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CROESUS SYNDROME: The Shadow in Psychotherapy
What, if anything, can the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist do to contend with the shadow aspects of their professional persona? This is by no means a universal concern among psychotherapists for several reasons. Certainly there are many persons practicing forms of psychotherapy that do not regard the unconscious as their concern at all. Behavioral, cognitive, and solutions-oriented therapies, to name a few, have no need of the unconscious. I am reminded of one of my supervisors in residency who attempted to encourage me to face facts squarely about a certain repeated conflict I was experiencing.
He pointed out:
“It’s entirely up to you whether or not you choose to ignore reality; the question is, will reality ignore you?”.
Likewise, modern therapies that emphasize ego adaptation are free to ignore the unconscious; the question remains; however, will the unconscious ignore the therapy?
A psychotherapist in training is more likely to remain in contact with their unconscious. Formal supervision may provide a measure of scrutiny to the psychotherapist’s unconscious process. Ideally, supervision imparts to the psychotherapist a praxis and a habit for such examination. This may then develop into a continuing process of self-examination that will serve both therapist and clients in the future. This is, however, where reality frequently diverges from the ideal objectives of training.
There are no formal requirements that the psychotherapist remain in supervision. Instead, there is a tacit implication that a figure has arisen in the psychotherapist whose function becomes supervisor in absentia. It seems highly unlikely that if this figure ever really coalesced that it will be preserved. There are many reasons why such an interior figure is likely to atrophy or die. Chief among the reasons for this figure either never fully developing or atrophying is what I shall call the Croesus Syndrome.
Croesus was King of Lyda from 560 BC to 547 BC until his defeat by the Persians. He is credited with being the first to introduce gold coinage of a standard weight and purity. His wealth and power was vast and before setting out on his campaign against Cyrus of Persia, he consulted the Delphic Oracle.
The message provided by the Oracle took its usual cryptic form. Croesus was told that if he campaigned against Cyrus of Persia a great empire would fall and he was further advised to align himself with the most powerful Greek state. He struck alliances with Sparta among others and set off. As was the custom, Croesus disbanded his army when winter arrived. Cyrus did not and he attacked Croesus in Sardis. Croesus then understood the great empire that the oracle foretold would be destroyed was his own empire. Such is often the fate of the psychotherapist who endeavors to cultivate an interior figure that serve as supervisor in absentia.
Oracle of Delphi
Like Croesus, that psychotherapist seeks the oracle’s message but the psychotherapist’s dreams, associations, and active imagination yield their mysteries in cryptic form. And also like Croesus, the psychotherapist suffers a predictable inclination toward interpreting his or her unconscious material in accord with their conscious, more acceptable understanding. Notice that the psychotherapist’s shadow need not be included in this process. In fact, the shadow elements of the psychotherapist will further resemble Croesus’s tale in that its unacknowledged state may be credited with the failures of the campaign, the psychotherapy or psychoanalysis itself.
CHALLENGE
I have some ideas of what may be done about this predicament but I am interested in knowing what other therapists think about this dilemma and how others endeavor to address it.
Please share the methods you employ to not only remain in contact with your unconscious and also share the strategies you have found useful in engaging the inherent blind spots that Croesus so dramatically illustrated in antiquity.
Len Cruz
This shadow side is so familiar to me that I decided to work ‘with’ it rather than ‘against’. Croesus appears with royal dominance exercising his oppinionated interpretations both on the healer as well as on the patient. Yet at those moments the process stifles and I realize Croesus as an aggressive response either in the healer or in the patient. As much as an empire of beliefs and attitudes is at stake here and has to be questioned as much there is a genuine chance of learning and healing, both in the healer as well as in the one to be healed. A new empire could start right here.
I am really interested about this subject because at the moment I doing a Phd research project about: How do psychotherapists and other related professinals experience shadow in their lives and their work. So as I saw this I became very much interested about this. It is interesting that this collaborative group that I am researching with started with the shadow from its potential positive aspects and not as is usual the case from the more or less ‘negative’ repressed aspects. This could have to do with the phenomena researched but I would be very much interested what other have to say and if anyone can suggest more about this subject. Thanks
It strikes me as potentially interesting to explore the unconscious of the research itself. Yet another syndrome to confront and defeat… Vanity and grandiosity indeed make us vulnerable to gigantism and the idea we (the ego) really should control everything, instead of being in right relation to the whole, serving instead of being served.
Is the term “in abstentia” deliberate, or a felicitous slip from “in absentia”? Either way, the terms may well describe two quite distinct attitudes of relationship of ego and unconscious, with the former implying a deliberate removal and subsequent precariousness, the latter a recognition of being out of communication with the supervisor/Self, and thus an invitation to surrender, to yield, to unknowing, to the fruits of engagement with the unconscious, as well as tacit recognition of the dangers and pitfalls of refusal (abstaining) from doing so, whether in inner or outer supervision.
The atrophy or lack in development, then, derives from an attitude of deliberate refusal, as well as inherent disinclination toward reflection, in defense of conscious goals that may be distinct from the consequences when there is recognition of the experience of being deprived or separate from right relation with the Self.
Sometimes our empire should crumble. Sometimes “God” isn’t on our side, and we can only learn how to be in “Tao” when our attachments and pretensions are dissolved, forcefully if not voluntarily. Balance is rarely “attained” with the carrot and stick approach, even if we get to eat the carrot when we do it “right”, even when we are beaten with the stick, when we get it “wrong.”
Instead, if awareness grows at all, it is in reflecting on the patterns and consequences of one-sidedness, and the resultant application with humility in actions that results from the subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of our inherent partialness of conscious perspectives.
Good luck with the research.
(in absentia but not necessarily in abstentia in Idaho)
Scott Hyder
Scott
You were among a few persons who caught the “abstentia” and the only thing I can offer in my defense is that my faculties were in absentia when I was proofreading the text. I only wish that I had intended a witty slip or double entendre. Thank you for your witty and informative comment.
I noted with interest that there can be deliberate refusal and disinclination toward reflection and I suspect there is a powerful force that competes with interior reflection that does not require us to be deliberate at all. Thank you for taking time to share your comments.
Len Cruz
I’m not a trained psychotherapist, however, I am a trained facilitator in a branch of Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork developed by Jacqueline Small that I have used for 17 years to access and work with the unconscious. It is fascinating work and I would recommend it to anyone who is interesting in bringing the unconscious into awareness.
I am the shadow in my work setting– prison. I participate in case presentations with colleagues and have the good fortune to have an excellent clinician as supervisor of my unit. There are subjects which I have discussed with my colleagues that are especially difficult in this setting, such as a strong therapeutic alliance. The shadow side is overfamiliarity and vulnerability to manipulation that can endanger self and others. The areas we are least willing to go are often the richest. I cannot imagine doing this work without strong supervision. I have known skilled clinicians who succumbed to Croesus’ error and have destroyed more than a career in the process.
Dorothy:
Thank you for your direct comment about the need for supervision. At first glance, prison seems like a place where shadow might run rampant and unchecked. but maybe there is actually less requirement to appear benevolent, kind,or well-intentions. In fact, I wonder if there is such a high expectation among prisoners to embody the darker aspects of human nature to survive inside, that the tender, vulnerable, gentler dimensions of self end up relegated to the shadow. What do you think?
Len Cruz
Since last week I’ve been preparing an approach to an acknowledgement/apology to my client, for a comment,couched in what was supposed to be an enthusiastic affirmation of support, but which was likely hurtful in use of words with reference to duration of therapeutic process. Even when a positive breakthrough takes place, my unconscious impatience with the process imbedded itself in my encouragement – ouch! I see an analyst bi-weekly to keep myself “in check” – especially on levels below the surface! Thanks for the above article
Good question. First of all I will give you my bias so you know where I am coming from. I am a Dream Analyst and my focus is the archetypally patterned Western, white, Judeo-Christian, inculturated male shadow of gender identification. That shadow carries a one-sided ignorant exclusionary treatment of the the feminine psyche as a hermaphroditic original wholeness in the creation mythos of masculine psychology. That “shadow” is itself responsible for the historical development of an archetypally patterned intrapsychic process of projected wholeness over time manifest in part through rituals of initiation, Shamanic healing, Kundalini yoga and gnostic traditions of alchemy leading up to a “modern” Western, white, male, religious, scientific, military “treatment” of the “transference phenomena.” That collective Western history carries a politicized shadow that cannot be reduced to a personalistic ego-centered psychology or a denial of ego responsibility for psyche’s projected “shadow” into “treatment of a problem” and a “State of Mental Health,” e.g., the “Burning Times of 7,000,000 women”; the colonizing genocide of psyche’s archetypal, ancestral, polytheistic, “colored roots”; the creation of “insane asylums” for those who could not “adapt” to the “industiralization of nature” and a “nuclear family;” “scientific” use of “bloodletting” by Benjamin Rush followed by lobotomies, insulin shock, shock therapy, psychotropics, the eugenics of DX coding; “torture of terrorists;” and “psyops” of disinformation etc. Indeed “Western psychotherapy” is a symbolic “fantasy” of men and women “doing it,” i.e., the coniunctio motif of desire for transcendent healing and wholeness. What does the “unconscious cultural face” of “911″ have to say about or to “critical dialogue” with psyche in the pandemic “totalitarian dis-ease” of inculturated gendered, “ignorant” dismissal of the “unconscious” feminine and masculine image of psyche” “in” a man and a woman in the creation mythos of a developing Western, white, Judeo-Christian psychology? As Jung once noted there has never been any contribution to knowledge by dismissing the subject matter of its investigation as “non-existent.” On this day MLK once noted: “Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word ‘maladjusted.’ Now we all should seek to live a ‘well adjusted’ life in order to avoid ‘neurotic’ and ‘schizophrenic personalities.’ But there are some things within our social order to which I am
proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself too mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things.”
First of all, I want to say that I agree that ongoing supervision is one of the most important things we can do as therapists, in addition to doing deep work in our therapy as needed.
Personally, I am a dreamworker, and have kept dream journals for almost 40 years. In my case that means not just writing down the dreams, but for 30 years I have worked with almost every dream. A regular dreamwork practice helps demystify the dream for the therapist, in the sense that I know my own dream vocabulary, I have a bag of tools for working with my dreams, and I practice on a regular basis this bridging of the conscious and unconscious.
minds.
So I do not know about this inner supervisor figure mentioned in the article. But I do find that the higher wisdom that comes through my dreams is invaluable at times for my clinical work. It comes from no specific inner figure, but from a mind higher than my own conscious mind.
That much said, I have found my dreams to be an enormously important tool in all aspects of my life, including as a therapist. I have had many dreams that have helped me with clients. Once we get past the old negative and shaming analytic assumption (incorrect, I believe) that when a therapist dreams of a client/patient that they are overinvolved, one is then free to encounter the dream as a gift and to work with the dream to discover its meaning. When I have missed an important diagnosis, my dreams have been quite direct in telling me. When I have made an important intervention about which I had mixed feelings, my dreams have directly addressed the matter to support me. When there has been countertransference, my dreams have alerted me so I can sort things out. When there are alternative interventions I have not thought of, my dreams have taught me. This is not a regular thing, but the dreams come when needed. And some have brought extraordinary gifts for the work.
None of this would likely have happened had I not had a regular dreamwork practice, and felt comfortable with an ongoing look at myself, my strengths and my weakness. I also meditate and have spiritual practices which keep me connected to the divine.
Dear Len,
It is a nice and interesting topic that you have sent me. First I would say that we do not work with role play in the five-year training at our institute, so that in practice the college student all over again is confronted with his shadow. Additionally, the student is also confronted with his shadow during his personal analysis. After graduation, there is a continuing of confrontations with himself by supervision groups within the association where the graduate analytic therapists become members of.
Over the last thirty-five years I studied the energetic functioning of the human psyche. This has led to a “model” I’ve developed what gives a view of the energetic forces within a human being. It is a model that provides insight into the working of the unconscious forces. (Physical sense it is similar with vectors). The unconscious of Jung I call the Dissociated consciousness as opposed to the Momentary consciousness. because it is not so unconsciousness as we normally think it is. I wrote many books about it but unfortunately in the Dutch language.
I tell you this because this “model” C.O.M® provide insight in the working of the forces which manifest in the behavior. The behavioral manifestation can be described by the DSM IV or ICD. The C.O.M.® provides insight into the operation of associated forces within a person type (in my opinion twelve).
For this topic it is important to know that I, as derived from the C.O.M.® have developed a tool which shows the functioning of the unconscious forces within an individual.
The energetic personality profile is available in various versions. As a tool for business CADT ® (Competence Analysis & Development Tool). As a tool for health RAPP ® (Rump Archetypal Personality Profile) and for children and adolescents RAPP ® C/A.
It gives insight in the personal image of how the world is, the way you deal with yourself and others, how you react, what you like and dislike, what affects you in making choices and defining strategies, how you can develop your talents and what the development possibilities are, which forces you use to compensate yourself to give you a place in the community, where you positively or negatively react to, what extent in your own image are present, you remain distance or searches for security in cognition and structures.
In short a complete picture of you as a human being with all the strengths and weaknesses, the origins, manifestations, and your interaction with the outside world.
It gives a brief picture of the energetic interaction in the ‘positive’ as in ‘negative’.
It does not judge good or bad, better or worse, it shows how our force pattern of archetypal energies is at work.
The tool shows a first preference; who you really are, the basic energy. The second prefers the energy with which you are visible in the outside world. The shaded area shows the working forces of the antipathies and projections and the dissociation area shows the forces as it were separate from the rest of your personality and able to function independently.
Through this tool is possible to have insight into the “unconscious” energies that are at work, including the forces operating in the shadow area. Using this tool gives more opportunities to avoid the blind spot.
At one point, I believe in 1945, Jung said; “all is shadow”. Through my research I discovered that it is not. The shadow consists only parts that have been repressed.
It is not the dissociation area, because dissociative parts never have been aware in the consciousness.
The shadow is the area that Freud called the subconscious and Jung the personal unconscious. The shaded area consists parts that always have been aware. The shadow forces are lying in the relational area and are therefore working as projective forces. The shadow forces have a direct connection to the cognitive force and the forces of universal adherence.
Because of this position, the shadow forces attract people with have a same force problem, to serve as an object that reflects our subjective issues. Therefore the shadow is the cyclic force that creates the attraction, or bond. It keeps us in touch with the right people and working in the profession that brings us in touch with the part we must integrate. That is a very positive part of the shadow, despite the fact that we can experience it as “negative”.
In therapy we always find people that match our own energy patterns. This is thanks to the shadow. Without this attraction we would meet anyone. The therapist can meet with clients shadow forces he has already integrated and forces who are not yet integrated.
The fledgling therapist will always met people who act as a mirror.
In this way, transmission is a good phenomenon that ensures good contact between therapist and client.
When the therapist as much as possible has integrated its own shadow forces, he can use the counter transference to bring the client easier to his problem, by taking the role in this energy. For instance “playing” the manipulating mother or domineering father.
Sum: (shadow in a different light)
-In my opinion shadow forces ensure that we work in the right profession and that we meet the right people or clients. In this way therapist and client learn from each other.
-The shadow is, by the attraction of equal energies in both persons, the binding factor in therapy.
-The shadow forces provide a continuing process of self-examination.
-We use the shadow as compensatory power to make us function by a lack of ego- strength.
- We cannot function without the shadow forces. They are the driving force in our life energy and they ensure that we have to integrate.
- The degree of integration of the shadow forces determines our behavior/persona; the more integrated the more flexible the persona.
Harry A.J. Rump
Jungian institute
Netherlands
I am also a dreamwork practitioner, personally and professionally, and dreamwork can indeed be an important way of keeping in touch with one’s own unconscious biases — as can any reflective art practice. (I have personally used a trance-like photography practice in that way for decades).
But the problem is that the reliability of the information to be gleaned from self-interpreted dreams or artistic production tends to falter at the most critical juncture — when our own complexes have been activated in the therapeutic setting.
It is then that a supervisor is required, because the closed system of the analyst’s ego cannot check itself for errors. (In the philosophy of mathematics, this situation is described by Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem.) To put it another way: When the error is in the instrument rather than the data, you need someone to recalibrate the instrument…
My experience and assumption is that even the most experienced and self aware practitioner still has a shadow within which autonomous unconscious structures hide — and that alone means that supervision will always be relevant.
This is an archetypal struggle. To bring to awareness that which we unknowingly create while trying to correct (or heal) an anomaly. To know what we don’t know. Absolute awareness is beyond us. To most of us close supervision of every client is impractical if not financially unfeasible. We do what we can and bring “difficult” cases to supervision or consultation. We constantly and honestly search ourselves – our awareness – asking if every action we take with our clients is serving them or us. As Wendel Barry writes in his essay, we must pursue “The Way of Ignorance”. We must humble ourselves in the service of our profession.
I think that apart from our individual shadows, the whole profession is carrying a collective shadow, where we comfortably hide our human vulnerabilities behind the mystical persona of all-knowing, fully enlightened beings. That boosts our egos and makes us feel good about ourselves but ultimately only weakens us, because this inner disposition does not leave any room for self-acceptance and, therefore, does not allow healing and integration to take place. Supervision and consulting with colleagues are certainly ways to maintain awareness of what’s in our individual shadows, but that does not resolve the problem of the collective shadow of psychotherapy as a profession that has not undergone any scrutiny yet. For example, our human limitations in how much we could be of help to our patients due to our own unhealed woundedness has not been officially acknowledged and accepted yet as well as our limitness in how much we can see and understand from our patients’ material.
Thank you for the interesting article. This is a complicated question. The mandate to know ourselves is ongoing and ever developing. Like Carol, I have a dreamwork practice and continue to deepen my dream awareness by studying with Dr. Michael Conforti of the Assisi Institute. I practice meditation, do lots of reading and continue to become increasingly aware of aspects of myself (while believing I am an aspect of a larger self) so that integration and individuation are ongoing – and this informs the work I am doing with others. I am especially interested in the topic of shared energetic fields and resonance.
I think the issue is a really important one and the comments very interesting. This is a continuation of the classic ‘Power and the Helping Professions’ by Adolph Guggenbohl Craig which I think addresses this problem excellently. Overall I think that what is crucial to cutting us down to size, to counter the virtually inevitable inflation that such work can provoke, is having a relationship to an objective other. That’Objective Other’ can be external (as in A G-C) or internal (the ‘self’ as shown in dreams as some commentators have described) but it is the quality of a relationship which can really challenge us that has the potential to keep our ego in check.
Staying in interminable supervision? Hardly. Living a full life out there in the world is probably a more reasonable choice for facing one’s shadow than in the womb of therapy and supervision where all the supervisor hears is your side of the tale. Your partner, your children, your co-workers and golf buddies. . . they know the true you. They can smell you in action and tell you where it’s at a lot sooner than a paid coach. Go out and live. Cut the cord already.
I feel fortunate to have worked with Hal Stone (a Jungian analyst earlier in his career) who with his wife Sidra developed “Psychology of Selves” and voice dialouge (a neo-Jungian approach to consciousness). The stimulus for me to examine my beliefs, attitudes and so forth comes from being annoyed or in some way discomforted by another’s behavior (in a therapy situation or outside therapy. After getting past the usual period of rationalization, I can get deeper into understanding. My shame is far less present, which allows for clarity. This has been a rather constant process since 1980, and I feel is useful not only to me, but my patients. In supervision of others, I aim towards facilitating the same process. I think your description of the Croeseus phenomena is very useful Len … thank you!
One method I’ve used as a kind of supervision with colleagues is to ‘psychoanalyze’ the analytic consultory, collecting from the therapist all the associations, feelings, thoughts about every single item in the space. The process opens a psychic space in which countertransferential issues, complexes, and fantasies that are resident in the space – e.g. through contents, diplomas, furniture, placement, colors, lighting, temperature, sound, etc. – can become consciously known and reflected upon. While this does not offer case specific supervision, it does over a kind of meta-supervision that taps into some fundamental attitudes towards ourselves and our patients, of which we may not be fully conscious.
Sharings by psychotherapists include: “I deserve the better chair because I have to sit in it for 8 hours a day”; “My diplomas are on the floor in the corner because I have issues with my professional power”; “That is the rocker my wife nursed our first child in”; “I have the patient chair by the door so they don’t feel trapped and can run out if they need to”; “I splurged on that couch – I struggle with money issues; everything else in here is from thrift stores or garage sales”; “I thought my patients knew nothing about me, but now I realize they know a lot about me from seeing my office”.
Another evocative technique involved switching seats. I [at the time the particular therapist was meeting me for the first or second time, so I was a relative stranger to him/her] sat in the therapist’s chair while the therapist sat in the patient’s chair. Through this process, the therapist saw and experienced their version of what they imagined that the patient saw and experienced. Each therapist was surprised, and at times shocked, by what it brought up in/for them.
The shadow is often thought of as an agency of evil, bad deeds and ego-sahortcomings. But such negations more often represent a resistance to the shadow as a manifold of potential which, like the archeype, is irrepresentable as a predisposition to form. The problem of a potential coming into being is more often met during an analysis and manifest primarilly in the transference and counter-transference where analyst and analysand virtually mingle unconscious contents of both parties as if embodied in one individual. Implied here is a mutual identification and which cannot transpire unless the analyst is predisposed to indulging in the counter-transference. What results, on one hand, is a hierosgamos or hyper projected marriage, and on the other a resistance by either of the parties surrendering to the endopsychic Eros. Hence the identification is equally reflected as a conflict and love/hate syndrome. In a successful analysis this represents a climax anticipating closure of the relationship. Indeed, a crisis ensues as a resistance to closure on one hand and a desire to maintain the Eros circumstance on the other. When this conflict is introjected by both parties, closure may result and the analysis completed. If non of the above takes place the analysis may have just as well not begun. Jung’s study of the *Rosarium Philosophorum* which iconically reveals the process which maintains the erotic forces of opposition and attraction common to the transference and its necessity of occurrance for a succesful *in depth* analysis.
Bernard X Bovasso .
The shadow in Jungian psychology. Here is a shadow story, posted here (as a test to see if I can post) as opposed to the blog post asking others to share an excerpt from their personal Red Book: http://ashevillejungcenter.org/2010/05/whats-your-red-book/
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That’s interesting. Some of us are looking at/discussing this post over at facebook although what we’re discussing/looking at isn’t the post itself. Rather, we’re looking at whether or not their is a bias in place against people who may have had experiences that might be construed as psychotic or schizophrenic in nature. This is, of course, precisely what Jung feared he was undergoing himself when he first had his profound encounter with the collective unconscious.
Excerpts from the conversation:
I think I may have been banned from this site… although I’m not sure why.
The blog post invites readers to share an excerpt from their own personal encounter with the collective unconscious. I shared the chapter excerpt that appears on the summary of my account (near bottom of page): http://thefifthbody.homestead.com/
My comment had to be previewed but I didn’t anticipate any difficulty with sharing the excerpt. This is why I was surprised to check the post tonight and discover that not only had my entry been removed, I don’t seem able to share any comments at all.
I’ve jotted the folks at The Asheville Jung Center a message at their mailbox asking if they could offer some sort of explanation. It’s been a while since I was silenced before I could open my mouth but it certainly does happen.
That’s shadow.
Externalized Praxis
Though the behavioral, cognitive, and solution focused therapies may have “no need for the unconscious” they do recognize the importance (if not the actual requirement for best practice) of being a committed member of a clinical team/community.
Formal DBT, for example, has “clinical consultation” as one of its four treatment foundations. Their research has shown that when/if clinicians do not use all four concordantly, that treatment efficacy will decrease significantly.
Although steeped in a completely different semantic and theoretical brew, the DBT system noted simply points to the truth that effective psychotherapists are not islands. It’s not a mystery is it, that when an analyst leaves the communal nest of her/his training setting and intensive supervision that awareness of one’s unconscious material decreases? Kohut’s idea re: the human need for selfobjects to attune with and/or repel and differentiate from is essential for ongoing healthy development.
Externalizing the praxis which we endeavor to herald in a manner which creates, fosters, and holds an analytic space for the analysts and psychotherapists and which enables us to continue to see ourselves seems to me to be a quite wonderful and natural goal.
Thus, to answer the article’s question, in order to counteract the atrophy one could simply swim to shore? and commit to a being a member of a clinical community.
The concreteness of the behaviorist approach seems to speak volumes of truth and clarity, in that it steers the focus off of our own own naturally evolving narcissism (which loves to hear itself speak diatribes about about assorted conceptual mishmash), and it keeps the focus where it should be: namely, on the patient’s treatment.