Mirror, Mirror: The Danger of Empty Reflections

The importance of positive mirroring in infant development is well established. Most therapists are introduced to developmental mirroring by studying Jacques Lacan, D.W. Winnicott, or Heinz Kohut. Most of us have our first introduction to the symbolic meanings associated with mirrors in the fairy tale of Snow White. In this story, we are introduced to a diverse understanding of what mirrors mean specifically for women.

Source: BÙI VĂN HỒNG PHÚC/Pixabay

Snow White’s stepmother famously had a magic mirror. She and the mirror had a deep relationship. When she needed reassurance, an ego boost, or a daily affirmation, the stepmother aka Evil Queen (we don’t know her actual name) would ask, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” And every day, the mirror would reassure Evil Queen that she was the most beautiful woman in the land. It wasn’t until her husband died and she had responsibility for her stepdaughter that Evil Queen started to worry about her relationship with her mirror. The older Snow White grew, the more she approached womanhood, the more insecure the Evil Queen became. Rather than develop a deeper understanding of herself, Evil Queen decided that beauty, youth, and innocence were the enemy. Naturally, Snow White had to die.

Being a queen, Evil Queen had no interest in getting her hands dirty; she hired a hunter to do it for her. The Huntsman chased Snow White through the Enchanted Forest. When he captured her, captivated by her beauty and innocence, he couldn’t kill her. Instead, he slaughtered a boar for a substitute heart, bringing it to Evil Queen as proof that the deed was done. Snow White’s youth, beauty, and innocence were no longer a threat. But the secret, of course, is that the Huntsman protected Snow White, even after he chased her almost to her death.

This is a messed-up story on so many levels. Where do we start? Do we discuss the “normalcy” of the Huntsman chasing Snow White down, only to let her go? Do we talk about the representation that what matters most for women is their beauty, innocence, and youth? Do we discuss how the Evil Queen doesn’t even get a name? How about questioning why, in the world she inhabits, her power is only in her beauty, and she is imperiled after the death of her husband? I could ask a thousand more questions by interrogating the premise of Snow White before we even get into the details of the story itself. There is, of course, the domesticity of Snow White: caring for seven dwarfs in the woods, trapped in a glass coffin, and beholden to and dependent on true love’s kiss, et cetera.

Snow White wasn’t in real peril until becoming a young woman. The Evil Queen sees her as competition once she becomes old enough to be seen as sexually desirable, around her teen years. If we focus on the mirror, we find multiple layers of meaning in this symbolism:

• We believe that mirrors always tell the truth.

• Aging makes women evil and undesirable.

• Having a relationship with your mirror (vanity) is dangerous.

• A mirror will drive us to all kinds of behaviors.

• Seeing and being seen is critical to our well-being.

• We seek mirrors outside of ourselves to understand ourselves.

• When the mirror fails us, we are capable of terrible things.

Some of these messages are contrary to the healthy ways psychologists think about mirroring. However, the multiple ways that mirrors are used to help women understand themselves, reflect the constant contradictions that women encounter in the expectations we face. It shouldn’t be that we elevate mirrors to the point of obsession, but everyone needs appropriate mirrors in life. Therapists learn about mirrors early in training. One of the most important aspects of predicting whether someone can regulate their emotions on their own is to know how well they were mirrored as a child. When therapists talk about mirroring, we are usually describing the experience that mothers and infants engage in together as part of developmental psychology. Mom holds infant. Mom smiles at infant. Infant recognizes the facial expression and reproduces it. This delights mom, who keeps it going. Mom and baby go back and forth, doing this for a while. Most of what children learn first in life begins with the mirroring process.

Healthy mirroring continues for parents and children throughout their lives. If I am an infant and I cry but no one comes to my aid—or worse, someone yells at me or hits me—I am left without a mirror to understand my behavior. Without this reflection, I am unable to learn how to regulate the emotions that drive my tears. I also learned that emotions are generally not safe, because whenever I feel something, there is no one there to help me understand or soothe the ground of being that feeling occupies. Many of my clients struggle with not having had enough positive mirroring. In Western culture, we have had a long history of believing that it is better to force children to toughen up from an early age. We have children sleep in their own beds, alone in their own bedrooms, from a very young age. We look down on moms who breastfeed longer than a few months. We let kids “cry it out” in their beds. We isolate children, sending them to “time out” to reflect on their behavior rather than help them regulate their own emotions through soothing or mirroring. This school of thought proliferated during the nineteenth century. It aligned with the experiences of the Industrial Revolution. People moved to the cities for work in droves, and no longer lived in extended families. When the world is more difficult, parents feel the need to make tougher children. But a lack of mirroring doesn’t make kids strong; it makes them fearful and rigid.

The story of the Evil Queen’s mirror is a warning about using the mirror for vapid validation. It should raise questions for us. What is the mirror relationship based on, and how do we create a healthy mirroring relationship? Do we allow mirrors to direct our behavior? At what point does the mirror become more than the first experience and develop into something unhealthy? If the Evil Queen had healthy mirroring early in life, would she still need to rely on the mirror later in her life?