On Relational Presence (Part Two)

Adolescence often brutally arrives with a creeping, though distant awareness of mortal fate, of the real. This is a time of burgeoning desires to individuate, fuelled by fantasies of liberation from the shackles of parental projections, rules, and regulations. An important driver of the teenage rebellion is an increasing awareness of the fallibility of one’s caregivers, and their depressing capacity to disappoint. After all, cherished memories of care can soon become tarnished through disagreements, misunderstandings, abandonment, and, in the worst cases, neglect and abuse. All such experiences become the blueprint for the way we relate to care as we move through our lives, and the way in which we give and receive love. 

When one falls in love for the first time, nothing else in the world exists; it is a state of becoming which is experienced as infinite, though this affective experience of eternity is quite different from that of the childhood experiences of love that were adumbrated in the first article in this series; this new manifestation is infused with a libidinised, intoxicating, abandon to which we can only surrender. Uncertainty and a sense of precarity are important drivers of this form of desire. When reality inevitably rears its ugly head, a nagging gargoyle reminds us that we should have heeded the dangerous signs as a warning, and seen beyond the immediacy of gratification. This is a harsh reminder of love’s evanescence, presenting us with an emotional truth: if love cannot survive its initial fires of first passion, only ashes will remain; there is no phoenix rising. Thus, we must accept love’s loss, no matter how much our hearts yearn for its resurrection.  This form of love promises the return of early relational presence, but its inherent excitement is driven by a deeper knowledge that this is illusory.

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W.B. Yeats depicts this painful transition in his poem ‘Ephemera’ : the ‘child’ of short-lived passion is worn out, and can no longer be roused. Indeed, when love dies in a romantic relationship we are often heartbroken, and in the midst of our grief, we feel that the child of our earliest experiences of relational presence has fallen asleep forever; we have become dis-illusioned; all that now remains is a heart-rending nostalgia, a haunting specter of what once was. In the aftermath of this experience of loss, one may feel that it is one’s own desire which is the problem, and if only one had only not felt this desire that this love could have lived on. This is a cruel illusion.

It can be easy to write-off falling in love for the first time as an illusory phenomenon, though this ‘illusion’ is created by very real experiences. In this respect the most beautiful works of art are illusions. For William Blake, lost love represents the loss of innocence; his ‘The Garden of Love’ sees flowers cruelly replaced by tombstones. Although it is the beauty of nature for which the poet yearns, it is also that which, in the end, cruelly strangles the joys of his youth. Gérard de Nerval employs similar imagery of flowers and tombs to depict the agony of lost love in his ‘El Desdichado’ (The Disinherited). The poet pleads for the restored unity of the rose and the vine-leaf, longing for a near-symbiotic union; yet I wonder whether it is the ardor of the poet’s pining which causes these two symbolic lovers to become so intertwined that they could no longer see each other.

In Oscar Wilde’s poem ‘From Spring Days to Winter’, lost love is represented by the dove, whose golden wings are now broken, perhaps depicting a loss of contact not only with the beloved, but also with a sacred and enchanted dreamworld. In Wilde’s poem, and for the Romantic poets before him, there is an apparent parallel between the loss of Romantic love and a bygone transcendent ‘Jerusalem’; an Atlantean mythopoeic haven for which the poet yearns, an illusive real which becomes the basis of Romantic desire. 

Returning to Nerval’s stirring line in ‘El Desdichado’ - ‘Et la treille où le Pampre à la rose s’allie’ - beyond the individual relationship to the symbols of the rose and the vine-leaf, for the Romantics more broadly, it is art which becomes the treille upon which the rose (love) and the vine-leaf (the enchanted world) can alchemically unite. Indeed, Nerval’s individual longing is one that cuts across the Romantic experience; an inner search for a transcendent, unifying eternal which is also driven by the paradoxical awareness of mortality and threat of strangulation by the binding forces represented by the horrors of Blake’s Urizen: modernity. 

The spirit of Romanticism was becoming overcome by realism, like a candle being carried into a room fitted with electric light (Holmes, p.262).

Time and the progress of modernity are enemies of the Romantic, a lover who stubbornly and naively ‘holds a candle for’ one who has since long since moved on. Yet this pertinacious grip is the nucleus of the Romantic spirit, and its childlike naiveté is the creative fire at the heart of the illusive real. However, looking once again at Nerval’s ‘El Desdichado’, one can clearly see how this candle also casts a haunting shadow upon the Romantic’s dreams. Where Nerval pleads ‘Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d’Italie’, there is a demanding, almost entitled nature to his wish for the past’s healing reprise, and as the poet’s demand appears to go unheeded, then I can only imagine this is felt to be a rejection of his love. Importantly, it is out of the feelings of rejection inherent to lost love that resentment and bitterness are often born, and it is this resentment which lies dormant in Romanticism. This resentment becomes more explicit in the Gothic and Decadent movements where these tenebrous affective aspects are now brought into sharp relief, continuing to forge a link between the developmental difficulties of adolescence and the cultural creep of modernity and its concomitant loss of wonder and mystery. 

As respective examples of the Gothic and Decadent movements, both Dracula and Dorian Grey - in their own unique ways - limn a Romanticised, Luciferian rebellion against the vulnerability of humanity. Aside from their supernatural gifts, both characters are incapable of real human love or tenderness. In part, it is this particular emotional deficit which drives their destructive actions, and with whom anyone whose love has been rejected can, at the deeper levels of the self, identify. Indeed, the adolescent identification with characters such as Dracula and Dorian Gray often begins with an experience of loss or rejection of one’s love. This loss is libidinised by a resentment towards an almighty, depriving other who is deemed to have shattered the precious illusion of eternal love and/or worldly enchantment. This resentment may relate to the earliest experiences of rejection: from one’s caregivers, in friendship, romantic relationships, or any combination thereof. This rejection relates to the adolescent’s closeness to the most isolated part of the self: the outsider.

Adolescents form aggregates rather than groups, and by looking alike they emphasize the essential loneliness of each individual (Winnicott, 1963, p.190)

For the Gothic and Decadent spirit, it is the bitter resentment of the rejected outsider which is romanticised; the lamented dead flowers and tombstones of the Romantics become the Decadent and Gothic raison d’être, an embrace of decaying, terrifying beauty (Dorian Gray), or a dreadful fascination with tombstones, death and the night (Dracula). Although it may appear that the supernatural powers which these anti-heroes possess provide compensation for feelings of resentment and suffering, on a deeper level they appear to be continued punishments for a repressed Romantic longing, a mocking retribution for the hubristic rejection of the real of mortality and modernity: Dracula possesses superhuman powers, yet he is also condemned to depend on the blood of mortals for his survival - he is still very much tethered to an illusive real that is divested of all creativity and love. Like Faust, Dorian Gray enjoys the promise of eternal gratification, but it is his enjoyment of the illusion which leads to his fall, rather than the illusion itself. 

Both Dracula and Dorian Gray are doomed outsiders and cannot exist within the prosaic confines of society, and once again, herein lies their appeal. Yet surely, beyond their apparent psychopathic tendencies and lack of conscience, it is ultimately an absence of the capacity for love which is their undoing. It is this missing link which perhaps leads both characters to transgress the illusive and become moths to the flame of the real. This transgression is a defensive maneuver formed from the archetypal infant need to know what is going to happen. Indeed, to enjoy the illusive aspects of the real (mystery, wonder, negative capability), we need these early foundations of security and predictability, though not everyone of course is fortunate enough to benefit from such solid emotional foundations, to have been gifted a mythical ‘trellis’ on which the ‘rose’ of mystery and ‘vine-leaf’ may climb. Knowledge and realisation of this lack may cause great resentment, envy, grief, anger, and sadness; yet the mourning of what one has lost is the beginning of a path towards the mysteries of the illusive real.

Holmes, R. (1985). Footsteps. New York: Harper Perennial.

Winnicott, D. W. (1963). Communicating and not communicating leading to a study of certain opposites. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press, 1965, pp. 179–192.

On Relational Presence (Part One)

The world has become a busy and particularly noisy place. Even if we live in remoter, ‘rural’ areas, access to quiet contemplation is often hampered by the rumble of planes, or the grinding screech of power tools on an otherwise sleepy Sunday afternoon. However, although it is tempting to do so, the intention of this article is not to bemoan the abundance of noise, but instead to think about the value of what I call ‘relational presence’ as an antidote.

What is relational presence? When we are in silence with another person, if we can allow ourselves to get beyond the initial anxiety of experiencing its lack of mental or emotional stimulus as an impingement, relational presence can become a means of reverie, contemplation, and a deepening of one’s connection to one’s own thoughts. Relational presence does not necessarily have to include the physical presence of the other: when we are in the midst of a day-dreaming reverie for example, we may think about someone of whom we are fond, and in doing so, this brings us comfort. The person may be far away, or perhaps no longer even alive, but in our reverie we are brought closer to them, and, at some level, we feel that the experience is intimately shared. 

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and I associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

In this beautifully poignant piece of writing, the stained glass window becomes animated through the ‘tranquil brightness’ of David’s love; it is the emotional content of the memory of Agnes which brings what William Blake calls the ‘divine image’ into being. Perhaps one might say that David’s love for Agnes is what brings him closer to the divine image, and as we have seen with experiences of the numinous, the sacred is very much part of our emotional lives, and it is through our emotions that we can reach it. 

Of course we are often most aware of the value of relational presence when it is no longer there: we do not know what we’ve got until it’s gone. This loss of relational presence is depicted in Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man with great sensitivity, where its protagonist George must come to terms with the loss of his beloved partner, Jim.

Only after a few instances does George notice the omission which makes it meaningless. What is left out of the picture is Jim, lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other’s presence.

I first read A Single Man thirty years ago, yet the very particular affective nature of this short passage and the experience of being ‘absorbed’ into one’s own imagination whilst maintaining an emotional awareness of a loved one has stayed with me; it is such a moving and profound example of gentle and tender intimacy, and a deep expression of love. Indeed, it is this emotional tenderness which not only becomes a means of emotionally holding the other, but clears the way to the imaginal; the safety to explore one’s inner world stems from relational presence, and a closer relationship to the inner world of the imaginal can only enrich our relationship to the outer world. Relational presence is unconditional; nothing is expected of the other, though like George, one would feel a deep loss should they no longer be able to have an embodied experience of their loved one’s presence. After all, in the midst of grief, the memory is but a shadow. 

Despite the emphasis placed upon quiet at the beginning of this article, this by no means excludes conversation as part of relational presence; in fact it is a very important aspect of it. However, the conversation of relational presence has a particular quality to it that is distinct from ‘having a chat’. First of all, there is little impulse to hasten to fill the spaces between words that are exchanged; pauses are mutually understood as parts of a relational tapestry, a lunar equivalent to the solar of words, one might say. Pauses are paths which pave the way to shared contemplation; they are invitations to dream together, perhaps of shared memories which neither party has thought about for many years. The mutual dreaming of the memory brings it to life once again, and, as with David Copperfield’s stained glass window, its colours are painted with the palette of a shared emotional response; feelings of fondness, nostalgia, wonder, dread, regret, or sorrow. 

If we are fortunate, our earliest experiences of relational presence are those we cannot remember; of being cared for and treasured. As we grow up, we - hopefully - then begin to form memorable experiences of being cherished and cared for. These memories often take place in very ordinary ways, and such care is not usually part of a ‘big gesture’, yet we feel profoundly safe and loved in those moments. There is an important temporal aspect to these experiences too, because when we feel loved and cared for, we are then saved from an awareness of the ephemeral nature of these precious times, especially when we are still children; when we feel loved in this way it is as if we are held in the arms of eternity. As William Blake put it, ‘If a thing loves, it is infinite’.

Thank you for reading.

The next article in the series considers the way in which we relate to our early experiences of love and care later in life, particularly if we have suffered childhoods where care has been absent. I also consider the way that the loss of relational presence is portrayed in literature, with particular regard to examples from romantic, gothic, and decadent texts. I conclude the series by thinking about relational presence and its relation to the numinous.

Podcast Interview on Back from the Borderline

https://shows.acast.com/back-from-the-borderline/episodes/the-curse-position-trauma-supernatural-psychotherapy

Hermitix Podcast Interview

https://youtu.be/uUByElFzvFQ?si=tahtSiYdvPVGYziK

The Devil’s Culpa

In ‘Trauma and the Supernatural in Psychotherapy’ I write about the psychic interplay between guilt and evil that arises in cases of relational trauma.

When one experiences developmental trauma at the early stages of one’s life, one’s caregivers’ needs can easily become confused with one's own. As a result of a complex interplay of factors beginning in the deepest recesses of the mind, the individual feels that they are a ‘bad person’. This is because relational trauma takes place at a stage when one is not yet equipped with the psychological and emotional apparatus to make sense of it. If one’s caregivers are perceived to be responsible for the neglect or abuse that has taken place, this creates a significant deficit in terms of the absence of having a caring mind to help one to begin to make links between events and one’s feelings about them.

As a result of these deficits, and the unthinkable aspects of the trauma, the child unconsciously takes on the ‘bad’ aspects of the caregiver, and then begins to blame him/herself; to ‘take on’ what Fairbairn (1943) calls the ‘burden of badness’. Those who have taken on this burden often feel that they weigh heavily on other people throughout their lives. As a result of this burden, one then experiences feelings of rage, disappointment, or despair as manifestations of one’s badness/ evil, and unconsciously feels that expression of these emotions will only lead to abandonment and compound one’s immanent sense of badness. One begins to see one’s innate needs for love or affection as acts of selfishness, or capricious indulgence. This is the net result of what Ferenczi called 'identification with the aggressor' (1988), to describe instances where the child takes on the guilt of the perpetrator. This combination of guilt and the ‘burden of badness’ then conjoin to form a harsh, punitive conscience.

Satan in Paradise. Gustave Doré

The individual consequently experiences an ontological shame at the core of one's subjectivity (faulty); if something goes wrong, one is ‘at fault’ (guilty); and, finally, is often afflicted by the overarching sense that he/she has somehow invited the actions of the perpetrator due to inherent badness, or evil. This relational process is redolent of the folklore of the vampire: the winged revenant does not, after all, go anywhere without an invitation.

As a result of the developmental trauma and its associated unconscious phantasies, the child consequently feels culpable and evil in equal measures; a paralysing psychic state which, in ‘Trauma and the Supernatural in Psychotherapy', I call ‘culpevility’ or ‘the Devil's culpa'.

Like the vampire, we often think of the Devil as an archetypally evil entity: when we speak of someone as ‘Devil incarnate’, this betrays this perception, as unlike most of us, the Devil lives without a conscience to contend with. In this sense the Devil is only evil, and simply gets on with being bad, carrying out his malevolent deeds without compunction.

However, we may also perceive the Devil through another mythological lens, this time as an outcast, unjustly expelled from heaven. This may feel closer to the traumatised individual’s familial experience of alienation. This version of the Devil is Milton’s romanticised Lucifer, a Promethean hero who rebels against a dictatorial supernatural authority. By drawing on these two different mythological perspectives, we can see how one may take on the disavowed conscience of the ‘evil’ perpetrator (guilt and the ‘burden of badness’), but perhaps at the same time identify with the more Promethean/ Luciferian aspects of them: one feels an affinity with the perpetrator as a ‘co-outcast’: a kind of trauma bond, if you will. This is however driven by an unconscious phantasy that one can somehow replace the ‘evil’ perpetrator with a loving and caring parent, thereby reversing the original trauma. Sadly, in this way one only creates a romanticised and nostalgic ‘pseudo’ tenderness.

Importantly, in having taken on the guilt of the perpetrator, the individual is deprived of agency later in life by confusing his/her own responsibilities with those of others, thereby reenacting the relational dynamics of infancy. As the individual continues to find his/her own aggression unbearable, he/she may only be able to locate feelings of rage in others, or equate feelings of love and tenderness with contempt. This is because the individual feels that they must always defend against the feelings of vulnerability and fear of abandonment that threaten them to their emotional core.

Psychotherapy can therefore help one to find one's sense of agency through a process of mourning; by understanding what belongs to whom, and acquire a temporal sense of where responsibility lies in one’s life story, as one develops a better sense of self and other. Through this grieving process the individual can begin to foster a clearer relationship with one’s ideals aside from being ruled by culpevility. This means that responding to one’s own needs, desires and dreams is less likely to be experienced as a transgression against one’s inner God/ gods.

If you would to like to read more about this subject and matters related to it, my book on trauma and the supernatural is available now.

Fairbairn, R. (1943). The Repression and the Return of Bad Objects (with Special Reference to the War Neuroses). In W. R. Fairbairn, Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality . London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Ferenczi, S. (1988). Confusion of tongues between adults and the child – The language of tenderness and of passion. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 24: 196–206

The therapeutic power of drawing

I was asked by artist Jude Cowan Montague to be part of this research article into the therapeutic power of drawing/ illustration