The Heroic Attitude in Therapy

Whether you are leading group therapy, working with people in individual therapy, performing couples therapy or working with families, there is a particular attitude that you are helping to emerge in your patients: the attitude of the hero.

What is the heroic attitude? It is the balanced ego-position, accurately assessing the danger and the opportunity that the current moment offers. The hero is not unafraid. He proceeds despite his fear. He grieves, but is not consumed or destroyed by grief. His sorrow doesn’t pull him into nihilism. He is prepared to face his enemies with the appropriate aggression, but is not overcome with the desire for veangeance or sadism. It is an attitude of courage, optimism and creativity. Despite the challenges and pain, there may be something that I can do to improve my situation and I will give whatever energy I have toward that path.

Heroism is the opposite of victimhood and tyranny. The hero is reverent, a servant of the cause, not an agent of his own aggrandizement.

I believe our nervous systems are exquisitely attuned to the heroic. When someone is demonstrating heroism, we are drawn in, engaged, on the edge of our seat, living vicariously through them and honored to be witnessing their process. This is good drama in literature and there is a dramatic quality to it in therapy as well.

On the flip side, I think some part of our nervous system winces at every deviation from the heroic. We intuit what it would look and sound like to face reality head on, to put down the defense mechanisms and confront one’s situation with vulnerability and courage. We may hesitate to share when we sense these deviations, but we do sense them.

I believe this distortion is one of the main components of the feeling of boredom, fatigue, restlessness, irritation, etc. in session.