be lost. At the end of this session, she mentioned that Peter, as a result of his counselling, which had introduced him to Berne's "The Games People Play", had decided that he could have a drink when he chose. Jane was very frightened of where this might lead, but could hear a small voice inside that said, "I could go round the world without him."

10.6 This issue surfaced again in the following session, and led to some work with two much more clearly defined parts of Jane. The first was the Questor ? a small, sturdy figure of a Viking, looking resolute and determined. His opponent was the Housewife, who wanted everything to be secure, ordered and tidy. She sawthe child-sized Viking as both ridiculous and frightening, and felt both irritated by it and jealous of it. Dialogue brought a rapprochement between them, and Jane experienced relief in tears ? the Questor in her would not die.

10.7 Jane at first denied any memories of having behaved adventurously as a child, but probing produced evidence to the contrary, and also of the negative adult response such activity provoked. Early manifestations of the Housewife were also revealed in stories of the child Jane bossing smaller playmates.

10.8 The most significant memory thrown up was of an occasion when Jane, at age around six, went exploring on the beach, away from her parents, and was molested by a man. "He put my hand down his trousers, and his hands down my knickers.? Little Jane did not know how to react to this, but when she told her parents what had happened, they told her not to do it again. Jane had checked with her parents about this memory a couple of years before, and they had confirmed the story, including their own reaction, and revealed also that Jane's father had been molested by a soldier when he was little, and had been taken to the army camp to identify the man.

10.9 This memory took Jane into her difficulties around love and sex, and her reluctance to reveal her true self for fear of condemnation as being "bad". It also took us to her fear of her power as something not feminine, her parents possessiveness, and their rejection of the Questor in her.

10.10 The third session of our resumed work clarified and made visible the real nature of the internal condition that was obstructing Jane's development. Jane arrived for the session feeling very insecure and in need of reassurance. Since our last meeting, she had experienced a strong sense of isolation and was finding even her usually supportive AL-ANON meetings hard to cope with. Even Peter's presence had become oppressive and she was feeling very judged in her work and competence by the student teacher allocated to her care, hating her, though all the while knowing these were her own self-judgements she was projecting. She had some instances of successfully meeting her own needs to report ? in particular, she had finally resorted to the teddy bear she still possessed, though the argument with the Judge before she did so had been a hard one. Peter's revelation about having actually had a drink had left her numb, and although they had been able to have an adult conversation about it, she was very much in touch with her fear.

10.11 Evoking first this frightened voice that always expects the worst to happen produced two new images ? the six year old child, and a woman old before her time. In the session I reacted to these with the subpersonality model, and only later listening to the tape (Transcript TA) did I recognise what had become visible ? a schizoid ego split originating in the incident when Jane was six described in para. 4.2. From that session, I directed my energies to the task of facilitating the healing of this split through the use of these two images, the draining of energy from the antilibidinal ego as represented by the Judge, and so opening the way for Jane's present persona to re-establish links with her true self.

11 Theoretical Basis for the Work

11.1 The theoretical model on which the above diagnosis was based grew from a combination of three sources. The principal one was Guntrip's "Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self.? Allied to this was some knowledge of Multiple Personality Disorders principally gleaned from "Sybil", by Flora Rheta Schreiber, and the experience of internal re-connection that happened spontaneously in my own psyche through 1988/89.

11.2 I will re-capitulate Guntrip's basic description of the configuration within the psyche that results from the experiencing by an infant of a severely negative environment in the first months of life. This consists firstly of what he terms the central ego, a much depleted portion of the psyche that remains in conscious contact with the external world. The principal portion of the ego that withdraws from the negative environment into an internal world, still of bad object relations is split again into libidinal ego and antilibidinal ego, and the former, under the persecution of the latter, then splits again so that a depleted libidinal ego is left in this fantasy world, while the "true heart of the self", or regressed ego withdraws into the deep unconscious into a fantasy recreation of the womb, there to await the possibility of rebirth. The configuration is a fourfold one. Guntrip gives examples of dreams that show two similar figures, but one appearing depleted in comparison with the other that can be interpreted as images of libidinal and antilibidinal egos. This can be compared with Schreiber's description of the depleted personality of "Sybil", the central ego from which spontaneous life energy had been withdrawn into her various autonomous personalities.

11.3 Guntrip's examples allowed me to recognise the applicability of this model to a process of reconciliation that happened within one of my principal fantasy worlds over the period of a year. I was already familiar with the idea of myself as a schizoid personality, and had been making use of my many conscious fantasy worlds as aids to self-analysis. I was also aware of the self-healing process that was at work in them, but had previously had no model with which to understand the process I shall now  BOOKMARK  briefly describe.

11.4 The fantasy world involved was based, though without historical accuracy, on Ancient Athens and the wars with Sparta. The principal figures involved were "the Commander", and "the General". This latter figure had an enervated, effete appearance, and was frequently visualised reclining in a state of wounded exhaustion, while "the Commander? presented an appearance of crude health and vigour. The reconciliation between these two happened in three stages, separated by several months, which I categorised at the time as:

1) Forgiveness ? by the Commander of the General.
2) Communication leading to a mutual declaration of love.
3) Confession ? by the General to the Commander of guilt for neglect, abandonment, denigration, and unwitting collusion with persecuting forces.

I knew at the time that those two were not sub-personalities or ego-states, that is to say, those two models did not "fit? the experience, which seemed to happen at a much deeper level and actually physically felt like a split closing up deep within the chest cavity.

11.5 I could relate this internal experience to an unexpected and startling increase in competence in the external world that I found I had acquired, but had no understanding of what had happened. For the two parts that had come together, I tried out the labels "the Spirit and the Flesh", a reasonable fit, "the Mind and the Body", much too general, and "the Educated and the Uneducated", accurate but not sufficient. When I was able to place the educated General as the depleted Central Ego, and the Uneducated Commander ? a peasant who came up through the ranks and refused to learn to read ? as the Libidinal Ego, it became clear that a split had occurred within me at the age of 8? under the extreme pressure to learn to read that I experienced at that age. My memories of that time showme two separate and discontinuous pictures, one of a child struggling with "the cat sat on the mat", while her younger sister could already read fluently, and the child who suddenly found that teacher's commendations, stars and A++'s, with which parental approval could be won, were showering on her quite inexplicably. The recent fourfold configuration I could then identify as the Central Ego, the persona currently in training, the libidinal ego ? the General, the regressed ego ? the Commander and the antilibidinal forces represented by a much less clearly defined group of traitors and oligarchs led by the General's nameless brother.

11.6 This insight led to an internal "domino? effect as I traced the history of the General's later retreat from the external world as a result of pressure in my teenage years, and a host of memories fell into place in a meaningful pattern. Memories of my struggle to survive at University without the General, and the difficulties of my early working life operating as a facade without access to my academic intellect, carried by the General, or my experiential knowledge, carried by the Commander. I could trace the slow growth of a more effective persona and identify occasions when one or other of the two parts made an appearance in the external world. The relevance of the information on Multiple Personality Disorder became apparent as other ego fragments from earlier splits re-integrated in a variety of ways. Though clearly not as autonomous as Sybil's various personalities, that model made more sense of the processes of maturing, regressing, and changing sex exhibited by these fragments.

11.7 The basic premise therefore of my work with Jane from this point was that an early inadequacy in the mothering she had received had set up a schizoid weakness in her psyche which, as a result of further pressure from sexual abuse finally led to a major split along the same lines at age 6. The two parts resulting from this split I considered to be semi-autonomous ego fragments ? SAEFs ? and that the relationship between these two parts could be considered as analogous to that between the two parts of a broken bone, so that what was required was a healing of the break and not a merging and transformation. I also held the hypothesis that the way to bring about this healing was to proceed with the two images as though reconciling two people, one of whom had abandoned and betrayed the other. The child was the abandoned SAEF, the woman old before her time the adapted SAEF.

12 Healing the Split

4th Session, 5th Series to 4th Session, 6th Series.

The task as I saw it at this point was to establish firmly the internal reality of the two images and to encourage communication between them until effective avowals of guilt and forgiveness could be exchanged. I attach transcripts taken from all the above sessions (TB ? TH) as evidence of the work. I was only, as it were, half a step ahead of my client in my own process throughout this period. Nevertheless, my experience gave me a confidence in the eventual outcome that I think communicated itself to my client and assisted her to tolerate the amount of pain that was released in the sessions. Guntrip's model, together with his detailed descriptions of case evidence provided a sure guide for my own understanding and response to the material that Jane brought to the sessions. It enabled me to contain and withstand the confusion and contradictions of the sessions that I describe in detail below.

12.1 I have not found as yet in my limited reading a terminology that fits my subject matter. In the following description and discussion, therefore, I shall use, in addition to the term "adapted SAEF? and "abandoned SAEF", the label "containing ego? in place of Guntrip's and Fairburn's term "central ego? for the Jane who observes all the internal images, and the label "present persona? for the personality of this containing ego that can also appear as an image interacting with the SAEFs.

A synopsis of the work with the two SAEFs, the Judge, and an earlier ego state/regressed ego, the four year old child is given first.

12.2 Third Session of the Sixth Series ? Transcript A

Identification of the two SAEFs and separate interaction of each with the present persona. A spontaneous apology from the present persona to the adapted SAEF. This followed by an interaction between the two images concluding with an instruction from the containing ego to the effect that the SAEFs should "talk? to each other.

12.3 4th Session of the Fifth Series ? Transcript B

An interaction between the two SAEFs during which Jane's consciousness was identified with the abandoned SAEF ? the Child, and comfort was given spontaneously by the adapted SAEF to the Child and gratitude expressed in return.

12.4 Fifth Session of the Fifth Series ? Transcript C

A slight interaction between the containing ego and each SAEF and also between the two SAEFs carried out by Jane as her homework, in which the anger of the abandoned towards the adapted SAEF was revealed. In the session a long interaction, initiated by myself, and in which Jane was identified with the adapted SAEF, until the close approach of the Child caused her to shift consciousness to the containing ego. In the last part of the process the containing ego was drawn towards but resisted joining the two SAEFs, who were together but not in accord.

12.5 Review Session ? Transcript D

The review session. The SAEFs were talked about, but not visualised. In accordance with the route my own process had taken, I made a decision to leave the conscious use of those images for the time being and follow the shift indicated in the session towards explicit consideration of  BOOKMARK  Jane's needs.

12.6 First Session of the Sixth Series ? Transcript E

As expected this shift in direction activated the antilibidinal forces represented by the Judge. Focusing attention on that which was opposed by the antilibidinal ego evoked for the first time the four year old Child. This could be considered as the regressed ego in the earlier fourfold configuration when Jane was seven and the adapted SAEF first came into being as the central ego. Interaction between the present persona and the regressed ego led to a declaration of love by the former. This piece of work was preceded early in the session by an interaction between a Child and the Present Persona with Jane's consciousness identified with the Child. See para. 13.5.

12.7 Second Session of the Sixth Series ? Transcript F

In this session focusing attention on that which the Judge sought to suppress evoked the two SAEF images. A long interaction, with Jane's consciousness identified with the adapted SAEF led to first a spontaneous apology to the Child that did not take effect, and then a second interpreted apology that produced connection.

12.8 Third Session of the Sixth Series ? Transcript G

The present persona in this episode called the regressed ego out of the unconscious. There was another declaration of love. Following insistent requests from Jane for an understanding of the process, I related the two images of the SAEFs to the incident described in para. 4.2, using the metaphor of the broken bone. This brought fresh insight to Jane and more pain was released as the memory was integrated.

12.9 Fourth Session of the Sixth Series ? Transcript H

This time focusing away from the antilibidinal force evoked the regressed ego in what seemed to be close association with the present persona. Interaction between the two strengthened the connection, produced another declaration of love and a demonstration of unity in the face of the antilibidinal ego.

13 The Sessional Context for the Healing Process

13.1 The structure of our session did not change with the newdirection. Each one began with space for Jane to talk through all the significant incidents and emotions of the preceding two weeks. So for the fourth session of the fifth series, Jane began by talking about her reactions to Peter's resumption of drinking and making this fact causal to all her internal experiences. She had been, she declared, in a state of shock because of this at the last session and for days afterwards. She spent some time on her fears and feelings of being trapped by his decision. But alongside this frightened part that felt so shattered by the loss of a cherished stability, she could recognise another Jane who felt strong, steady and self sufficient, that knew she could cope with change if it came. As the session progressed, this voice could talk in a more mature way than ever before of her relationship with Peter. She could recognise her previous clinging dependence, when her security was based on having him "under my control, doing what I wanted, safely in AA? and contrast it with the experience of the week before of being with him but separate, and liking him as a separate person who was fun to be with. This mature Jane talked of her clear wish to have a baby in two years time, and her need for a secure and stable relationship before she could do so. She talked of her intention to try for promotion when she returned from the world trip, and could see that her economic security (survival) rested in herself, not in Peter. The apology of the Present Persona to the Adapted SAEF had made her maturity more available to Jane. The removal of the black wall led to a "shattering loss of stability? and also new strength.

13.2 She was brought to the point of referring to the visualisation from the previous session with great reluctance, did not remember any details, but felt it was strange and unsatisfactory. Probing gently through her fit of embarrassed giggles brought her to an acknowledgement that though she did not understand it, she knew it would be very painful to look at again. So we moved to the second encounter with the SAEFs.

Jane came to the next session with even greater reluctance and had a very mixed story to tell, of times of serenity and times of depression and emptiness. She had, however, made one attempt to do the homework I had set, which was again to evoke the two images, and see where they were, what they were doing, and whether they were together. (T.C.) Jane could recount, with enough detachment to recognise them for what they were, incidents when she had fallen back into old patterns of self-hate, over-reaction to Peter, and paranoid thinking. Fears of falling apart were re-surfacing. "Am I going mad?? At the end of our work with the two SAEFs when we had left them together again but not yet in accord, Jane was urgent with questions about their nature. "Is it common to have these people inside?? I reassured her, but did not interpret the work.

13.3 In the review session, Jane avoided for quite some time any reference to the visualisations and instead contrasted what she experienced as the murkiness and confusion of our recent work with her clarity at the end of each session before Christmas. She had expected to be dealing with anger, but instead was experiencing fear and insecurity. When we began to talk of the Old Woman, and the Child, the major issue of Jane's needs emerged immediately (T.D.). The relevance of this issue to her relationship with Peter was looked at in depth, and the session closed with an important input from Jane concerning a video film that had obsessed her the previous week. The significance of the story was obvious. It concerned the rescue from prison of a wrongly convicted and vulnerable young man by the older Christian wife of the prison Governor, and I interpreted to Jane the connection with her need to rescue the imprisoned, innocent and vulnerable part of herself. Jane had experienced a vicarious joy when the young man did not abandon his helper, but went back to rescue her in turn. She did not trust her vulnerable self, but would find, if she rescued it, that she would not be abandoned.

13.4 In the first session of our sixth series, Jane did, in effect, rescue her vulnerable Child. She came full of fears although able to recount some successes in looking after her needs the previous week. She also informed me of her newdecision not to sell up and go round the world, but to take an exotic holiday abroad instead.

13.5 An image of her fears showed a grotesque eccentric old man, old fashioned as though of the past. He was hunched up in a ball as the crying Child had been in her meditation of the night before. This image of her fear of madness dissolved as Jane became totally identified with the crying Child and when she moved, as I suggested, to take up that position on the floor, verbalise her feeling of sadness and see who she was talking to, she experienced being comforted by "Big Jane", whom I took to be the present Persona. This figure cuddled and promised to take care of the Child, and afterwards Jane felt "stunned, but hopeful". She could tell me that as the Child she had felt very frightened to express her needs to "Big Jane? and had experienced being very shut off from her at the start. Now she felt more interested in the Child and less fearful of her. It was not clear at the time, but I now think it may have been the regressed ego that Jane experienced.

13.6 Talking of the Child brought Jane immediately to her sexual problems, because now she could see that the Child in her wanted lots of cuddles from Peter, but when cuddles turned into sex "sometimes it feels almost like incest.? "I do want to relate to Peter as a woman, but the child comes out more than I recognise."

13.7 Jane moved to talking of how burdened she felt by her teaching work, as though she was bluffing all the time, and really  BOOKMARK  had no understanding of what she was doing, and also of her uncertainties about going for promotion. This led to some talk about the Woman old before her time, and how Jane could recognise her presence in her behaviour and from there to her experience of paralysis and indecision when she did have space for herself. The visualisation work brought the repressed ego into view(T.E.). After this exercise, Jane spoke about the great emptiness she felt in the direction of her mother, and of her previous lack of understanding around the ACOA promise "to be our own mother". Now she saw that she could be her own parent, but feared the burden of the responsibility. Nevertheless, there had been a shift. "I see new possibilities. I feel quite connected, I suppose."

13.8 The theme of the immense burden that Jane experienced herself as carrying took up much of the next session. She arrived saying she did not want to come, and feeling identiless, empty, directionless, as if her life was in limbo, (the typical schizoid sense of futility) and with many disturbing dream images that she wanted to forget. (T.F.)

13.9 To compensate herself for the loss of the world trip Jane had indulged in a spending spree, a "return to materialism? and felt trapped by financial commitments. The emotional demands of the children at school exhausted her. She had put in for promotion, but did not know why, or if what she really wanted was to go back to her home town and have a baby. Most overwhelming was the sense of the demanding needs of her inner child that she could never meet, and that seemed to be in competition with her own needs. She wanted to feel alive and beautiful, but saw her reflection in the mirror as ugly and careworn. This time the visualisation work with the SAEFs produced an effective and powerful ending with the two very connected. Still, coming out from this, Jane immediately began talking about a block in herself ? though she admitted to feeling very solid at that moment. I did some re-capping with her to get her to acknowledge that in the experience the child had been no burden, but rather the life and sparkle she had been crying out for. Still Jane wanted to know if her strange feelings were normal and went on to elaborate on how all her values and beliefs seemed to be overturned. "I don't know what I think about anything anymore.? She was still very concerned that it was not right for her to turn to the child for support, as she had expressed in the process work, and when I disentangled this for her, she commented, "It's the Judge that sets me at odds with me and brings up divisions."

13.10 When she left that session, although still fearful of the "uncharted territory? ahead of her, her new car had reverted from being a financial entrapment back to its true role as a Viking chariot, lovely to drive, a symbol of freedom. For the first time two weeks later, Jane arrived with positive feelings, and "inadvertently? let out information about happy times that had not surfaced in our sessions before. For example, instead of dwelling on her fears that Peter was on a downward spiral back to his old habits, she talked of enjoyable visits together to the pub, at her instigation, with "real communication? between them over a couple of drinks.

13.11 An interesting detail that Jane brought up was her sudden happy recognition that she had started to experience hunger ? a new experience for her. (See para. 4.1). It made her feel more in touch with herself.

13.12 We talked through her recognition of having grown beyond AL-ANON, of her need to grieve for the loss of this group that had been for her a positive experience of family, and the joy of knowing she had grown. She was maintaining her visualisations of the Child and in one of these the Child had given her a red rose, but she expressed doubts about the value of this work. Was she cheating by "making it happen.? What was foreground for Jane for much of the session however was her sense of being alone and needing a guide or companion to be with her on her excursions into the inner world, and through her own process. She lamented her present lack of faith in God, for she saw what was happening to her as a spiritual process. Her call for a companion brought out the four year old Child, and following this, and her many confused questions about the two images and what the process meant, I took the step of telling her clearly the connection I saw between this work and her experience as a six year old.

13.13 The last session I have included in this section provided the proof for the efficacy of the direction I had been taking. Jane came full of good feelings, having recommenced the keeping of her journal and got her promotion. "I feel really grown up now.? (Transcript H). On the evening of her promotion success, Jane achieved a second, more personal one around her anger when, defying what neighbours might think, she knelt on her bed and screamed herself hoarse. "I was shaking when I got off the bed, but I felt great."

13.14 The session moved on to look at two strange dreams, in both of which Jane had experienced nearly falling through a gap, in one case in a road leading towards two huge statues of a King and Queen, and in the other through a missing landing as she went upstairs from a party at which her mother was present. Looking again at the internal conflict Jane experienced when she wished to enjoy herself with people evoked another interaction with the four year old Child. Checking for memories showed Jane as happy at four years old and led on to talk of her creativity as a child, writing stories and painting and so to her present creativity and how she blocks it. And as we looked at this more happy memories from the previous two weeks, and accounts of successful interactions came out. "I feel more whole,? and "I feel good now after sessions, not stunned with pain."

14 Theory and Application ? Case Discussion

14.1 In "Psychosynthesis" Assagioli introduces Sub-Personalities as roles that a person plays in differing situations, and moves on to cases of multiple personality disorder without making distinctions. James G. Vargiu in his article on the subject says,

"A sub-personality is a synthesis of habit patterns, traits, complexes and other psychological elements... (its) centre is an inner drive or urge which strives to be expressed.?

Piero Ferrucci, apparently suffering from a serious case of Pre/Trans Fallacy, suggests we must learn to look at sub-personalities as "degraded expressions of the archetypes of higher qualities.? Vargiu does admit that "sub-personalities exist at various levels of organisation, complexity and refinement", and goes on to acknowledge that other theoretical models such as those of T.A. and Gestalt, in recognising specific types of sub-personality, have developed effective and powerful techniques for dealing with them. Nevertheless, because of the "uniqueness? of each individual client, he continues to maintain the use and application of the term sub-personality as an "over-arching framework".

14.2 Analytic writers show a similar tendency towards the harmonisation of theories. Guntrip discusses the question of nomenclature ? central ego versus false self, antilibidinal ego and super ego, seeing them as valuable alternative terms as he compares the ideas of Freud, Winnicott and Fairbairn. Anthony Storr in his book on Jung equates "Archetypes? with the Kleinian world of "internal objects? and suggests that whether these are derived from inborn pre-dispositions or from an infant's actual experiences in "hardly relevant in practice? (p.44). My experience of my own process, tells me differently. Each model that I have acquired has illuminated a different facet of my internal state, and I begin to appreciate how each can allow a more finely tuned approach to the material presented by clients.

14.3 In the early sessions of my work with client Jane, it will be seen that I was proceeding principally out of psychosynthesis models, attempting inner child and subpersonality work and using guided imagery to connect Jane to her inner wisdom and higher qualities. Jane undoubtedly gained benefits from this process, but all the while I both felt and observed, and could not understand an underlying failure in each exercise, a failure to "take hold". This also showed in the patterns that repeated themselves in her life, as for example in her visits to her parents. (Paras. 7.12, 10.2-5). I can now see this failure as resulting from a lack of precision in identifying the levels present in the imagery, and selecting the appropriate one to aim at. I  BOOKMARK  lacked an adequate range of models with which to understand her process.

14.4 The Judge

This image held the possibility of representing the super ego, the antilibidinal ego, or a parental ego state and most probably carried all three. Mentally I was carrying only the one construct, that whatever image appeared, it would be a part of Jane that, however negative it might at first appear, would have positive qualities that required to be integrated. Because of this limited view, I evoked an image that was principally super-ego through my initial use of terms such as judgmental and Judge, and focusing on a self-directed voice from Jane rather than an externally directed voice.

This image, a figure in black, appeared five times in the first half of our work (paras. 7.7, 7.12, 8.3, 8.7, 9.3) and almost always associated in some way with a Child. Only in the visualisation of 8.7 was it evoked as a parental ego state so that the sub-personality model was of use. The episode of 8.3 has the same configuration as the later work, but at that time, without an appropriate model, I was left stuck. Jane spoke of the Judge (para. 7.13) in ways that demonstrated its antilibidinal charge from the first. When finally evoked purely to represent this deeper level, the Judge was without personal characteristics, faceless (T.E., T.F.13) the black robe was the identifying factor. So I considered the black trap (para. 7.12) and the black dividing line (T.A.16, 17) also to be representations of something I came to regard as not a part of the psyche as such, but rather as a distortion of it. The mental image that I carried was of a "knot? or "tangle? that needed to be loosened and smoothed away. Influenced by Scott Peck's "People of the Lie", in which he suggests that evil is a form of malignant narcissism, I recognised the Antilibidinal ego as evil. For white people, black often symbolises evil and death. Guntrip describes the antilibidinal ego as being "specifically against needs", and as such it is specifically anti-life. When later he equates it with the sadistic super-ego, however, I part company with him. My internal worlds showme that the sadistic super-ego, because it is the product of a powerfully cathecting parent, is power hungry and so will not permit death ? either death/destruction, which is therefore a positive function, or death/regression, which is counter productive. The antilibidinal ego on the other hand is an assassin. The former is an introject which will of course contain parental antilibidinal ego voices, the latter is a part of the ego (Guntrip p.22). So a recent client, bringing a paired image dream, said of the antilibidinal ego while identified with the libidinal ego, "He's a bastard, but he's my brother, my twin."

Guntrip talks of the need to drain energy from the antilibidinal ego and it is now clear that when working with the Judge image, I was inadvertently feeding energy to its antilibidinal aspect. Once I had a more appropriate model to work from, I avoided even as much confrontation with the Judge as would be involved in ordering it away, since although this was temporarily effective (para. 7.12) I felt it would still feed energy towards it by paying attention and giving it status. Instead I employed what I think of as "ostracism", in effect encouraging Jane to turn her back on it and feel positive attention in the opposing direction.

An example of the action of the antilibidinal distortion in reversing and confusing information ? that is lying ? can be seen in transcript F (T.F.1). Looking back over the sessions, I can observe the other half of the work of disentangling the knot in the careful elucidation of Jane's self-punishing talk, unravelling the truth, so that an initial statement, "I must not be so self-centred? and "I must get away from self-absorption? led to "If I lose self-absorption I'll lose me,? and so to "Maybe there is a healthy focusing on the self which is painful to do, and there is the other that makes me feel horrible."

I did not, of course, use the word "evil? in our dialogues, and neither did Jane. However, this was once used by a client, some years ago, looking at a similar dark figure from which she had for the first time disidentified and placed in the vacant chair. "It's evil, it's just evil.? I did not outwardly defend that figure, and made no attempt to prevent her repeated rejection of it, but internally I did not accept her statement, assuming a need ultimately to work towards acceptance and synthesis. That client left counselling fairly soon thereafter, and has since followed a very self-destructive course.

14.5 The Child

The image of a Child emerged in different ways in seven sessions during the first year (para. 7.5, 7.9, 7.11, 7.12, 8.3, 8.7, 9.4). Each time what stood out most clearly was Jane's inability to make any real contact with her child. The episodes of 7.11 and 7.12 showJane also cut off from her inner wisdom, only the child could approach the wise person, making visible an existing connection, but not producing effective change. From my present perspective, it is comprehensible that Jane's Present Persona could not reach across the chasm of the schizoid split.

In 7.9, my attempt to distinguish between the disparate voices I was hearing from Jane, as I thought coming from two sub-personalities, resulted in Jane articulating very clearly her dichotomy of false self and true self, with a hostile antilibidinal voice also present. I had no knowledge of this model then, so again the work led to an impasse.

It is interesting to note that the first image of her Child that Jane produced (7.5) was of the three year old, and her description of it gives clear indications of abuse, but I did not pick up the signs until the later visualisation of 9.4 when I neglected to check on age. The three year old reappeared during the second year of therapy in a dream (T.F.6, 7, 8) and again Jane could not approach her. At the present time, it is impossible for Jane to even contemplate evoking the image, as the pain is too great now she is so much closer to it. So it will be seen that in the first couple of sessions, the essence of Jane's problem was placed before me.

In the second year, I had a better understanding of the need to distinguish one child ego state from another, and also as to the possible levels that might be contained within one image. The Child that first appeared in the session of Transcript E, I regarded as the regressed ego carried by the four year old ego state, infused with True Self and illuminated by Soul light. I worked with it as regressed ego/True self until the session of Transcript H, T.H.7, when I moved into dialoguing with the ego state for a couple of interventions. It is possible this may have caused the re-appearance of the Judge (T.H.10).

14.6 Some Points from the Transcripts

14.7 Integrating Memories

I have suggested that analytic personality and ego structure models can be of value when working with a humanistic methodology. One major function of such models is in the facilitation of the integration of memories. Psychosynthesis deals effectively with grounding work in the daily life of the client, but often neglects to root the work in the original experiences.

Vargiu, in the article mentioned before, presents his client Sharon as though she were a person without a past in the real world. Causes for the issues raised by her sub-personalities all seem to lie within herself, without reference to her relationships to people or events. The therapeutic process Vargiu describes now seems to me strangely laborious and artificial, the fairy-tale building of a newharmonious personality for Sharon floating in the clouds, without foundations, without stability. The process of healing the split that I have described in detail above seems at first sight much the same as the one Vargiu illustrates. The difference lies in the more focused approach that a more specific model allows together with the crucial linking to the real time past experiences of the client.

I will clarify my point through examples from my own process and Jane's.

The most superficial type of entity, and therefore the first I recognised in myself, was the sub-personality as I understood that term from my training, that is a behaviour pattern developed in childhood to meet a need. So I recognised "clumsy child? and "Daddy's clever little girl", and obtained some freedom from these behaviours and a liberating self-acceptance as I saw the function they had served in remembered experiences.

Close below this level were my ego-states. I take this concept from Transactional Analysis, which has itself already accepted that its original three person model requires elaboration. My longest running fantasy world, originating when I was 9/10 years, shows me seven child states, three parent ones, and two adults. When I thought of these, as I did on entering psychosynthesis training, as sub-personalities, nothing happened. But when I applied the T.A. model, the release of energy was astounding. The process of self-illumination went on for months. Whole classes and phyla of memories fell into place without having to be analysed in detail as the meaning of the various relationships between my ego states became clear, and my behaviour in the external world modified and developed in parallel. As Guntrip points out, when an interpretation is correct, change follows automatically.

I identify Jane's two images "the Questor/Viking? and the "Housewife? (para. 10.6) as ego states. Turning to memories after the visualised interaction between these two brought an integration that led, without any work on the issue in sessions to a modification if the Viking identified decision to sell up and go round the world. Jane had an experience of flipping from one ego state to the other, which I interpreted for her when she brought it to a session, and talks of the Viking but interestingly has never felt any need to question who these two are. They are not so fundamental a part of her psychic structure.

Ego state relationships tend to be about power and domination, communication and co-operation, and the negotiating style that psychosynthesis adopts with sub-personalities is appropriate. At a  BOOKMARK  deeper level the SAEFs are major self-structures carrying skills and knowledge as well as qualities. Their relationships are more ones of love and abandonment, being rather than doing.

My process that I have alluded to before, in which the General and the Commander re-connected was essentially one of repetition. For a day I sat almost without moving, and with all sense of concern for other matters in my life suspended, while the two characters replayed with minor variations a conversation that in real life might have taken ten minutes. Eventually the Commander reached out to clasp the General's arm, and the first part of the process was complete. It was not, however, secure. Until I had the Guntrip model, the word "thesis", frequently in use in the training, produced an effect in me similar to the one that might have been expected if a blow had been aimed in the external world at a broken limb. Once I had a cognitive understanding of what had happened inside me and the relevant memories had been integrated that effect disappeared. Similarly the effects of signal anxiety can be seen in some of Jane's responses (T.E.12). As in my case the integration of the memory produced an immediately effective internal strength as is demonstrated in her description of the events surrounding her promotion (T.H.1). The same pattern of repetition needed to achieve connection shows through the transcripts of Jane's work with her SAEFs.

I will digress at this point to consider the question of how often SAEFs are likely to be encountered in clients. I have sought comparative phenomena to my own internal condition and not so far found exact parallels. "Sybil? seemed close in many ways, and I feel curious as to what the experiences of her various personalities may have been when they were not in control of her body. The author gives no clue except to indicate that friendships existed between certain of them. In what surroundings within Sybil did these personalities pursue their friendship?

Assagioli gives an intriguing example of a case (p. 77) of multiple personality disorder in which one personality is not included in the final synthesis, but retires into the unknown. He regards this as a parapsychological process, but my own experience suggests perhaps the total retreat of an ego fragment into an unconscious fantasy world. Perhaps that was necessary to maintain the sanity of that client.

Anthony Storr suggests that Jung maintained his sanity at the time of his near breakdown by the use of his creativity in working with his own process. So I see also that the creation of my many internal fantasy worlds was necessary for my sanity. Jane's resort to writing stories as a child links to this and to the comments novelists have made about how the characters they create take on a life of their own. The worlds I created were real, not dream worlds, and obeyed all the normal laws of nature. I see another possible manifestation of the same effect in the phenomenon of the "past lives? that people either re-experience under hypnosis or feel echoes of in their consciousness. These may again be fragments ego living separate internal lives, a form of introverted multiple personality disorder. The strength of my own need to defend the integrity of my worlds, that I felt for so long, though always knowing they were fantasies, makes it easy to appreciate how the knowledge of the sources that gave historical accuracy to an internal world could be totally suppressed. What little knowledge I have about cases of "past life? experiences fits quite consistently with the above suggestion. It seems likely that there is a whole spectrum of such phenomena ranging from fairly mild examples like Jane to the very extreme, with many variations. I have one other client showing a mild form of the condition. I have found theoretical confirmation and satisfying explanations for much of what I have been describing above in Josephine Klein's "Our Need for Others". She summarises and elucidates the work of Hebb, Hayak and others on the neurological nature and formation of self-structures in the brain. I select one quote

"I must have been experienced as a whole person to be able to feel that I am a whole person. This is of course a highly unconscious matter, but it is not mystical. It is neurological. Neurologically the infant forms a set of conceptual structures which are either closely interconnected or not...? (p. 37a).

Having no difficulty in accepting that the matter is both neurological and mystical, I can say that I am the sum of all my experiences, and I am more than the sum of all my experiences, but I cannot be less that this sum and still be whole.

However harmonious and effective a means of expression an apparently integrated personality may seem to be, if memories and early self-structures remain isolated it is only another False Self.

Josephine Klein describes the neurological connections between symbol constructs and memory traces, and it is interesting to note how much more powerful the symbol of the red rose seemed to be for Jane through its connection with a key childhood memory (7.6, 7.10, 7.12, 8.5, T.G.3). This connection I have observed to be effective in another client showing slight schizoid tendencies. This client imaged herself as a cup of milk that refilled itself whenever she drank from it, and at once connected to the memory of her father's insistence that she should drink up her milk whether hungry or not. Reliving painful memories of her parents? quarrels over her at the meal table, she could let go of her need to "eat it all up? and her eating problem dissolved.

It seems that through images it may be possible for a person's conscious will to manipulate self-structures in the brain in much the same way as a leg or hand. So, for example, I can "instruct? my legs to carry me to the library, and they will do so without further conscious input on my part unless some unexpected obstruction on the route requires my attention. And in the same way Jane could "instruct? her two split self-structures to "talk to each other? and the process of connecting continued (T.A.18, 19) although further conscious input was required later to overcome specific obstacles.

I should make it clear that what I am putting forward in this is principally relevant to clients showing evidence of a schizoid condition. Klein provides information about a variety of basic splits that can occur during an infant's development and I do not have the clinical experience as yet to integrate this information. One client I have whose past memories seem all to be readily available to her, and the split to exist between "feeling/knowing? and "doing", so that with her the little image work we do leads automatically into will work and assertion training. For Jane however, her memory gaps were of serious concern. On a very minor scale as compared to "Sybil", nevertheless issues of time disturbed her. "Was it Tuesday or Wednesday, no it must have been Thursday.? This niggling concern I see now as another signal like isolation and fear of commitment pointing to a possible schizoid condition, though the clearest indication of Jane's condition was given in her description of her obsession with the placing of her ornaments (para. 4.1). With these she acted out the necessity of "holding in place? her fragmented self-structures. For Jane once the imagery of our early sessions had set in motion the flow of memories the re-telling and re-ordering of her past and present life experiences visibly built up her sense of who she was.

Guntrip comments several times on the length of time that an analytic approach takes in achieving the complete recovering and re-integration of the regressed ego, and seems to feel that this is probably inevitable. My thought is that with clients such as Jane, with sufficient ego strength to stand the pressure, the combination of analytic theory with humanistic methodology can provide a fast and effective means to achieve a structural wholeness.

15 Afterword

In the sessions following those described above, the earlier experiences, previously held at bay by the split, began to flood into consciousness in the form of disturbing dreams with powerful sexual and destructive overtones and emotional reactions against sex with Peter. Jane was upset and confused, although this did not prevent the couple having a superbly successful and happy time on the holiday that interrupted our sessions.

I have included in my account of the work detailed descriptions of the items that are relevant to the issue of sexual abuse, because all the evidence suggests that this occurred when Jane was 2/3 years and so no cognitive memories are likely to be recoverable. The dream of the two very young children (T.F.6, 7, 8) I think images are earlier split that coincides more or less with the time that Jane's mother would have been pregnant and then occupied with the new baby. The external truth will need to be reconstructed by Jane as far as is possible from her body messages, dreams, later memories, and present feelings and intuitions. I have begun in the session to take a cognitive, educative line in dealing with the material Jane presents, and put to her the idea that there may have been some inappropriately sexual handling of her by her father when she was small ?  BOOKMARK  as re-enacted by the man on the beach, (para. 10.8) for whom small Jane felt "she had to be good.? This evoked a lot of pain, but Jane has also experienced the work as healing. She had already discovered for herself a supportive friend who also was abused as a small child. Jane has begun to recognise family patterns that relate to this issue and so in due course information such as that in para. 10.? will serve to bring her a wider understanding. Jane has also begun the search for a Sexual Abuse Survivors Group to meet her spiritual needs.

I have called the abuse issue the essence of Jane's problem. This is not because of what it is, but because of its effect. As long as it remains in any way a "secret", Jane will be disconnected from her true self, all that she can become, her potential. I recollect my own experience when I finally faced the truth of my "family secret", sitting for two hours while memories from all my life passed under my attention without block or hindrance. It was as though had been granted the Freedom of the City of my mind.

The theme of Jane's spirituality has been a constant threat running through the course of our work. Her instinct that she is on a spiritual journey is sound. Mystics from past ages, such as St. Teresa of Avila have described the journey towards God as a journey into the centre of the soul. "Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven? (Mt. ch. 1? v. 3). So Jane, answering the call to re-connect to her True Self moves also towards God and finds forces of evil within herself that obstruct her path. The Analysts are on the whole more realistic about this than the synthesists. Jane's image of the Child illuminated and the Judge in darkness (T.E.6) is a vivid representation of a reality that humanists tend to duck. The bifocal vision of psychosynthesis needs to recognise that a journey into the depths of the cave can also be a journey towards a hilltop in darkness at noon. As Jane experiences more of the pain of her personal cross, so she is enabled to open to receive the resurrection life. And already I meet in our sessions "a new creation".