The realizations that came to me about the issue of "accepting" vs. "taking"
one's parents move me now to explore the family system dynamics that Bert
describes as "double shifting." The question arises: if I'm stuck in my own
self-pitying reactive pain because I am merely ACCEPTING my parents with
gracious tolerance, then what is preventing me from TAKING them as they are?
The
systemic answer is that I must be carrying their burden in some way. Then I
discover Bert's insights about "double shifting."
Let me put it in my own words as I read about it on pages 150-151 of Bert's
book _Acknowledging What Is._ If anyone cares to correct me and/or expand it
further, please do so.
(1) A woman has a grandfather who physically abuses his wife, the woman's
grandmother.
(2) The woman unconsciously carries the burden of her grandparents
perpetrator-victim dynamic as a way of compensation in her family system.
(3) And she wants to stop the abuse dynamic by avenging her grandmother's
victimization in order to bring order, i.e. balance, to her family system.
(4) She thus feels angry at all men in general and in particular, she takes
her vengeance out against her husband.
It is easy to see the systemic shift with the males in the family. The
actual perpetrator is the grandfather, but the woman shifts the responsibility
from Grandpa down to her husband, who is innocent in this context.
It's more difficult for me to see the other shift, where Bert states that
the woman is actually showing great contempt for her grandmother by not taking
her as she is --- that is, to take Grandma as the victim of Grandpa and take
Grandpa as the perp. Instead, she seeks to avenge her grandmother. But this
obsession for revenge shows that while she may, in fact, ACCEPT her
grandmother, she does not TAKE her grandmother as she is.
I feel a diagram is in order, so here goes. (Hope it comes through intact)
(Victim) <----------------------- (Perpetrator)
Grandma <------------------------Grandpa
.....|.......................................|
.....|.......................................|
.....|....(shift 2)........................|...(shift 1)
.....|.......................................|
....V......................................V
Granddaughter -------------->Husband
(new perpetrator)----------->(new victim)
As I look at this scheme, it strikes me that I am interpreting both shifts
as down (See my arrowheads). But I also think I need a diagonal line from
Grandpa (GP) down to granddaughter (GD) because it's clear that GD shifts the
perpetrator energy to herself from GP and then deflects it like a mirror
deflecting a sunbeam right between the eyes of her husband (HB). By acting as
a
deflector, then GD takes no responsibility for sending GP's perpetrator energy
to HB. Yet she has no right to avenge her GM because she as GD has not
experienced GM's pain.
But things become clearer for me if I look upon the other shift not as a
shift DOWN from GM to GD, but rather as a shift UP from GD to GM. This makes
sense as the Victim is always seen through the Sympathy side of the Soul
whereas the Perpetrator is seen from the Antipathy side. I consider Sympathy
to be
an expansion from one's heart/soul out to another (picture blowing up a
balloon), while Antipathy is a contracting, recoiling reaction to angry
perpetrator forces coming into the heart Soul (picture deflating). The point
is that
the two energies flow in opposite directions. Furthermore, Sympathy makes me
want to merge or identify with the Victim, while Antipathy makes me want to
separate from the Perpetrator.
Now may I copy the diagram above with only a change in arrowheads to signify
the opposing directions of the double shifting flows.
(Victim) <----------------------- (Perpetrator)
Grandma <------------------------Grandpa
..../\.......................................|
.....|.......................................|
.....|...(upshift.........................| (downshift separating)
.....|....merging)......................|
.....|......................................V
Granddaughter -------------->Husband
(new perpetrator)----------->(new victim)
I then see double shifting as happening simultaneously because if there is a
reaction in the soul toward Antipathy, there must be an equal and opposite
reaction of Sympathy somewhere else.
So, as GD down-shifts her GP's perpetrator energy, deflecting it angrily
over to her HB, she must simultaneously up-shift her sympathy reaction to
identify and merge with her GM. So she unconsciously represents GM to avenge
GM's
victim status, and she simultaneously dissociates herself from GP's perp
energy by deflecting it over to HB.
I hope this is clear and I feel I should stop here and post this and see
what feedback I get from y'all.
Thomas
PS COMING ATTRACTIONS! In characterizing "double shifting," I also see
how Bert has really expanded and extended the traditional psychotherapeutic
idea of projection because the source of projection is not just the GD, and
that
has ramifications for the "transference/counter-transference" discussion
that is going on.
