Character defense and strategy is a perennial favourite among students of psychotherapy. Both an accessible subject and an almost impenetrable topic, it is fascinating and individualistic, with a typology that yields endless unique permutations of defense against life. This conversation I (R) had with a student (Q) presents a valid introduction to the subject.

Q: What do you mean when you say "defending yourself from life"?

R: We react against early experiences in infancy, childhood and adolescence that are intolerable or traumatic or both. They may be overwhelming, humiliating, shaming or conflicting. Don't forget one of the primary tasks of early life is making sense of events, people and experiences. We need to make sense in an early childlike way of what happens in our universe and this form or structure that we impose on experience develops over time and developmental stages into a personal world view.

Q: But that's good, isn't it?

R: It's necessary. We experience this sensible world view as a holding of ourselves and our universe in some kind of design, a structure in which we can live and function over time. But if we are questioning, inward-seeking, thoughtful individuals then we will be able to see that the world view we adopted is concerned less with reality and more a coping mechanism, less profound truth more reactive strategy.

Q: But it works?

R: It worked, but then very often the strategy turns against us by limiting our existence, our experience of life, our sense of potential, defining who we are and how much we can have and restricting our capacity for fulfilment and satisfaction in life so that we unconsciously sabotage ourselves in all kinds of positive endeavors. The anger that saved us becomes the devil that haunts us, the liberator of ourselves from intolerable experience becomes our harshest, abusive jailer.

Q: Are there different kinds of defensive strategies, a system for understating ourselves and how unconsciously restrict ourselves and our lives?

R: The theory of character typologies began in western psychology with Freud and progressed significantly through the observations and ideas of psychologists like Fromm, Klein, Jung and particularly Reich, whose book Character Analysis is the early classic and reference point for later developments. Subsequently Lowen and Pierrakos, Ron Kurtz and the Hakomi therapists, Stanley Keleman and David Boadella made significant contributions to the field.

Q: In view of the complexities of the subject, is it possible for you to give a clear overview?

R: There are several systems according to which typology you look at, but an overall summary would be something like this.

First, we have the schizoid type. This activity or life orientation in a person is a response to the experience of being unwanted and it predates any childhood experience whatsoever, because it originates in the womb. It is predicated on the feeling of not being wanted and subsequently not welcomed and furthermore that one does not really fit in with others, in social groups or in life itself. The schizoid feels most comfortable alone and is not really capable of relating in the true sense of the word. He or she will tend to withdraw from external difficulties with life's events and particularly from relationships. The schizoid thinks, ponders, analyzes and theorizes and is most comfortable in the rarefied, higher strata of analysis and mental processes, untainted by emotional and interpersonal engagement.

Second is the oral type. This strategy evolves from deprivation and occasionally an overwhelming glut of nourishment in the form of food, comfort and engagement in babyhood. When a baby's needs are not sensitively and considerately attended to the child grows up expecting a corresponding treatment from life. The oral personality expects to be taken care of, is disappointed abandoned or rejected and is unable to care for themselves. There is another version of this character defense in which the opposite or corresponding imbalance is adopted, i.e. I don't need you; I can do it all without any help.

Third, the psychopathic character is all to do with power. 'Power over' is a reality, a real experience for the psychopath and he or she resorts to the kind of treatment experienced in childhood (around the age of 3) in relationship to others. There is never an equal, reciprocal intimacy from a psychopath in relationship, only an overpowering will. Dominance and the will to power are all important for the psychopath. Treated inhumanly, usually by mother, manipulation, seduction, emotional displacement and being made to feel special are all ploys that lead to the psychopath's primary statement: I will never allow myself to feel vulnerable again.

Fourth is the masochist. The masochist's formation of a sense of self has been arrested and prevented from fulfillment in childhood. The treatment which creates a masochist involves preventing the formation of boundaries, denying the right to an emotional life, or indeed to rights at all, not being allowed to say no (because it is wrong for a child to refuse or argue with its parent etc.). Adult masochists usually feel guilty, responsible and blameworthy and provoke punishment from others to relieve themselves of their hidden, forbidden rage and fury.

Finally, the rigid character is the hard-working, often workaholic type that avoids time for themselves, their relationships and any activity that does not involve them in the distraction of 'doing'. Deep inside they have imbibed the statement: my feelings are not important. Usually the rigid character's budding sexuality was denied or shamed by one or other parent in childhood. Sexually it becomes a challenge for the adult rigid to combine sex with feeling, making love with emotion. His or her supposed task, which is self-defeating, is to prove themselves worthy of love. But they can never succeed because whatever they do will not make then worthy; deep inside they want to be loved for themselves.

Q: But how exactly does each of these character types employ a strategy which "defends them from life"? And why would we choose to do that, rather than engage with life, live fully and enjoy ourselves?

R: The individual expression, mixture and layering of the character types are quite unique and individual of course. It is not a matter of treating it like popular astrology and saying, "I'm a rigid", like some people identify with their astrological sun sign. However, to generalize, the schizoid's defense is centered on the guiding statement: I must remain isolated; I am safe if I do not need. The oral character's statement would be something like: You do it for me, because I can't do it for myself. The psychopath's mantra is: I must keep control, remain independent and never form a close relationship. The masochist's is: I can never be free and will pay for intimacy by being submissive. Finally, the rigid's guiding statement is: I can only be free if I do not want, so I must keep my heart closed.

BLOG entry #115

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Psychotherapy Practice - The Role Of Character Defense and Strategy’ was first published in 2011.

People have an innate need to seek satisfaction in life together through intimacy - love, romance and sexual relationships. To give and receive support and encouragement reinforces a sense of belonging, so to care and be cared for we seek a reciprocal relationship that nourishes and nurtures us in countless ways.

Our impulse towards interdependence involves mutual influence, sharing thoughts and feelings and engaging in activities together. A couple's relationship involves ongoing commitment, consistent interactions, emotional connection and mutual fulfillment of needs and desires, cooperation and consideration.

Given this complexity is it any wonder that couples fail when they are confronted by the enormous challenges of relationship? According to one recent survey almost a half of marriages end in divorce and according to another a third of intimate relationships break up before the age of 25.

In my work with couples in relationship I became curious about the nature of couple relationships and particularly the question: How is it that relationships do not succeed?

While relationships can be touching and precious and full of reciprocal feeling, empathy and closeness, they can also be toxic, loveless hate fields.

I have engaged in some private research to increase our knowledge of how relationships fail. I would like to summarize it very briefly here. I want to distinguish exactly how a relationship can be sabotaged by the two partners involved.

An intimate relationship can be sabotaged in six principle ways. They are:

1) Merging

2) Leaning

3) Dominance

4) Twin Frustration

5) Freeze Out

6) The Bridge or the Swiss Weather House

Let's look at each of these in a little detail.

1) Merging

When people have no sense of an individual self, they have no sense of the other. This results in a merging of identity and individuality in relationship. It mirrors a return to the mother-baby relationship and the deep reason is the issue of nourishment and the inability to receive. The irony of the merged relationship is that neither partner gets what they want from the other, since neither is an identifiable giver or receiver; rather they are a merged (and often extremely frustrated) unit.

2) Leaning

This kind of relationship is based on dependency and the source of this kind of relationship dynamic is infantile. It reflects the oral stage of early development when we looked to the outside world and the people in it to meet our needs. The fear is that if the other leaves us we will not survive and this idea usually alternates with the opposite idea which can be summarized as: "I don't need you because I can stand alone." Either way the relationship centers on need, with the tragic payoff that neither may be able to give the other what he or she wants, since each partner needs it so badly themselves.

3) Dominance

In this kind of often narcissistic relationship power is substituted for love. The partners may idolize, idealize, worship or denigrate, abuse or even hate each other intensely. But real feelings do not enter into the relationship. Consequently, there can be no real meeting and each partner occupies a lonely isolated existence of heartlessness and emotional emptiness. This relationship can only be expressed through control, withholding, withdrawal and all forms of power and domination.

4) Twin Frustration

This is the kind of relationship that is based on the idea that neither of the two people involved can ever be free. They disown their inner devils in projection and transference onto each other. The relationship becomes an arena for argument, conflict and acting out antagonism. Stubbornness and negative passion preside in what is essentially a masochistic form of attachment. The two partners carry the relationship as a burden and endure their interactions through negative unconscious reactivity, rather than any expression of tenderness, empathy or true togetherness.

5) Freeze Out

When a relationship is characterized by activity in the form of achievement and competition, feelings and emotions take second place. The result is coldness, disengagement and distance. Each partner is invested in putting down the other through criticism, judgment and humiliation. The keynote is rejection and neither allows him/herself permission to want or feel. The emotional attitude is rigid and unemotional, as each partner tries to dislike and even hate the other in denial and release of their own self-hatred.

6) The Bridge or the Swiss Weather House

This relationship can be summarized as: "The more I come towards to you, the more you back away from me".

Picture this: the two partners stand apart, separately on either side of a bridge. The bridge is between them and it symbolizes the point of meeting, or the relationship. One moves towards the center of the bridge exhibiting a desire to relate (share, meet, or be intimate). But as the other partner moves forward to meet them, the first partner withdraws to the bank where they originally stood. Prompting the other partner who is now on the bridge to ask, "Where are you?" As he/she backs away so the first partner crosses back to the center of the bridge again, only to answer (when the other is at a safe distance), "I am here, where are you?" And so it goes on in a charade of meeting and willingness, unwillingness and rejection, invitation and abandonment - all undermining the urge for intimacy. Each blames the other for not meeting and relating, oblivious to the unconscious withdrawal and refusal they themselves are practicing.

The Swiss Weather House, like the bridge, is an analogy is based on the idea that only one side of the relationship can be out at any time. When one side goes in, the other comes out.

A Healthy Model of Relationship

Relationships are enabled through separation and boundaries. There are three elements in a true intimate relationship: oneself, the other and the relationship. Each of these elements must be distinguishable, respected and honored. When they are, both individuals can stand on their own. The individuality may be sacrificed to the relationship in consideration, compromise or selflessness. But each chooses to meet, be together and relate, rather than compelled or unconsciously driven out of need or fear.

BLOG entry #114

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Couples Relationships: Why Do They Fail’ was first published in 2011.

Q: Why do people come for counseling and therapy?

R: For a vast range of issues and circumstances that are inherent in the human dilemma.

Q: The human dilemma?

R: The challenges and opportunities that arise from the human condition. These are essentially the perennial questions, which can be summarized as Who am I? Where am I going? and what is the purpose of life? These basic questions can be expressed in a variety of ways, but they boil down to three.

The first question can manifest in the niggling problems of life that have to do with emotionality, confidence, the search for understanding and meaning, relationship difficulties, confusion about life expectations - that kind of thing.

The second question concerns your life trajectory, stage of life, thresholds and demands that are psycho-biological or instinctive, the fulfillment of roles and complementary questions to do with value and self-worth.

The third question reaches towards the spiritual realms or at least to the question of higher power, numinous experience and directly addresses the fear of death and thereby all fears.

Q: As a counselor or therapist are you engaged in a different way according to which of these three questions forms the basis of the client's concerns?

R: Yes. Essentially there are four relationships: counselor, therapist, depth psychotherapist and spiritual mentor or guide. As a psycho-spiritual therapist I expect to flow easily between these four definitions of my role and function, depending on what is required.

Q: From different clients?

R: From different clients or from the same client at different times. The human predicament is so rich and varied that an individual may find themselves in some personal issue that drops them suddenly into a more profound level of enquiry.

Q: Can anyone do it? What I mean is, since the abilities of the therapist seem synonymous with being a caring human being to a large extent, what are the peculiar resources that are the exclusive domain of therapists?

R: In a way you are right: a therapist is a caring human being. But there is a bit more to it. Plus, caring can involve challenge, deep acceptance, really being able to listen, empathy, profound receptivity, a pronounced resistance to solving problems and a holistic sensitivity. Couple all of these with skill and consideration, study, understanding and a repertoire of techniques and a consistent meditative or contemplative disposition reinforced by consistent practice and you have it mostly covered, I think!

Q: I followed most of that, but what do you mean by holistic sensitivity?

R: For some reason I always think of a story I heard once about a Tibetan lama who seemed to manage great feats of physical prowess, skimming just above the ground and traversing immense distances, defying gravity-that kind of thing. When asked to explain how he managed to perform these feats, a monk replied, "He breathes through his knees."

Holistic sensitivity is, for example, listening with one's whole body, being open enough to receive unconscious communications, practicing non-judgmentally with complete awareness, and allowing the senses and supra-senses to flow freely in the body, so you pick up from the other person as much of the truth of their present condition as is possible.

BLOG entry #113

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Counseling and Psychotherapy: Qualities of the Practitioner' was first published in 2011.

Dreams have been described as 'letters from the unconscious'; they are a communication from the wise, unconscious part of us that is inhibited and censored by our conscious minds. Dreams can tell us what we really want, but are afraid to admit to, and they tell us about our relationships, career and life direction. Dreams reveal our destinies and authentic self and reveal our true purpose and life path.

In psycho-spiritual psychotherapy, we explore the imagery and messages in dreams to gain insight, understanding and enrich our lives.We explore dreams, learn how to keep an effective dream diary and learn a simple but effective method to unlock and understand what our dreams are saying. Through group-sharing, role-play, conscious dreaming, 'holding' the symbols and 'continuing' our dreams at vital points we are able to acknowledge and accept the wisdom, guidance and help that is offered to us through dreams.

Why are dreams so important?

Ancient Vedic wisdom points out that we live our lives in a cycle of three states or conditions. They are Waking, Dreaming, and Deep Sleep. Throughout the entirety of a human life we are in one of these three conditions.

Curiously contemporary human beings are mostly asleep in their waking lives and wakeful or attentive to their dreaming lives. We wake up and spend time with anyone who will listen recounting our dreams of the previous night, because very often it is more interesting to us than what we call 'normal' life.

And there is a reason for this. With the diminishing, in the outer world, of the sacred- the realms of mythology, ritual and symbol - the ceremonies of insight and guidance have now become internalized. When you're asleep your guard is down, the usual inhibitors are relaxed. So that is the time that the unconscious rises and makes itself heard.

There is a further reason for our interest in dreams; we have become compulsively visual people. Of the five senses, sight is the one most emphasized in modern society. We take in, experience and evaluate other people and the world about us chiefly through visual impressions. The other senses are important too, but they are assembled around the central visual image.

We have become beings who crave visual distraction - TV, video, in our pockets, in our homes and the workplace, in our cars, magazines, pictures of food on packaging, photography, cinematography, 3D spectacular visual images abound. So is it any wonder that we have begun to experience the world as if it were a kind of Blu-ray video presentation - spectacular, over-stimulating, sense-numbing, emotionally and visually invasive? By comparison the world may seem rather unspectacular and pedestrian.

The dream world however knows nothing of such limitations as those in waking life. They are truly wild. We fly, perform tremendous feats, and defy restrictions of time, place and normal inhibitions. Dreams entice us with fantasies of pleasure; we can meet people we feel supernaturally close to, perceive light and clarity beyond the vividness of waking life and perform actions and deeds which we may feel guilty or shamed about.

What value is there in listening to what your dreams have to say?

People have dreams and ignore them when they may save their lives. Or at least inform or guide their lives. People who habitually read their horoscope or ask advice of a wise friend or relative may routinely dismiss their dreams. Yet the dreams they ignore possess the very wisdom they seek.

Dreams offer us a world of symbols and guidance that draws us into an intimate relationship with our shadow side - that part of our psyche which we have disowned.

By learning ways to understand our dreams we gain access to a plethora of deep unconscious wisdom which leads us to inner wholeness and personal integration.

What about dream dictionaries - are they not sufficient for guiding us to a valid interpretation which we can do on our own?

Dream dictionaries have their place. But far better than consulting a book which tells you what your dream means is to find out for yourself. That way you are already connecting with the deeper wisdom which is yours. Dream dictionaries tend to be over simplistic - a kind of building block method and, by definition, they don't have much to say about the dynamics, the sequencing, the interrelationship of symbols and the deeper layers of personal meaning in your dreams.

What are the methods you advise for working with dreams?

There are many dream methods from analytical interpretation to Gestalt, from Jungian to waking dreaming, archetypal and transpersonal approaches, symbol immersion, re-entry and so on. To me the most important aspect of listening to our dreams is essentially practical and it concerns the restrictions of time. Most of us have so little time to work with our dreams and yet we dream every night and mostly our dreams have something unique to say to us. So I think the crucial point is how to work with dreams effectively and quickly enough that it becomes feasible for us to keep track of where our dreams are directing our attention, or to stay in relationship with what Arny Mindell would call "the dreambody" - the aspect of our psyche that offers dreams to us.

So I have devised a simple, effective and rapid way to work with dreams which I teach in my workshops. At the same time if a workshop participant has already adopted a dreamwork method I honor that, because it seems to me that each of the diverse methods has something to offer.

So it's really about having a relationship with your dreamlife?

By entering into a relationship with your dreams you can develop a dialog with the unconscious mind, request specific guidance and access deep wells of wisdom. Which brings us back to where we started - the three states of Waking, Dreaming and Deep Sleep. The sacred syllable OM, or A-U-M, is the sound of the universe and it is the direct experience of transcendence, manifesting as inner radiance.

Breaking down A-U-M, the A is the waking state of consciousness, the M is the state of transcendent consciousness and the mediating or transitional sound in the middle is the U, which is the dream consciousness. So dreams mediate between our waking self and our transcendent self.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell tells the story of a conversation he had with Jung. Jung was hiking in Africa with some friends when they happened upon a group of indigenous people. The unfamiliarity led to a stand off in which each group seemed to be assessing what potential threat there might be. They had no way of communicating to each other. When each group relaxed and felt OK about the other a primitive basic communication arose and, according to Jung the sound he heard was OM... OM... OM.

This seems to me to be a good metaphor for our relationship to the world of dreams. At first they are threatening because they're unfamiliar. Then, as we develop a relationship to them we sense an underlying unity in them and also in our relationship to them. They are really a part of us, a kind of secret, lost part that we can re-own and finally possess which makes us richer in our soul life.

In our soul life rather than our ego life?

Each dream is a challenge to our sense of separation, to our ego-centered self. The dream encourages us to bridge the gap, open communication and resolve the differences between different parts of our selves. The result is an experience of inner unity that we radiate outwards in our waking lives.

BLOG entry #112

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘The Wisdom of Dreams: Unlocking and Understanding Your Unconscious Guidance and Wisdom’ was first published in 2011.