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| Accepting the other as she/he is can make the loving partner better than she/he seemed to be. |
I have a colleague who used to
be a reviewer of popular novels. According to her, the books were planned in a
standard structure. At the beginning of the story – usually held in an exotic
location − there was always something preventing the heroine from being fond of
the attractive, gracious and successful protagonist. By the third chapter there
was a twist that led to a sexual relationship, often torrid.
Around the fourth or fifth
chapter, another event “out of her control” led the young woman to know the
hero better and even accept to commit to a relationship, most of the times
“totally against her will”. Something like saying “yes, I do (sigh)” to the good-natured,
“terribly” handsome, very wealthy man to save her father from bankruptcy or
things like that. Near the seventh or eighth chapter, there was a turning point
in the plot which led the young lady to find out that her true love has always
been there, by her side. From there on it was a clear path to the happy ending,
after all the reader had bought the book precisely for the implicit guarantee
that the outcome would be no other than “and they lived happily ever after”…
Until one day my colleague was
reviewing another unremarkable story when she noticed that she already had
passed the middle of the book and none of the predictable conflicts had
happened. She began to review the seventh chapter and, to her utter surprise,
she read: “and then Steve has changed”. The author probably had forgotten to
articulate the plot, she thought, had written chapter after chapter when he
realized he had moved to far without any change and maybe did not want to throw
the material away, deciding to “force” the good guy into a sudden twist,
without further ado, only to maintain the structure of this type of novel and
please its reader.
Obviously twists in love
scripts (AMÉLIO; MARTINEZ, 2005) eventually happen in life. Even though they
might seem abrupt in the eyes of the others, the fact is that they were cooked
as slow food in the psychic processes. There are a number of phenomena involved
in the process of structuring the child’s ego — understood in the Jungian
context as a complex, an emotional charge constellated around a nucleus formed
by an archetypal image from personal experiences of each individual. In the
child, a representation of the feminine and the masculine is formed from the mother.
The boy will
have the inner image of the feminine (anima) formed from the conscious relation
with the ego of the mother or the figure who plays this mothering role in his
early life. Therefore, the boy has a well-defined feminine figure — the anima
is a unit. Hence, the fantasy of the “muse”: when entering adolescence, the
young man knows precisely the kind of woman he looks for.
In the girl’s
case, the inner image of the masculine (animus) comes from the unconscious of
the mother or from the figure that plays this role. Jung said that it was not a
unique figure, but a legion. The woman, therefore, has no fantasy of a “muse”.
Thus, when entering adolescence, the young woman does not have a model of man
so precise, but can fall in love with several facets of the masculine.
These archetypal images —
which will be essential in the love relationship — are built from the child’s experience with the parents
and from how they react in their relationships and with their environment. In
case of having felt abandoned, for example, the child will react as if the
world was bad. Well cared, as if the world was a good place, where one can live
without fear. It is obvious that the child is not in a bubble, but inserted a
social context. In any case, these are interpretations. The risk is that the
psyche of the adult remains in the child stage, meaning to expect someone
always ready to reach out to support the person in case of fall, to satisfy all
his/her wishes, and to be taken care of.
The representations linked
to the parental universe begin to be reviewed from puberty, when the first love
experiences gradually begin to occur. At the beginning, in general, the love
relationships are still platonic, gaining a materiality over the years, usually
according to historical and social time in which the youngster is inserted.
What is interesting is that
the love relationships — an integral part on this
quest for the meaning that is given through the conscious experimentation of
life — are like a soccer match. In the first part of the match, let us say from
the age of 12 to around 40´s, the focus is on the formation of identity, going
through the construction of the physical, emotional and mental bodies, which
are anchored in the social and historical spheres.
Throughout
this first phase of the adulthood, the youngster begins to test his own wings
to take off from the family of origin and to consolidate his own family; to
conquer his space in a professional world, some even manage to use the extra
resources, either of time or finances, to support social works. In this phase,
the loving relationship usually is based on the shadows unconsciously projected
in the other, meaning the undeveloped and/or repressed points, in short, on the
still unknown aspects of the young person which will be projected as on a
screen over the partner. The German Jungian analyst Marie-Louise Von Franz
(1915-1998) explains:
Sons or daughters who
experienced the father as authoritarian (whether he effectively had been or
not) have a tendency to project on all parental authorities — such as a teacher,
a pastor, a doctor, a boss, the State and even the image of God — the negative
“authoritarian” property and to respond to them in a correspondingly defensive
manner. What is projected, however, when closely examined, is by no means
merely an image of the memory of the father, but represents the authoritarian
tendency of the son or daughter (FRANZ, 2011).
According to the American
Jungian analyst John A. Stanford (1929-2005), when a man and a woman project
their anima and animus respectively on each other, there is the process of
mutual fascination known as “falling in love” (STANFORD, 1980).
Nothing like a day after
another and the intense coexistence to the enchanted prince turns into a toad,
or the princess to become a frog. The projection that united the
couple-until-death-do-us-part falls to the ground and, behind it, the other
appears as it is — or has always been. Since a projection can only be exchange
for another, it is not difficult at this moment to experience “falling” in love
for a third person, a fresh new screen where the projection can be done again
all over again.
The more a person knows
her/himself, the less, in theory, she/he would project her/his unconscious
contents in others, once she/he would be in the process of becoming aware of
these unknown contents in her/him. Von Franz points out the five stages of this
projection game: 1) the person becomes convinced that the inner and unconscious
experience is an external reality; 2) there is the perception that there is a
discrepancy between the projected image and the reality; 3) the person
recognizes this discrepancy; 4) The individual acknowledges that had been
wrong; 5) the person begins to search for the meaning of this projection in
herself and not in the other (Von Franz Apud HOLLIS, 2015, p. 47).
If the person manages to integrate the shadows through
psychotherapeutic processes, she/he will change, even if gradually. It may
occur, in this case, her/his partner resist to change, leading to a conflict
and, sometimes, to the end of the relationship. According to the American
Jungian analyst James Hollis, there are two middle-age challenges, which he
calls the “middle way”. The first one is the encounter with limitations, with
weakening, and with mortality. It is therefore related to the image of the trio
who touched Buddha and led him to the saga of enlightenment: the notion that
there is no way to overcome, in materiality, old age, disease and death.
The second major deflation
of middle-age expectations, according to him, is the encounter with the
limitations of relationships (HOLLIS, 2015, p. 47):
The other Intimate who will
satisfy our necessities, who will take care of us, who will always be present
to support us, is finally seen as an ordinary person, like ourselves, also in
need, and who projects on us expectations very similar to ours. Marriages
frequently end in middle-age up, and one of the main causes is the enormity of
childish hopes that prevail over the fragile structure between two people. The
others will not and cannot satisfy the grandiose needs of the inner child, so
that we are left and feel abandoned a betrayed (Hollis, 2015, p. 47).
As he points out, salvation, cure, is not out there.
“Life has a way of dissolving the projections and we need to, in the midst of
disappointment and discontent, begin to take responsibility for our
satisfaction” (HOLLIS, 2015, p. 47). To the Jungian analyst, “(…) there is an
excellent person within us, someone we barely know, and who is ready and
willing to be our constant companion” (HOLLIS, 2015, p. 47-48). A possible
analogy, maybe, was the protagonist of Beauty and the Beast, which recently
appeared in the film version that features in leading role the British actress
Emma Watson — better known as Hermione from the Harry Potter saga.
Written in 1740 by the French Gabrielle-Suzanne
Barbot, Dame of Villeneuve, and adapted in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de
Beaumont, the story is also known by the title of the Beauty and the Monster.
The essence of the work is that the acceptance of the other as she/he truly is
makes the loving partner reveal himself/herself better than he/she apparently
is or seemed to be, at least in the eyes of her/his partner. By extension, it
would be only when we abandon the expectations and tantrums of the child in us
and accept the responsibility to grow up and seek within ourselves the meaning
that moves our life, trusting that our psyche will show us the way, that we
could finally try to live in a mature form.
This does not mean that
everything will be perfect. But, at least, that we will not point a finger to
the other one when the other four fingers of the hand in the gun shaped hand
are pointing to ourselves.
When the curtain of the
projections stage falls, the other can go from villain to the companion ally —
with its flaws included — of this journey to the mystery and the unknown which
life is made of, which can only be experienced through astonishment, gratitude,
reverence — and, of course, as much tolerance and patience available we have.
Yes, “and Steve has changed” from water to wine, all of a sudden, it is a
fantasy that happens only in novels written with poorly stitched lines.
Dr. Monica Martinez, Psychoanalyst,
is specialist in Jungian Psychology by IJEP (Jungian Institute of Education and
Research), journalist and writer, holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Journalism
School and Artes (University of São Paulo) and a postdoctoral degree from Umesp
(Methodist University of São Paulo). She completed a post-doctoral research at
the University of Texas in Austin. Her office is located at Vila Madalena, West
End of São Paulo, Brazil. E-mail: analisejunguianasp@gmail.com.
The author would like to express her heartfelt thanks to
the translation from Portuguese to
Maíra Alves, Psychology undergraduate student, University of Sorocaba,
Brazil. E-mail: mairaalves016@gmail.com.
Debbie Worthington,
Psychoanalyst, Jungian Institute of Education and Research, Brazil. E-mail:
djwmatos@hotmail.com
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