Hate, like love, is something we all experience. It is part of life and decidedly normal. If you have any doubts about this, then just hang around with some two year olds for a while. Hate like love is always an option. What we do with it, how we control it, how we react to it, how others react to it - are what counts.
We might be open, as Eric Hobsbawn recently was, in saying that we are 'good haters,' sustaining a particular commitment, by doing so. Or we might be terrified of the fact that we do hate; leaving it unrecognised, to pursue an image of ourselves as 'good' or maybe 'nice.' Where that happens we have often learned to pull down to control our reactions, our feelings and to stop ourselves from saying things, which we fear will provoke humiliation and isolation. We anticipate verbal abuse or perhaps physical attack. We have learned to control our desire to speak and to try to escape from feelings that we have been taught are 'wrong' or 'bad.' Often the understanding that develops here is not that the feelings are ‘wrong’ or 'bad' but that I am 'bad.'
Now, in an ideal world everybody would have a mum or a dad who can cope with his or her child saying 'I hate you' or 'I don't want to do that.' Mum and dad would be able to understand that it is what young kids do, and in their understanding they would be free enough to help their child understand the normalcy of their feeling, freeing them to find a way forward, to return to loving their parent in time, always in a new and more mature way. Where that does not happen on a regular, predictable basis and children are taught to be good, they usually learn to pull their heads down, shorten and tighten, learning to hide their misery, acting a part, sometimes as a 'good,' 'dutiful' son or daughter, at other times as the wayward rebel.
A habitual use of the head and the neck develops, which not only interferes with our organic functioning but plays its part in our psycho-physical attitude, that we are ‘bad’ which we hold towards ourselves, as well as, whatever attitude we adopt to others and the outside world. In Personal Construct terms we are talking about a person’s ‘core role’, the role they play, as if it is a matter of life or death, and a role that is deeply tied to systems of life maintenance.
To develop Conscious Control here is a matter of developing, if we simplify things greatly, two different stances, one of which is towards those aspects of the self that have been rejected or fragmented which are often tied to spontaneity and feelings of being alive. Practically speaking what we are looking for is the ability to face unwanted and often shamed parts of oneself, by applying the Alexander Technique and learning to face and then understand them, through dialogue, if you believe as I do that at heart we are dialogical beings.
The second stance is towards others and if I am seeking to illustrate this in an Alexander lesson, I will stand in front of a pupil and ask them to directly look at me. Often what happens is that they pull their heads down, sometimes they want to look away. As I talk them through the process, they find they can engage with me, visibly lengthening, releasing their breathing, improving their organic functioning and establishing a conscious use of themselves in relation to another.
If I am working in my capacity as a therapist, I will invite people to then take this further by allowing themselves to look and see the other, by describing the other and their own experience of the other. With the description of the other including a portrait of how they see and experience the situation and relationship. This allows the development of what Kelly called sociality and is called mentalization elsewhere. Most importantly it leads to the possibility of new role relationships, relationships that are vital for people's well-being and functioning. This leads me to propose that from an Alexander Technique point of view, that if we were to consider what is involved in the highest standard of inter-personal function, there would two conditions, the first concerned with the ability to consciously and co-ordinate the use of ourselves in relationships. While the second following Kelly would be concerned with our ability to understand the other in their terms.
This rather long blog concludes this series on Alexander Technique and the Inter-personal. To those that have followed it right the way through and sent me comments or talked to me about the ideas contained here, a big thank you. I will be developing them further in time for the EPCA conference in July where I will be presenting them in a workshop format to colleagues from that particular world.
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