By: Brenda Thomas (with acknowlegement to Virginia Axline)
Most clients in therapy discover very early that their therapists seem to feel that a lot of the present- day problems relate to the past : most specifically, to their early years and their family of origin. As a result, clients often question,
“What good is counselling going to do for me? If my early formative years have caused me to be as I am, what is the point of seeing a therapist? If I was neglected or abused as a child, I believe that knowing about that might help me better understand my behaviour now, but it can’t change the past. If I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t loved --- there is no hope for me.”
Yet I have come to believe that this is not the case. I believe that within each individual there seems to be a desire, an urge, a compulsion to achieve self-realization --- to become all that is possible. It may be called a quest for maturity, for independence, for self-actualization --- but it is there in every one of us and it is a strong and driving force.
For those of us who were fortunate enough to fall into a “rich and fertile growing ground”, gifted with sun and rain and good rich earth and the permission to explore and develop and become ourselves with all our potential, the path is easier. But what of those stunted seeds, those buds of life that seem to face adversity from Day One? Who is to blame for the resulting person who is shy, insecure, self-centred, cruel, narcissistic, remote, psychopathic? If one now seeks out counselling as a result of problems, should he be chastised because those “adults” in his life who should have nurtured his emotional and spiritual growth did not? Is it not fair that he should be pitied as a victim of society?
I believe that growth is a spiralling process of change. It is relative, and it is dynamic. All experiences continue to change the focus and perspective of the individual. Everything you experience in life is constantly evolving, changing, and acquiring a different degree of importance to you as an individual given your attitudes, feelings, and thoughts of the moment. Everything is relative, and this beautiful pattern is constantly shifting, reorganizing, and changing.
Your life is a kaleidoscope --- you may look down that tiny peephole upon the odd-shaped pieces of coloured glass: yet as you turn the tube, the pattern shifts and changes and rearranges and becomes something quite new. Although all the pieces of coloured glass are already in the tube, each a stable and unchanging entity, the pattern the pieces make constantly shifts. As the different parts of the design touch, they create new and unique and sometimes unbelievably beautiful patterns. No matter how you turn the tube, somehow the design is always balanced. Sometimes the design is strong and compact and assertive, and sometimes it seems spread out wistfully, appearing vulnerable and frail and bodiless. Yet there is always a sense of rhythm, harmony, and purpose in each design. Each pattern is different from every other: the differences are caused by the ever-changing positions of the tiny bits of coloured glass.
It seems that the same is true of personality. You have within you the “little bits of coloured glass” that your birth and your early upbringing placed into the tube, and your life and your personality are structured by the organization of these “little bits”.
Yet your “pattern” is based on the fact that every thought and every attitude and every experience you have ever had is constantly shape-shifting and changing in accordance with whatever is happening in your life today. This means that what happened to you yesterday, or when you were a young child, does not have the same meaning as when it happened, because your later life experiences have also affected the impact of the experience. The dynamics of life are such that you are constantly changing in relation to the psychological and environmental forces that you have experienced, are experiencing, and will experience in the future. Repeated behaviours that seem to be habits may suddenly disappear into thin air when you no longer feel a need for them or when you discover a more satisfying behaviour.
It is this flexibility of personality and behaviour that opens the door in counselling to admit the element of hope. With a therapist you trust you can examine those early experiences and realize that they are not absolutes. When you become aware of the part that you can play in directing your own life, and when you accept the responsibility that goes with the freedom to do so, then you are able to effect change.
Although the “little bits of coloured glass” are within you, you and only you have the power to control the kaleidoscope of your life and change the pattern.
