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Introduction to Identity Loss
This segment of training
was transcribed by Ana Pejcinova, PhD. in Warsaw, Poland in 2002. Here Martyn Carruthers describes some forms of what he calls Identity Loss.
Background
Martyn: In Systems 1 you studied our first step
of systemic diagnosis: “Where are people now in their relationships?”
You began to understand the common chaos that happens if people relate to
partners like children, to parents like partners, and to children like
parents, etc.
On Systems 2 you learned how to help people plan
their lives using both conscious and unconscious resources. Do you remember
the "elephant" question? "How can you swallow an elephant?"
This was about coaching people to make workable plans by which they can
fulfill their congruent goals.
Of course, most people have objections to their own goals
- or to the ways that they wan to achieve those goals. Therefore our coach
training includes how to quickly recognize and dissolve common objections.
Psychotherapists may refer to objections as resistance or
denial.
Systems 3 covered how to help a person continue
goalwork even when in trance. This leads to helping people find and stabilize
the experience of integrity that I often call the Soul
of Soulwork. This experience provides a sort of compass
for life – for making decisions according to integrity.
About 25% of people cannot easily enjoy that
experience, that's about 25% of the general European population
in my opinion: that's one in four of your family, of your friends,
of the people you work with. This means that no matter how much
goalwork you do, many people cannot find a life goal. Even if
they are motivated, something actively prevents them experiencing or
approaching integrity.
We already discussed guilt,
responsibility and damage by prior mentors. People who have hurt other people,
people in crisis and people who avoid responsibility are unlikely to experience
integrity – although they may find interesting altered states that feel
good but do not provide life direction.
Evolution of
Systemic Coaching . Comparison of
Coaching Styles
Types of Identification
The goal of Systems 6 training is to coach people who
show symptoms of identity loss.
The first type is
Identification – I will review the three types of identification and then we
will work with them in depth. By the way, dissolving identifications appears to be
missing in psychotherapy. Like other systemic phenomena, they show up in
systemic coaching.
Identification represents existential confusion.
For some reason, usually to do with a person’s early family
experience, a person identifies with another person. Often, it is not
obvious where one person starts and the other stops. On a family
matrix, a person may draw this as overlapping symbols.
Victim Identification, Dead
Person Identification, and Hero Identification - we'll look at
these in detail. It is possible for a person to have a mixture, for
example a client may be partly identified with a victim-mother, partly
identified with a dead brother, and partly identified with a heroic
sister.
Lost Identity
What are other blocks to integrity? Lost Identity
- Is it possible for someone to lose their identity, what do you think?
Is “identity” like your keys that you can lose, and you cannot remember
where you've put them? I left my heart in San Francisco – or was it my
identity? Maybe it was my wallet. Some people act as if their identity
was something that they can lose – like their scruples.
It seems that a person's sense of identity can become
unavailable – that a person can lose access to their center. This
typically happens as a result of stress. Remaining a “sensitive human being”
in brutal conditions may not support survival.
A key for Lost Identity is that stress was usually
deliberately applied, not an accident. The
stress of falling and breaking an arm is different from the stress of
somebody deliberately breaking your arm. Identity Loss requires a reason for
a person to retreat into hiding.
Maybe
somebody in this room has no missing pieces? [laughter] More likely,
you've all lost pieces of yourself over the years. And occasionally you meet
people that seem to have no sense of self. Ana, can you describe your
client that we talked about during the last break?
Ana (PhD therapist): A client I worked with had Lost Identity
symptoms. His identity was somehow hollow or somewhere else. There was
no feeling that I was talking with a real person in that
physical body. There was no liveliness; there was no center of life that
I could feel in that person. His emotions seemed programmed -
normal, but never his own, never intense, there was no
excitement. He was under a threat of death from cancer, and married with
children, yet this person was not really stressed! There was no trace
of instinct for survival. That's how I saw this person.
Martyn: First, Ana talked
about her own feelings in relation to this man. Then Ana described a
list of things that seemed to be missing in that person, generally: no
involvement in life, no display of emotions. I'll ask Ana: “What did
that man have that normal people do not have? What did he do that normal
people do not do?”
Ana: (pause) I don't know!
Martyn: People with Lost Identity symptoms can sit
like cabbages waiting for something to happen. An extreme case might be
catatonia. They might sit like this [shows catatonic posture]. What are
they doing that normal people do not do? A
feature of Lost Identity is that there is little sign of what
we could call humanness. Of course, we all have this choice every day.
Most of us can dissociate – especially under stress.
Monika: These people usually try to
feel the emotions of other people.
Martyn: Like at a cinema? When I think about that, while I
engage in this internal dialogue that I call thinking, I am not available for
active communication. If I remain in this thinking state, I display some of the
symptoms of Lost Identity that Ana described. Most of us do this every day,
but not non-stop for weeks.
With Lost Identity, there is an extended time period
when a person does not behave like an emotional human being. At this time,
integrity is just a word - it does not make sense – it’s an
ideal. Recently we were working with a woman had been diagnosed as psychotic.
We learned about about Lost Identity!
(Polish therapist): This person believed strongly that
she was psychotic, and for the reason of this belief, she stopped going
to work, she stopped going out, she sat in front of the TV,
using whatever happened in her life to undermine being normal, "because
I am sick."
Martyn: This sounds like a variety of Lost Identity; an
example how a belief can prevent a person finding integrity. Also, it shows how
people can identify with labels given by authorities.
Włodek (Systemic coach): I know
a woman who does not have any feelings at all. We were coaching this woman and we
discovered that she felt that she was one meter outside her body, dissociated all
the time, because she was afraid of being criticized.
Martyn: Probably, you've all experienced Lost Identity.
Think of your years in school listening to teachers. You may have looked
something like this … (makes a flat, blank face). If you behaved like
a human child at school, you might be punished for your humanity.
How many years of that did you survive? That is one way to create Lost
Identity - punish people for expressing emotions and reward them for the
dissociated behavior of internal dialogue - the behavior
that that you may call thinking!
Identity Conflict
The third Integrity block is Identity Conflict. All of
you had a conflict, whether to come to this training or not. Roy came from
Canada and he had a conflict. Right, Roy?
Roy (Canadian therapist): [Roy coughs loudly - laughter]
No, really. I felt quite congruent with this decision.
Martyn: Were you congruent with the decision before or after you
made it?
Roy: [laughs] Yes, that's true.
Martyn [to group]: I remember Roy's emails! Roy had a conflict:
"Should I go to Europe? Or should I stay in Canada!" Roy had at
least two choices, and perhaps his decision was not "In which country shall
I learn systemic coaching?"
With a decision like this, a key
question may be "Am I a person who can go and study on another
continent? Or am I a person who stays at home and waits?" Often, choices
are superficial to this deep structure. The deeper decision is
"What sort of person am I?" Roy said that he made a
congruent decision and he looked congruent when he said that, but
probably not 100%. [Roy: "Yeah."] Roy may have been
thinking, "What about my children, what about my work?"
Generally, to make a decision with 90%
congruence is wonderful. It is rare in my life that a decision was
100%. Or if it was 100%, then perhaps there was no decision.
Are you going to sleep tonight? Perhaps you didn't think that it might
be a choice until this moment. Are you going to take your next breath?
Oh, you are so congruent about that, there is nothing to decide.
There has to be a decision for it to be a congruent decision. So Roy
decided to come to Poland to learn systemic therapy, which is a strange
decision for a Canadian therapist.
[To group] A question for Roy might be "Can I commit
to my decision 100%, and even though the situation is not 100% perfect, I will
act with 100% of my energy." And if you can do that, you can probably step
to Soul (a stable
experience of connectedness and life direction) rather easily!
What if Roy said 'No! I am only half
committed, and half of me wants to stay in Canada. I will come to Europe
with only half of my energy and I'll focus half of my energy on
my home. And then, if coming to Poland does not work exactly the way I hope, I
can go home. I plan for failure in advance." Roy's focusing seems to need
a central core - what we can call identity.
In my experience, about 10-15% of European and North American
people seem to have more than one well-defined self in the same physical body.
If this is true, it does not matter how much goalwork you do with one self,
because another self can say "No!" or “Wait!”
The decision is not what to do. The key decision is
more often, "What sort of person am I?"
Consider multiple personality syndrome. A diagnostic
feature is that the personalities are amnesic of each other’s behavior.
If people remember what they do – it’s not multiple personality syndrome.
Look at Agata and Artur, two wonderful people and one
wonderful couple. The partnership of "Agata and Artur" has two
identities. [Artur: "At least." - laughter] However, it is one
couple. So that means that there is no discussion about what to do,
everything is obvious, and there is no conflict, right? [laughter]
Agata: "Is it obvious for you or for us?" [laughter]
Martyn: Exactly, it can be political. "How can a
couple make congruent decisions when each partner has different goals?"
Maybe 'the man always decides?' Maybe the woman decides and pretends
that the man decides? Many possibilities exist for each partner – being
part of a couple is not so easy. I perceive partnership as a special form of
teamwork that requires that both partners have team skills.
Do you know people who continually
sabotage each other? Imagine them living in one body. Then perhaps you
can better understand inner conflict. Probably many of you know this
from some parts of your lives. Most people seem to have some experience
of inner conflict.
It gets better. Imagine driving a car with a passenger
yelling at you where to go and where not to go and trying to get your
compliance. How about six passengers? I often refer to complex conflict
as a seven part identity conflict, because there are usually seven
active parts. I’ll describe how that works later, and show you how to help
people integrate those seven parts.
Anyway, most of us have created parts, and those parts
may not like each other. There may be internal conflicts and
internal alliances. For example, a part of me that likes to run, and a
part of me that wants to be fit, may together sit on a part of me that
wants to eat chocolate. [Laughter]
[Marcin] "How long does it work?"
[moving his arms from side to side]
[Martyn] Yes, there you see a
typical non-verbal ‘balancing’ physiology that I associate with conflict.
Identity and personality are abstractions. Does anybody really
have identity? I don't know, do you? I can see what people do:
I see Artur playing with his pen; perhaps he's
relaxed because Agata (Artur's wife) takes good notes [laughter] - I listen to
the words that people use, and notice how those words are communicated.
Relationship Ecology & Congruence
I notice "Do the words fit what I
see?" In this course you may find that these theories not only explain what
has already happened, not only make it clear what is happening in a given
moment, but also predict future behavior, predict the relationship consequences
of actions - call it relationship ecology.
If you ask clients whether they have identity loss, they won't
know what to say. In general, ask clients open questions like "What do you
want?" In the moment you ask that question, open your klapki
(Polish for horse blinkers), open your senses, watch carefully what happens, and
strive to listen.
Few answers will be well-formed (clear), and often a
person will go into trance. "What do you want?" [Martyn role plays a person
in trance] "Uhhh - ummm!"
This is a very useful diagnostic tool! A person answers,
"What do I want? [Looks down left] Hmm. [Looks right] Oh-oh. [Looks forward] I'm
not sure." What has the person told you non-verbally? A lot – if you
understand family matrix and eye movements, including that this person has maybe 3
conflicts and hints about with whom. You're guessing of course - you do not know for sure.
But if you see three physiology shifts, then it is likely that a person will
describe three objections or three conflicts.
Physiology shifts usually resonate with the
person’s words. For example, "I want to learn systemic therapy AND stay in
Canada." If you hear a double goal, there's probably conflict. Or a
person might do this: "You ask me what I want? Umm." [Pretends
trance] What does trance communicate?
Marcin: That the person does not know what he wants.
Martyn: Good, and it may indicate that some important
part of the person is not available in normal consciousness. A person may be
in crisis. For example, if your client was told "We are getting
divorced," and your client had a business appointment with you,
your client might be so preoccupied that there is no space to think about
business. Or maybe the person was traveling all night: "What do I
want?" [pretends to fall asleep]. Or perhaps the
person is dehydrated, and until there is a glass of water inside, the
person cannot focus because of a disturbed electrolyte balance.
Guilt is less conscious: a person wants to be happy,
and says: "I want to be happy, but always something seems to stop me."
Later you find that the person betrayed a partner, or abused children, or hurt parents or so on. For
this person, happiness may not make sense!
Lack of motivation often indicates conflict. It's not often that I
meet people with no motivation. More likely their goals don't make sense:
“My father thinks I should finish my university degree in music,
but I am no longer interested in this topic. Please,
Martyn, can you motivate me!"
Another issue is responsibility, for example, “I want to be rich,
but I don’t want to think too much or work too hard”. This attitude
feeds most of the get rich quick schemes of the world.
[To group] More examples: When you think about happiness, what do
you feel at this moment? When you think about what you want, what
feelings do you have in your body? And when you say you want something,
do you intend to get it, or is that just more talk? Do you want to commit to
achieving your goals, or do you just want to think about having them? This where
our systemic coaching starts ...
Do you want to resolve emotional and relationship challenges?
Coaching for Identity Loss
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