S
Splitting, Suicidality & Suicidal Ideation, Swearing
Splitting
Splitting is a concept that comes from Melanie Klein’s book Envy and Gratitude. In essence, she argues that as children and later as adults we see the world in blacks and whites: my mum was a hero, my dad was a villain. “There is no neutral zone, only good and bad” she wrote. She called this the “paranoid-schitzoid position” and said it was an early response to a child managing the enormous overwhelm of birth and early life.
The challenge, she argued, is to move to a more true but more challenging emotional position: my mum was great but in several respects she was flawed; my dad was a bastard but he did have this going for him. It’s much more honest, but much harder. She called this the “depressive position”.
Many of us enter therapy with this ‘split’ view in several areas of our life – whether about parents, politics, entertainment or ourselves. Finding our way to the greys of life – the truth of how the world really is – is often a key challenge. We’re in a particularly binary time in the world, which doesn’t do much to help our pursuit of nuance.
It’s worth trying it to see how easy or hard you find it.
“I hate musicals but I cried at Les Miz.” “I adore Mick Jagger but I don’t approve of him not paying his taxes here.” “Boris Johnson is a liar and a fraud but….” Well ok it doesn’t always work.
Suicidality vs Suicidal Ideation
These two terms may sound like matters of degree but there’s all the difference in the world.
Suicidality means that someone is actively considering taking their own life. They are thinking about how to do it, and when, and summoning up their resources to do so.
Suicidal Ideation is much more common. It means someone is thinking about what it would be like to die; perhaps wondering if ending their life is the only way to kill the pain they feel inside them. They wish the misery they feel would go away. They feel hopeless. Ideation needs to be taken seriously, but it’s the idea of death which contains the value for exploration and respect.
Every therapist’s worst nightmare – from the first day of training through to retirement – is a client killing themselves while being treated by us. Some of us will experience that in our careers. Most of us will have been confronted with it at some stage; wondered if our client will be coming back the next week.
Understanding from the client whether they are suicidal or are experiencing ideation is one of the key steps to working out how easily we can sleep at night.
Swearing
Sometimes only a “fucking cunt” will do.
If therapy is helpful it is because it allows you to express whatever you want to express in whatever way best releases the feeling. Sometimes that’s tears, sometimes understanding. But words count, and sometimes powerful invective is what the moment requires.
I sometimes spot a client pausing for a nano-second before saying that some experience “wasn’t very good”. “Is that what you wanted to say?” I might say. A pause will follow. “No. It was really fucking shit actually” they might say. That’s much closer to it.
Swearing isn’t obligatory. For some people it would feel performative and untrue to the way they talk. But if a swear word is needed, or even an avalanche of them, there’s no number of fucks, shits, cunts or arseholes I’m not up for hearing.
Next Week: T (Part 1)
Therapists in Therapy, Training, Trauma, Truth