The "self bag."

a common and recurring theme i come across in therapy is when people identify themselves as having a poor sense of "self," not knowing who they are and being very open to the slings and arrows of other's opinions. This poorly developed self seems to often be a consequence of some trauma in adolescence. it seems to happen especially when so much unhappiness and distress occurs in a Young person's life that they are unable to spend the emotional time on developing a strong "picture" or "idea" of their inner selves. Adolescence should be spent developing ideas about what we like, who we like, what our values are, what ideas we have, what we prefer. Do we value creativity over organisation, independence over support, equality over success. Do we like loud extroverts or introverts, in fact are we introverts or extroverts? do we feel more comfortable in the bush or a city... you get the picture.

anyway, many people come to therapy without that well developed. They were so busy struggling with sexual abuse or violence at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and the consequences until eighteen that they just never got to examine their inner workings. Any criticism is an attack on the very sense of themselves. any crisis can knock them completely off course and off their agenda.

so i started to work on an idea for healing this wound, or for developing the bits that went undeveloped. I called it a "bag of self." It came from a strategy I had for myself when I needed a much stronger self. I travelled the world alone, with a backpack for eighteen months. This was "a journey" in every sense of the word. I had a day pack that contained items essential to my "self" survival. These were not things like a Swiss army knife. they were instead a diary (my written word), a camera (my visual record), a novel, some paints, pencils and paper. I had with me all i needed to survive any social situation. I waited for a bus for eight hours and had enough of "me" to keep me emotionally safe. The essentials of me went every where with me. They helped me (without me knowing it) to develop a Strong sense of what I am, what i like, my values. I could "sit" with myself knowing I was OK, knowing I could comfort myself and that no-one could penetrate my emotional force field.

I proposed this idea to clients this week and had a fantastic response. My clients "got it" and have begun their own "me bag."