One of the great luminaries of Depth Psychology Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) once said

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'

In the above quote Jung refers specifically to the interaction and transformation that can result within the therapeutic relationship which is now increasingly seen as the driving force in therapeutic change. This idea that if contact is made between two individuals, no matter what the type or form of that reaction, whether repulsion, or attraction, whether joy or pain, within this contact inevitably, both parties will be transformed by this experience. Jung understood this as an inevitable function of the power of relationships when used intentionally and therapeutically, when an awareness and focus was brought to the transference and counter transference that would arise within these healing relationships.

Now transference and counter transference are somewhat esoteric and specific terms that have arisen out of analytical psychology yet they refer to very basic and fundamental processes that will and do occur in our relationships every day. Essentially transference and counter transference could be explained simply as the:

'Unconscious tendency to assign to others in one's present environment feelings and attitudes associated with someone of significance from ones past'

Essentially this is the idea that often in relationships we don't necessarily make contact with the person or presence that is before us but rather we make contact with our own projections about a person, our own unconscious expectations, fears, restrictions, hurts and hopes....somehow relationships and what we see and react to in the other, mirror back to us our own unconscious dynamics, they show us in our perception of others that which we cannot and are often unwilling to see in ourselves and our experience.

This is a powerful and pervasive process and when harnessed can bring great theraputic growth and change. Yet stepping outside of the therapy room and into life, to entertain the possibility that those things that prevent contact with others in our lives, that get in the way of our ability to deeply connect in open, loving and compassionate ways, that bring criticism, conflict, reaction and often pain are actually reflections of aspects of us that we are not aware of can be a difficult pill to swallow. This is because this idea activates a sense of personal responsibility for our reactions in all engagements, it says that this reaction, this step away from openness, love and compassion is mine, not the other....its no longer allows blame and can, at times painfully, help you see the ways in which you are complicit in the conflicts and struggles that present themselves everyday in your life...

A reality check like no other...Yet it also brings with it the power to change, and chances for transformation which are trying to get our attention everyday...those things we experience as problems in our relationships are strangely enough opportunities, if we choose to utilise them in this way....Another quote from Jung articulates this idea with clarity:

“Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event.”

and

'A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour.'

So from Jung’s perspective these events, or reactions especially in our relationships with others are often parts of us trying to get our attention, they are offerings of transformation......To clarify further another author writes:

'The external world is used to house deeper potentials. Often deeper potentials are disintegrative, what faces the person is the awful, grotesque, monstrous form of the potential. It is the deeper potential seen through the form of the disintegrative relationship. The tragedy is that human beings are hard at work constructing the world into monstrous externalisations of their own deeper potentials'

Yet when we are able to own these projections, when we are able to integrate and accept these often difficult and frightening deeper potentials that present themselves in our relational world, then what has been an uncomfortable resistance to contact can be transformed into a awareness and acceptance of our own wholeness. This process can be seen to release blocked energy and allow a deeper connection to ourselves and hence an ability to dive into deeper contact with the other in our relationship.

This is the alchemical possibility that lies within the fiery crucible of our relationships with our friends, work colleagues and lovers. This is the work we must do if our relationships are to last and flourish, to recognize the ways that we resist contact, the ways that we block the flow of openness and love and hold these in the fire of acceptance and awareness so they can be transmuted into gold.

To finish a profoundly sobering and empowering quote from Jung:

'If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.'

References

“Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140

“The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P.335

Greenberg. S(Ed.); Watson. C(Ed.); Lietaer, G(Ed) (1998) Handbook of experiential psychotherapy. Guilford Family therapy Press.

Sommers-Flannagan; J. & Sommers-Flannagan; R(2012) Counselling & Psychotherapy theories: In context and Practice. John Wiley & Sons; New Jersey.