How Group Therapy Promotes Self-Expression
We're all subject to forces that are more powerful than we are. Sometimes we come up against these forces in the culture that we swim in. But we are constantly negotiating with the dark subterranean forces of our own psyches. These are the instincts and impulses that operate beneath our awareness.
When we enter a new situation, we assess the environment—who here is most likely to hurt me? Who will come to my aid? Who has what I need and want? How can I get it from them? In one hand we have our hopes for ourselves. In the other, the inescapable knowledge that we crave the familiarity of the status quo.
Change requires so much. Courage. Vulnerability. Depending on others. Tolerating frustration, disappointment and discomfort.
In 1776, Americans decided they were going to rule themselves. Psychologically, this is almost impossible. As individuals, we don’t rule ourselves, we just choose whether to submit to an external tyrant or hope for the best dealing with internal ones. If we’re lucky, we discover an internal authority that is benevolent and receptive toward our position. How do we find this?
Jung believed the answer lay in our dreams and fantasies. He called the organizing and containing aspect of the psyche the Self. This was the source of the imagery of our inner world, and this imagery was organized along particular themes that promoted our development. Specifically, he believed that the Self guided us toward Individuation—becoming our own person, independent of the dictates of our parents, peers, and the expectations of society and culture.
One of Jung’s paintings of the Self
While I believe this as well, I’ve found the experience of group therapy an esssential counterpart. In group, we develop the courage to think, feel and express what is usually forbidden. We cultivate the resilience to acknowledge our effect on others and how much others affect us. We practice honoring our perspective when it is unpopular. It’s here we discover the strength to be more independent of persuasions of culture, without retreating into a solipsistic self-righteousness.