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Key points
- We are each comprised of many selves.
- Rather than labeling one another, it is helpful to cultivate curiosity and openness.
- We can learn much from our peers or "lateral mentors" and not just those above us in a hierarchy.
Humans are complicated creatures. While we may like to simplify one another with labels like kind, annoying, or courageous, the fascinating truth is we consist of many selves. We can all demonstrate kindness, annoying behaviors, and acts of courage in different situations. I had the chance to talk about some of these ideas with Dr. Michael Alcee, author of Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist.
I loved the discussion in your book about multiplicity, or the idea that we contain many selves. We have the "good me," the "bad me," and the "not me." Sometimes we reject and deny certain parts of ourselves, thinking of those parts as "not me." Can you talk about how it can be helpful to face those rejected parts of ourselves?
We have so many good reasons to avoid, minimize, or even deny these unpalatable, painful, shameful, and even outright traumatic aspects of ourselves and the relationships that have led them to be sequestered. And yet, we owe it to ourselves to find ways to reclaim ourselves, for they also hold the gold. We don't often think of these marginalized parts of ourselves as having any value, and yet they often have so much not only to heal us with but also to add to our lives if they could only have their safe and full say at the table.
I think it's wonderful that as a culture, we talk so much more about embracing diversity and being inclusive, and yet we so often forget that this is also an inside job. We so easily marginalize sides of ourselves and treat them with such disdain, heartlessness, and lack of curiosity. Carl Jung felt it was the task of psychological development to integrate these sides and bring them into creative dialogue. Sometimes, that can mean going through an arduous hero's journey to get there, but these often neglected and marginalized sides have great power that can enrich us. Again, we often need a guide to get there, which is why therapy can be so helpful.
I was pleased to see you write about the importance of curiosity in your work as a psychotherapist, as I also write about the benefits of curiosity in my book Frazzlebrain. Can you share a story about how curiosity helps you in your work?
Curiosity is a very powerful engine that does a lot more work than we give it credit for. Why? Because it simultaneously operates on an emotional and cognitive level from our earliest days as children. Children ask so many questions because they want to understand how the world works, why things are the way they are, but also because they want to figure out how to feel about it or to explain why they are already feeling so much about it. These are never truly separated, and so curiosity helps us stitch together the world and explain why, at times, things don't seem to fit as we expect them to.
Conversely, curiosity is the delight that has us seeking novelty, surprise, and anticipation of some new mystery we haven't yet fully discovered, which only leads us to further mysteries that we are even more intrigued to find out more about.
Jonah Lehrer wrote a beautiful book recently about the power of mystery, and he contrasts mysteries with puzzles. Puzzles are fixed problems that have a solution, whereas mysteries have a partial solution that only opens up to more and more anticipated mysteries. And so, in that way, I think curiosity allows us to recognize that life is a dazzling mystery of mysteries, one that unfolds like a set of infinite Russian dolls that we keep on opening.
I love that idea of life as a dazzling mystery. Part of the allure of becoming a therapist has been that spirit of discovery and openness to each new client. Mentors also play an important part in our process as psychotherapists. You describe the importance of "lateral mentors" to help stimulate our creativity and expand our perspective. What are lateral mentors? How can they benefit everyone, not just psychotherapists?
We easily think of the hierarchical mentors who are older, more experienced, and in our fields, but we forget the lateral mentors who are peers or even those younger than us or even in a totally different field or subfield who can inspire and influence us in our work. Why do they help us so much? Because they help us find the strange in the familiar, the mystery in what we think we already know. They also provide a community of fellow seekers who provide us with the kinds of community that we all need for a creative journey in life. Lateral mentors become the voices of encouragement from the sidelines that we need to stay connected, creative, and motivated.
Again, isn't it funny how quickly we forget certain things on the side? Whether idolizing the left brain as the reason for humanity's superiority or the elevation of hierarchy as the be-all and end-all of our mentoring lives, we often need to look sideways at ourselves and each other to locate ourselves most fully. If we can do that, in embracing the dissonance, the marginalized sides, and even the lateral mentors we didn't even realize were mentors, I think we can all be much happier, more fulfilled, and more creative.
You made me think about all the lateral mentors I now want to thank. So many of my peers opened up worlds of knowledge and experience for me. We can make peace with our many selves by accepting the marginalized parts, cultivating a curious mind, and expressing gratitude for our many mentors along the way.
References
Alcee, Michael (May 2022) Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging it and Own it as a Therapist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
