I am caught in a terrible dilemma, a polarised conflict, a problematic situation well-known to anyone believing that rather than our persona being the expression of a monolithic self, it is the result of the accumulation of a myriad parts, each with their own agenda, history and voice. Shamanic spiritual traditions have long supposed the existence of a soul, power animals, guardians, specific to each individual; Freud conceptualised our internal world as made of three different parts: the Ego, Superego and Id; Jung went much further soon after as he theorised a whole crowd of internal archetypes hailing from our distant collective memory; Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis posited three internal figures, the Child, the Adult, the Parent; IFS (Internal Family Systems), the latest in a long line of systemic theories, considers that different internal “parts” come into being in response to life events in order to protect the integrity of the individual, most of the parts fall into three self-explanatory categories, the Exiles, the Firefighters and the Managers. Please forgive this condensed, whistle stop tour of a variety of theories of mind from the perspective of healing traditions, but I felt it necessary to introduce and qualify the nature of my dilemma. And this is a psychotherapy website after all, so we must make allowances. Besides, I am only putting a theoretical sheen on a knowledge fiction writers have long understood: the characters they bring forth out of their imagination have their own autonomous lives.

Picking up the IFS point of view, it is easy to understand that one part’s protective strategy might be counter to another’s, leading to inevitable internal conflict with a variety of consequences from paralysis to anxiety or break down. For me, this kind of conflict has often resulted in an uncomfortable quiet stillness, interspersed with explosive bouts of despair when the expression of my deepest and most negative feelings (a despairing part vocally attempting to let me and the world at large know about my true feelings, thereby hoping that a solution might be provided) couldn’t be controlled any longer by a managing part intent on keeping the status quo and avoiding (supposed) unpleasant consequences. One is trying to attract attention whilst the other is working very hard to render all feelings invisible. Meanwhile, a third part is acting out, or rather attempting to assuage the conflict by implementing all sorts of (unhelpful) strategies from compulsive shopping to dysregulated eating.

I can sense mounting frustration in the reader (or rather a part of me is feeling self-conscious and embarrassed at the time it is taking to get to the point as it envisages the potentially dangerous impatience it might provoke in the highly hypothetical reader, they might just give up on reading this article altogether): we want to know what this troublesome dilemma is!!!

Fair enough. I recently read an article by philosopher and Guardian columnist Julian Baggini. I don’t make a secret of my affection for Mr Baggini: I enjoy the way his mind works and how his thoughts surprise and challenge me. In this instance, the question revolved around “instrumentalisation” and, I might add, monetisation too, or how nature, sex, or art are now considered in terms of their benefits for our wellbeing, digestive health or longevity, rather than for the simple pleasure, I would even say delight, we can derive from cultivating them (by which I mean producing as well as consuming). Of course, as a CWTP (Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes) practitioner, this is a rather uncomfortable conversation to have and certainly a point well made, but what I would say about this is that sadly some people need a lot of work of an emotional and psychological nature to become able to give themselves permission to simply know joy, and this often starts by someone else giving them permission, or even more so, prescribing certain steps towards it. Joy, is not always easy to reach. This extract from a poem by Jack Gilbert  (A Brief for the Defence) illustrates my point:

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. […] We must admit there will be music despite everything.

Considered in this light, I see instrumentalisation as an entry, a door opened to a world of potential joy, just as one may start writing creatively to improve ones wellbeing, and end up a fully fledged poet.

A second point to my answer would be that when people are struggling in their own skin, have lost direction, or generally feel awful, what’s wrong with giving nature, art or sex a try rather than a pill or AIGT (Artificial Intelligence Generated Therapy)? I will accept there may be a degree of cynicism in some practitioners, but many are earnest, genuine, dedicated to changing the world one person at a time. What I wouldn’t give to introduce Donald Trump to a little forest bathing, although he might need the full gamut of art, sex (good sex) and nature to move towards health…an extended retreat perhaps?

But I must come clean, this wasn’t the main conflict Mr Baggini’s article ignited in my mind. No. However it happened, I was caught by the question of whether we should, or rather I should, be intentional or not, look at myself as the thing to be instrumentalised. Should we take any kind of action in order to achieve something else, or should we just do it for its own sake. Should I study in order to enter a profession and make a living, or study for the beauty of knowledge. Should I just drift and seize opportunities as they present themselves, or should I set a course? Should I follow the current’s flow, or harness my desire? Should I make my own happiness as I hold my destiny into my own hands, or trust in the universe to give me what I want? An extract from TS Eliot’s East Coker came to me:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

A part of me feels calm and peace in the quiet waiting. There is a quality of being in the moment, unconcerned with plans and purpose. There is no manipulation or calculation, there is presence and clarity and innocence. Time is irrelevant to that part. It feels easy and safe and nice, unthreatening. But it also feels dead.

But. A part of me wants. Just wants. It rebels against Eliot’s words. It wrings its hands and pull its hair in frustration. It knows desire. It sees visions. It imagines futures. It plants ideas. It wants to be busy to create its own self-made life. It fears wasting time. It feels exciting and inspiring and full of potential and connection. But it also feels exposed and vulnerable.

And so a fight is raging in my head as I can’t decide on the wisdom or the mistake of either. Depending on my mood, either can feel worthy and valid, or both seem to be desperate defences.

What’s wrong in writing a blog in the hope of being found and read? Or should I just write on a piece of paper to be burnt at the end of every day? Mr Baggini, you are not writing for the pure enjoyment of the craft or to exercise your mind, you are writing to reach an audience, to provoke a response, to enlighten perhaps. You charge people to think on their behalf.

There is no answer to my question as I swing between the two positions, but there is relief in spelling it out in letters and words and sentences. CWTP gave me permission to dip my toe in a world I thought lost to me and now I just write whatever I please.