Susan*

Susan* comes very upset to her first session. She is in her forties, blond, well taken care of and pretty. She is a strong woman, very energetic.

She tells me that she has to take care of her boyfriend who has cancer and is facing a bone marrow transplant. They have a very close and caring relationship and of course, Susan is very scared of losing her boyfriend.

However, I can feel very clearly that this is not the reason she is so upset. I ask her about her day so far and what happened before our session. She describes me a fight she just had with her mother. This mother takes too much space in her life. Susan can’t do anything right, can’t get through to her mother. It’s the mother’s “way or the highway” and if it wasn’t already hard enough to support her sick boyfriend she also had to please her mother.

I suggest a game, having a “conversation” with her mother, telling her once for all how Susan feels about her. I give her 2 chairs one for the mother and one for herself. I invite her to place the “mother” anywhere in the room, wherever it feels right and then the chair for herself in relation. In psychotherapy this exercise gives us an opportunity to slip into someone’s shoes, seeing the world and ourselves with her eyes.

Susan looks around and without hesitation puts her mother’s chair in front of the only mirror in the room, facing the mirror. Then she tries to place her own chair in relation but wherever she puts it, it can’t get into a dialog with her mother.

I invite Susan to sit on her mother’s chair. What does she see?

“I see myself and the world through the mirror. I don’t see the real world, only the mirroring of it with always myself in the center.” 

She switches to her own chair. She sits there a bit helpless. She only sees her mother’s back, she has to take the initiative to get into a dialog with the mother and this dialog is never direct but always through the image in the mirror.

Susan realizes in this session that this was always the nature of their relationship. Her mother was always self-centered and – with her own story on her shoulders – not able to see anybody separate from herself. 

This is a breakthrough in Susan’s relationship with her mother. Once she understood that her mother is not able to recognize other’s needs, is not able to separate herself from the world of others, she lives her own life without trying to please her mother.

This new understanding gave her more freedom in her daily life. She didn’t have to do the things to please her mother anymore and had more time and emotional freedom to take care of her sick boyfriend.