Notable for us here is that a mere thirteen years earlier, the German army had been occupying France and subjecting French citizens to these very tactics. Himmler had issued his standing order in 1942 that the “third degree” was to be used against all those opposed to the aims of the Third Reich. As a means of extracting confessions, the “third degree” was a form of torture in which any pathway was open to the Gestapo or members of the army against the enemies of Germany. Torture was extreme and often ended in death.
Opposing the Germans was a strong French Resistance that included a man by the name of Paul Aussaresses. Ironically, Aussaresses would eventually become the architect of the systematic detainment, torture, and death of countless thousands of Algerians in the War of Algiers. Following the end of that war, Aussaresses would then travel to North Carolina and train the US Army and CIA in these techniques, which were then used against the Viet Cong and other civilian populations. Not quite done yet, Aussaresses followed his training of US intelligence with a trip to Chile. He was warmly welcomed by Pinochet, and the death squads there benefited greatly from his expertise. It has been said that his influence in the world of torture cannot be overestimated.122
What is painfully ironic in this series of horrors is that the men who had been tortured by the Nazis later became torturers themselves. As we saw in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, there is nothing so soothing to a frightened heart as the thought that the ones who hold you captive with terror can be made to submit. Fear makes us powerless, and in this state our longing for control has tremendous ability to override both judgment and morality. The righteousness we explored in Chapter Eight is not only blinding, but can be deadly as well.
To my thinking, what makes this truly horrible is the seeming inevitability of such atrocities. This is a traumatic repetition that occurs like clockwork historically between nations. We saw this in Algiers and we saw it earlier in Germany after World War I, when the humiliation of the German defeat, and ongoing persecution by Europe and the US, turned Germany into a breeding ground for fascism and a repetition of abuse.
But this repetition of fear, abuse, fear, and more abuse, sometimes called transgenerational trauma, is not restricted to the geopolitical. Much of my work as a therapist involves understanding these dynamics within individuals and families, and offering healing that will slow or, ultimately, eliminate the generational transmission of these injuries. And what I have learned from my work is that traumatic fear does not have to be our legacy. It can be healed.
For many of us, however, psychotherapy is for “sick” people, or people with time to sit around contemplating their navels. As we saw earlier in this book, human beings are not the most adept at seeing their own blind spots; we are much better at seeing problems within others. And as we have also seen, the experience of Fear in our lives bring us face-to-face with a vulnerability that is often impossible to tolerate on our own.123 This vulnerability is what we run from. It is my hope that this book will help us to at least slow this run to a walk.
When It Stops
I received a letter a while back from a former patient named Manus. He and I had worked together for almost four years. He wanted to thank me for what he had gotten from our work.
As I read the letter, I remembered a story Manus had told me early in his therapy. He was about seven years old, living alone with his mother after his father’s death several years earlier. He had built a fort out of sofa cushions and decorated the inside with a big mirror. He then got the idea to get scissors and cut his own hair. He was so proud of his work with those scissors. But when his mother saw what he had done, she literally cried and walked out of the house. Manus went to his room and stayed there until the next morning. He had no idea how long his mother was gone.
What stood out to my patient as he told me the story was not his mother’s tears or even the terror of abandonment; what stood out was the fact that his act of creativity had been so misunderstood. What moved Manus to pick up those scissors was a desire to bring his Imagination to his body and his being. And then, in the blink of an eye, that unique self he had just created became an object of contempt.
As an adult, Manus carried with him the scars of that moment, part of an ongoing experience of annihilation at the hands of his mother. But what was remarkable to me, and at times to Manus, was the fact that he had become a successful, vital, thriving architect. And as he finished telling me the story of the scissors that day, he paused and asked, “She didn’t destroy my creativity, did she? My spirit?”
“No,” I said, “she did not.”
The reality, however, was not quite so simple. When Manus began therapy with me many years earlier, he was deeply depressed and desperately anxious. Growing up with his mother had left him insecure and frightened. Not only was his mother controlling and demanding, she was also prone to painfully withdrawing from her son.
Much of our early work went into reconstituting his inner sense of security. He needed twice-weekly therapy, not for depth, but for continuity and reassurance. At one point, I learned that Manus would sometimes come to my waiting room on days when he didn’t have appointments. He explained that it helped him just to sit there. He didn’t need me to acknowledge him or do anything. He just needed to know that I was “still alive.”
With time, this state of profound insecurity subsided, and he slowly accumulated a greater sense of his own existence. We worked together to untangle his complicated history. I helped him make sense of who he was and how he came to be that way. I also made space to process his confusing feelings toward me and our relationship. But most crucial in our work was the simple act of my emotionally holding him. It was as if he was in pieces and needed both glue and time to set.
As we progressed, the work took a turn. Almost imperceptibly, Manus became more distant, less connected and warm. When we discussed this difference, he acknowledged an incredible sense of shame. Part of him felt “so dirty, so evil” that he could no longer tolerate my getting close to him. He worried that if he did get close, he would somehow damage me, the way he believed he had damaged his mother and made her go away. As we slowly and carefully worked through this pattern from childhood, he realized that this same shame was what was keeping him from finding love and tolerating a committed relationship.
Soon after, he came in one day and told me that he felt a strange tightness in his chest. Bodily experiences such as this are often portals to deeper layers of the mind. In order to reach these layers, I asked him to bring more awareness to that part of his body, to describe what he felt…the sensations, images, feelings. He closed his eyes and said, “It’s heavy, like a weight. Tight and making it hard to breathe. It is something in my chest…round and rough…black, gummy.” Then he paused and said, “I see something, it’s a shape, a place.”
There, in his Imaginal mind, Manus discovered a warehouse full of crates and boxes. He likened it to the scene in the Indiana Jones movie when the Ark of the Covenant is stored away in a vast sea of wooden crates. And as we sat with eyes closed, Manus peering into the dark of that warehouse, he noticed a boy climbing in the rafters.
We spent a good amount of time over the subsequent sessions hearing from that little boy. Dirty, neglected—the little boy was barely able to tolerate our presence, he was so frightened. But with time, we learned of his fears and a few of his dreams. Little by little the boy’s body relaxed, and he hesitantly told us why he had been hiding for so long.
We learned from this little boy that he had been touched inappropriately by a man he trusted, his mother’s friend. It only happened twice, but it was enough. The shame that Manus carried with him from that early trauma drove those memories deep into that endless dark warehouse.
When the memories came back to him through connecting to the little boy, that part of him that was hiding for so long, it was both utterly familiar and oddly other. His relationship to the little boy inside was understandably comple
x. Not only was he afraid of the pain, he was repulsed by the “ugliness” of this part of himself. It was in this period of our work that he faced his relational fears. He had found care and warmth with me, but with each moment of closeness he found the need to push me away. Unlike his mother, however, I did not go away.
He and I sat together in the metaphorical dark and waited until something paradoxical happened. Our eyes began to adjust; Manus began to feel at home in the dark.
It took a long time for the patterns of fear and abuse to soften and for new patterns of tolerable vulnerability to be formed. But if there is one paradox that is most notable, it is that when we sit with someone in our darkness, the dark slowly begins to change.
We worked quite well together until one day when Manus told me that his girlfriend had asked him to marry her and that he had accepted. She was moving to another town and so, he said, “I guess I need to end my therapy.” We met for a few more sessions to process our ending. He had done wonderful work but was understandably nervous about being on his own. It was hard for both of us to say goodbye. I felt a genuine affection for him.
In the last session, I assured him that I would always be there if he needed me. He stood and reached out for a hug, something that had been impossible for him before. And, as is often the case in this work, I never heard from him again. That is, until the letter, so many years later.
In the letter, Manus told me that he was married and had a seven-year-old daughter. He reflected on the passing of generations. He wanted me to know that the pain and abuse had stopped with him, that his daughter was growing up free of the kind of fear and shame that had plagued his childhood. The work he had done to heal himself, he believed, had shifted the pattern. “I know it is just one little girl,” he wrote, “just one person. But she is my daughter and she is free. That’s something, isn’t it?”
I wrote him back and told him that it was indeed “something,” that he had done all that any of us can do. He had faced himself and reclaimed what was lost. I told him I was very happy for him.
Perhaps it is an inherent bias of my profession, but I sincerely believe that all societal change comes about through the individual. The Fear that our species has accumulated, and the effects that this has had upon the shape of our society, are the result of countless generations of person-to-person trauma. And it is up to each of us to decide what portion of that is ours to heal.
But what I have found in my work as a psychotherapist is that the path toward healing runs directly through the very thing we seem to fear most, our psychological pain. This is perhaps the final paradox, and one that is not solved with the rational brain. When a patient is able to sit long enough in their dark places with me, we somehow find our way toward healing. Not only do they come to be less afraid of the dark, but the dark itself begins to transform. Slowly, a soft light begins to emerge. But this is not the light of blindness; it is a light of wisdom, compassion and love.
Early in the book, I talked about the turtle I found in my mother’s apartment and my discovery that the secret compartment within that turtle was empty. I knew that this space inside was significant, but I didn’t know why. I see now that the turtle is more than just a slow defensive creature. Beneath all that protective armor is the space in which the mind and Imagination can exist. The clue I was looking for in that compartment was the compartment itself.
I am aware now of how much like a turtle I really am. Danger comes and I pull in my head. If something falls on me, I have that protective shell of mine. And in truth, I could stay beneath that shell for most of my life if necessary. But what I try to remember is that, even though the world can be a dangerous place, it can also be quite beautiful when we risk peeking out.
Acknowledgments
My deepest appreciation goes to my wife, Heidi Frieze, for her unending support and very real help bringing this book to life. I also want to thank Doug Rushkoff for his friendship and belief in me; my agent, Jeff Shreve, for taking good care of the book; Brenda, Yaddyra, Christina, Robin, Jermaine, and the folks at Mango for publishing; Susan Dominus for always finding time to read my early ramblings; NH for his imagination; Carolyn Jacobs for her help all along the way; and my patients for showing me the way.
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