Isolation versus Insulation – Finding Oneself

Feeling real is not something well explored in therapy

Yet, if therapeutic work has to do with the work of discoveries, feeling real is part of the work of discovering oneself. We all have this private self that we want to not communicate to the outer world, and at the same time we want to communicate so we can be found.

We can have our private notes taken in a journal, or a dream, or a poem, and we do not share this with anyone. In fact, we start forming our private self in our childhood, by establishing something that we do not want to share. If we grew up in an environment in which our private self could be protected from external influence or intrusion, just so this part of ourselves is isolated, we can enjoy both communicating and not-communicating parts of ourselves. However, if we do not have such an opportunity, isolation can become insulation.

This is a call to action and to seek real support in therapeutic work

So, imagine all the complex work of a mother. They do not communicate with their babies in any way other than as a subjective object. Until the mother began to be perceived as an external object, babies had to go through several developmental skills to communicate until they were able to use language. The transitional experiences during which babies begin to use symbols are the basis for the development of a person’s ego based on their experience of communicating with subjective experience. This is the basis for the person feeling real. It is this understanding that provides the type of therapeutic work in which we can find a facilitating environment to make this possible – the person begins feeling real.

We can examine the way we are in the world. This is affected by how our early environment did or did not allow for protection during the formative period of our private self. We can experience difficult emotional states without being able to get in touch with their source. As a result, we insulate parts of ourselves with what we become unable to communicate. These parts represent our lack of a sense of self. If we are in the world, in this state, we do not experience aliveness – which leads us to compensate by doing things that make us look alive. In this way, we do not get to know what real life can offer. Therefore, it is important that we recover this sense of ourselves being in the world in such a way that we feel existing, we feel real in the world, and we can enjoy new discoveries and being found.

References

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). Communicating and not communicating leading to a study of certain opposites. The maturational processes and the facilitating environment.

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