It seems ironic in some ways that 38 years after I was adopted, following my birth mother's death and birth father's desertion, I am writing an article on goodbyes and perhaps even more important the process of saying Hello! My own struggle with endings and beginnings perhaps started from these early traumas and even though, as a psychotherapist, I regularly face this process of goodbyes to hellos, I never cease to be amazed at the depth of my own wounds in this particular area.
I see saying goodbye as vitally important as saying hello, whether it be to the person or an object. Indeed I know that if one of my clients has not said goodbye in a full way and let go of the attachment, saying hello to the present and future will be impossible in any complete way.
I have found this process of goodbyes to hellos, however painful or difficult it may be, to be essential for true personal growth. I was personally and rudely reminded of this with the recent and sudden death of my father from a heart attack. I was away on business at the time, so when I was eventually able to see him, it was to say my final goodbye at the chapel of rest.
Looking back at that time, saying goodbye in the half an hour I had with him was one of the most significant times of my life. As I looked at him and touched his so cold cheek and caressed his snowy white hair, I felt very much like a small boy just wanting him to pick me up and hold me in ways he had never done in either my childhood or adulthood. It was as if time had been reversed and was standing still. The strange thing was, at that moment in time I forgot the years of emotional neglect of me by him, the years of emotional abuse - all I could feel was the sadness and terror that filled me, just like an icy wind that racked through my very heart.
I knew that I had to say goodbye, even though there may be further goodbyes at a later date. I found myself struggling to say goodbye, to let go of my unmet needs, my hopes and dreams of a father I had never really known and in reality who had never really known me. Saying goodbye to him was the hardest thing I have ever done - and the most right. It was a truly emotionally cleansing process for me, like a big weight being released from my very soul. As I left the chapel of rest I remember thinking to myself that even though I was finding it hard in my heart to really forgive him, I was well on the road to saying hello to the other men in my life. I was allowing in the closeness with men that, for many years bi the past, I had denied myself For me the separation was in many ways a true relief from the years of endless hopes and umuct dreams.
The bereavement process, the separating, the letting go, the saying hello to the future, has its parallels in the goodbye / hello process that therapists and clients face at the end of therapy. The attachment/separation process may he different for every client though I believe, for healthy separation, all clients will visit similar stages in the leaving process (see diagram).
I believe that attachment is one of the instinctual drives, that we are biologically wired from birth to seek attachments in this world. It is an affectual bond with a relatively long and enduring tie in which the partner is important as a unique individual and is interchangeable with none other. In attachments there is a seeking of closeness that, if formed, will result in feeling secure and comfortable in relation to that partner. Indeed it is ruptures in our attachment systems that affect the way we think, feel and behave today within the world around us.
It is within the close, safe, relationship with the therapist and the client that real cure can be achieved. It is within this therapeutic relationship that clients may, for the first time, allow them- selves to deal with their existential wounds, their real selves! The relationship then hopefully will become the beacon for real light and cure for the client.
The ending of such an important relationship, the letting go of this has to be honoured and respected in its own sense. The therapist must allow at least three sessions if not more for saying goodbye and space must be given for this process to happen.
Most therapists (and I put myself in this category) will at some time in their professional life have had trouble letting go of their clients, as the relation-ship in itself has been a close and trusting process, indeed a special relationship in many ways, and necessarily so, if the client is to feel safe enough and honoured enough to share their inner thoughts to who is, after all, in the beginning of therapy, a stranger to their lives. Certainly the therapist / client dyad is a unique relationship forged out of time,
Touching is a powerful method of stroking for the child. If the parents are uncomfortable with touching, then it will likely affect the child's method of being close to others in the future, it will affect how the child feels about their own body and it will cause feelings of insecurity.
Children will search for strokes and it becomes a pursuit for attention. For parents, giving strokes should not be a mammoth task, a smile, a caress, a loving voice, tenderness and saying I love you are all wonderful ways to acknowledge your child.
If children do not get enough stroking, then they will become distressed, feel unloved and worthless. A baby devoid of any stroking will fail to thrive and possibly die. The minimum amount of stroking gives the minimum sense of self worth, the maximum gives a strong sense of self and well being. Strokes are essential to a child's growth, both physically and emotionally, and that means to be able to grow and develop at their own pace. Failure to thrive is not only about nourishment, it is about contact, that is saying 'it is good you are here with me', 'I want you with me, I like having you around'.
Some methods of stroking involve mother singing and talking to her child, telling stories, lifting the baby high and laughing when he laughs; looking into the child's eyes and maintaining eye contact while talking about small events of the day, 'we are going now', 'now it is tune for your bath', we are going for a ride in the car'.
The conversation you have with your baby may seem one way, but it is not so, because you are making contact with the child and teaching them how to contact you. Massaging the baby's skin very gently, especially the abdomen, relaxes the muscles while you are communicating that you care, that your baby is attractive to you and you want contact with him.
Extracted from Parenting, The Hardest Job of All
by June Brereton.
You may be saying it is easy to love a baby, but harder to love a toddler. Is that because the child now strives to be an individual and as parents we want to break that spirit and have the child do our bidding, be like us? Or is it because we are jealous of that individuality and withhold strokes in order to control. I will discuss this in the next edition of Lifestream Journal.