The mirror that others provide us
WE DISCOVER WHO WE ARE THROUGH INTERACTION WITH OTHERS
“Thought of the Week” for July 31, 2006
In the formation of a sense of self, the reaction of others provides a mirror and is an indispensable part of normal growth and development. We learn who we are and what we can expect in the world from the mirror that others provide for us.
Gary Yontef, “Gestalt Therapy Theory of Change,” in Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice, p. 91
Comment:
Personal interaction: the mirror through which we grow
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2006 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
Much of what we learn about ourselves comes through feedback we receive from others about our actions. It is through reactions to our actions that we can both know ourselves and remake ourselves. In a sense, other people are the mirror through which we can see ourselves most clearly. As Yontef says, “We learn who we are…from the mirror that others provide us.”
This hermeneutic process is a key element in the hero’s journey process. We act or engage in the world based on our understandings about ourselves and our world. The feedback from that engagement either confirms our understanding or challenges it.
If the feedback from others confirms our understanding, we assimilate it and deepen our sense of self and our perception of the world. If the feedback challenges our understanding (i.e., doesn’t produce a response that we like or expect), then we are thrown into a situation where we need to reevaluate our understanding and revise it to fit the facts. In this case, we must accommodate our understanding to the feedback.
Restructuring our understanding to harmonize with reality can be a threatening and painful realization. Because our understanding is a web of meanings that establish our sense of self and our being in our world, challenging feedback is threatening. In a sense, it says, “You are not who you thought you are and your world is not what you think it is.” Such a revelation can become the call to the journey of changing our view of ourselves and our world.
We need, also, to look at the other side of Yontef’s mirror metaphor. Other people form their sense of self based on the responses (feedback) we mirror to them. This idea, explored beautifully in Hindu mythology in the story of Indra’s net, reminds us that all journeys are taken in a context of others. We are, at once, the traveler in our own journey and the mentor or helper in someone else’s journey.
When we think of the heroic journey, we tend to think of individual journeys (Ulysses, Huck Finn, etc.), but we need to remember the mirror: no journey is totally individual. The world and others form the ground upon which we build the figure of ourselves. For others on their journeys, we become part of the ground upon which they build the figures of their selves.
The journey pattern is as much a metaphor for vital inter-relationships among people as it is a metaphor for the lone individual struggling to accomplish a great deed. Yontef’s message, “the reaction of others provides a mirror and is an indispensable part of normal growth and development” makes that point clearly.
Hero’s Journey: Mirror of Personal Interaction
The mirror that others provide us
WE DISCOVER WHO WE ARE THROUGH INTERACTION WITH OTHERS
“Thought of the Week” for July 31, 2006
In the formation of a sense of self, the reaction of others provides a mirror and is an indispensable part of normal growth and development. We learn who we are and what we can expect in the world from the mirror that others provide for us.
Gary Yontef, “Gestalt Therapy Theory of Change,” in Gestalt Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice, p. 91
Comment:
Personal interaction: the mirror through which we grow
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2006 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
Much of what we learn about ourselves comes through feedback we receive from others about our actions. It is through reactions to our actions that we can both know ourselves and remake ourselves. In a sense, other people are the mirror through which we can see ourselves most clearly. As Yontef says, “We learn who we are…from the mirror that others provide us.”
This hermeneutic process is a key element in the hero’s journey process. We act or engage in the world based on our understandings about ourselves and our world. The feedback from that engagement either confirms our understanding or challenges it.
If the feedback from others confirms our understanding, we assimilate it and deepen our sense of self and our perception of the world. If the feedback challenges our understanding (i.e., doesn’t produce a response that we like or expect), then we are thrown into a situation where we need to reevaluate our understanding and revise it to fit the facts. In this case, we must accommodate our understanding to the feedback.
Restructuring our understanding to harmonize with reality can be a threatening and painful realization. Because our understanding is a web of meanings that establish our sense of self and our being in our world, challenging feedback is threatening. In a sense, it says, “You are not who you thought you are and your world is not what you think it is.” Such a revelation can become the call to the journey of changing our view of ourselves and our world.
We need, also, to look at the other side of Yontef’s mirror metaphor. Other people form their sense of self based on the responses (feedback) we mirror to them. This idea, explored beautifully in Hindu mythology in the story of Indra’s net, reminds us that all journeys are taken in a context of others. We are, at once, the traveler in our own journey and the mentor or helper in someone else’s journey.
When we think of the heroic journey, we tend to think of individual journeys (Ulysses, Huck Finn, etc.), but we need to remember the mirror: no journey is totally individual. The world and others form the ground upon which we build the figure of ourselves. For others on their journeys, we become part of the ground upon which they build the figures of their selves.
The journey pattern is as much a metaphor for vital inter-relationships among people as it is a metaphor for the lone individual struggling to accomplish a great deed. Yontef’s message, “the reaction of others provides a mirror and is an indispensable part of normal growth and development” makes that point clearly.