Developing a Positive Relationship with Oneself: The Inner and the Outer
What if the most important relationship you have is with yourself?
Our earliest relationships shape the way we see ourselves and others, and, often, the parts of our inner world we learn to hide. Drawing on attachment theory, self-esteem, and psychotherapy, this piece explores how we can come to understand that inner world more clearly.
“Life is Relationship”, said Jiddu Krishnamurti, South Indian-born spiritual philosopher, writer, and speaker.
By this he meant that it’s impossible to live in isolation, and only relationships, acting as mirrors to us, enable us to see ourselves clearly.
As modern people, we are used to the idea that we relate to the external world, such as objects, scientific facts, ideas, and other people. We are far less familiar with the reality that we are in constant relationship with ourselves, and our own inner world.
“You psychologically are the world, and the world is you”. By this Krishnamuriti meant that actually, there is no barrier between the inside and the outside of a person - the two blend into one. In Western psychology, this is similar to the idea of projection. If I have an image of myself, unconsciously, as defective and unworthy, I will automatically assume that this is the way that others, or “the world”, sees me. If I cannot see my own inner world clearly, this becomes my outer world also.
Modern psychology in the form of attachment theory likewise affirms that we learn who we are - and therefore what the world is - through relationship. “There is no such thing as a baby”, famously declared British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott in 1940. He meant that an infant cannot psychologically exist in isolation, they can only exist as an inseparable unit with their mother or primary caregiver.
If growing up our caregivers were uncomfortable with emotions and vulnerability, we will be also. If our caregivers paid attention to our inner world, we will know this inner world, as it has been revealed to us by the mirror of relationship. If our inner world was invisible or uninteresting to our caregivers, we will likely neglect it too and be unfamiliar with it.
As infants and children, being completely dependent in relationship, we adapt to the reality before us - the only reality we know. We then take this reality to be the whole of reality, similar to only ever seeing a black swan, and inducting that all swans are therefore black.
This is the power of psychotherapy. If in relationship we learned to obscure our inner world, it is in relationship that we can learn to reveal it more clearly. Therapy is based upon the ability of the therapist to listen - listen with complete attention - to the person before them, thus helping the client to simultaneously listen to themselves.
Through this process we can learn to see, to notice the parts of ourself that we have not seen over the years - the hurt parts, the scared parts, the shamed parts, the young and vulnerable parts that have been, through relational necessity, consigned to the darkness, perhaps even to the scrap heap.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear that torment” - St John. As we learn to see the whole of ourselves, including the hidden parts, we begin to care and have love for ourselves. And where love is, there fear is not.
If the client can experience a positive relationship with the therapist, they can learn that there is nothing to be scared of about themselves, nor to be ashamed of, as they experience understanding and acceptance in the presence of another.
Please reach out to myself if this sounds like a process you are interested in exploring for yourself.
“If in relationship we learned to obscure our inner world, it is in relationship that we can learn to reveal it more clearly.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jedrek Hagedorn is a Clinical Psychologist based in Carlton North, Melbourne, with a particular interest in relationships, self-esteem, emotional wellbeing and supporting new fathers. He holds a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and has experience across private and public psychiatric settings, crisis counselling, and working with a broad range of psychological and relationship difficulties.
