The resilience of the helpseeker

The resilience of the help-seeker

Contents

1. The two sides of the coin

2. Therapy as a prelude

3. On one's own strength

4. Life as a creative process

5. "The beauty of the soul"

The case descriptions in this text are – apart from the references to well-known visual artists, writers, and composers – based on personal conversations. Where necessary, names and details have been changed to ensure anonymity.

1 | The two sides of the coin

Is Robert Schumann crazy if he is in a manic state in four days time composes his delightful Frühlingssymphonie? Is Vincent van Gogh disturbed when he with intense colors and vigorous brushstrokes grimly pursues maximum expression? Is a child, who is furious resistance against what it perceives as injustice, sick?

Highs and lows

No matter how much he may be in psychological difficulties, a human being also has healthy and vital aspects. Therapists can utilize these aspects. Instead, they often emphasize the psychological problems and the inability of their client. There are characteristics that in the helping professions are often exclusively seen as negatively, but which can also have their positive sides. People with a fiery temperament, for example, have usually a life with recurring highs and lows. They can not only dig themselves into a hole, but also move heaven and earth to enrich their lives However, therapists provide them often very quickly of a psychiatric label that draws attention to the lows and that does not do justice to the highs. In doing so, they ignore the healthy side of a nature in which the remedy for the less healthy side is stored. Here are a few examples.

Vitality

Sonja is a fighter. She is the youngest of five children and is growing up with little joy in it. Her father is a sensitive and shy man with a war trauma for which he spent a long time in a psychiatric hospital. There he ends his life. She describes her mother as loveless and capricious. Sonja, however, is not easily intimidated. "Even as a toddler, I could burst into tears or throw a tantrum when I didn't feel accepted. If I felt something was unjust, I went on and on until I got my way. So I didn't give up. Just like that. I just wanted to be recognized."
When her older brothers and sisters leave home, the situation is sometimes unbearable between Sandra and her mother. But Sandra is not girl who keeps her mouth shut and conforms.
I hated her and I hated the whole world. It was very intense.
She was afraid that I would kill her, and conversely, I was afraid that she would kill me. On a few occasions, she completely freaked out. Then she was dangerous. Then she would hit me, for example, with the rod of the vacuum cleaner. Slap. slap, slap! But I threw myself completely into the fight, to the point of exhaustion. I wasn't taking anything anymore.'
As a young adult, Sandra hits rock bottom. She goes into therapy. During the treatment, she discovers that her temperament is her great strength. That it was her only means of surviving the home situation. And also that she uses that same vitality to create beautiful things. Thus she plays significant role in the Clients' Union for Mental Health Care, where she is appreciated for her ingenuity. For the bulletin for the Clients' Union she writes many articles that form important contributions.

From the heart

Who doesn't know the bust of Beethoven with the fierce head and wild hair, who adorns many a piano? Beethoven was a hot-tempered person with enormous mood swings. With his recurring fits of rage he was a difficult person, not only for himself, but also for his surroundings. The story goes that he was once desperately working on a composition, the Credo of his Missa Solemnis. Because of this he became so engrossed that he the dinner that his maids had prepared, forgot. It was not until after midnight that the composer felt hungry and he requested his meal. In Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann (1875–1955) describes Beethoven's despair as follows:

The deaf man sang, wailed, and stamped while he bent over the Credo – it was such a terrifyingly gripping sound that it the to the door listening [maids] made the blood run cold in the veins. However, just when they had wanted to withdraw in deep reverence, the door had suddenly opened, and Beethoven stood by the doorway, – and his appearance? Terrible! In neglected clothes, the facial features so distraught that it inspired fear, with lurking eyes, confused and distracted, he had stared at them and gave the impressio tTo have been through a life-or-death struggle(…)

When the composer subsequently found a cold, charred meal on the stove, he burst into an extraordinarily violent rage that lasted five to six hours, roaring incessantly: "Could you not watch with me one hour?"

But with what immense dedication and ingenuity has Beethoven translated his fluctuating moods into music. For example in his famous Ninth Symphony. The contemplative and comforting third movement has barely faded when we are startled by a devilish dissonance in the brass, accompanied by thunderous timpani, followed by a fierce argument from cellos and basses. After this outburst, a lighter passage begins that becomes increasingly exuberant, after which the diabolical dissonance rears its head again. But Beethoven immediately interrupts himself. At the top of his lungs a singer exhorts for more joy: ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere.’And then the jubilant final chorus follows Schiller's poem Ode an die Freude met the well-known All Menschen werden Brüder where the sparks of joy fly off. All that in a time span of less than ten minutes. And we think it's beautiful!
With his music, Beethoven not only pleases his listeners, he derived satisfaction from it himself as well, as evidenced by the words he wrote above the manuscript of his Missa Solemnis: 'From the heart – that it may go to the heart again.'
When Beethoven presented himself as an unknown contemporary composer with his rapidly changing, intense moods to the mental health care, the therapist might perhaps have only seen a disorder – perhaps of the type 'borderline' – without even suspecting in what exceptional way the composer translates his mood swings into music.

2 | Therapy as a prelude

After a successful treatment, the symptoms the client initially sought therapy for have diminished or disappeared. The client is once again able to pick up the threads of his or her live. Ideally, the therapist has provided tools that enhance the client's independence, enabling him or her to take charge of his/her own life - tools that remain of lasting value after therapy concludes. Life goes on, after all. There will always be new experiences, new challenges, and new problems that require a solution. A therapist is not a partner or coach who guides a client year after year. Instead, therapists can help their clients develop the therapist within themselves, teaching them to mobilize their resilience - when necessary- and find their own solutions to problems. As the renowned psychologist Carl Rogers (1902–1987), founder of Client-centered Therapy, formulated it: the client possesses all the necessary resources for change within themselves, and solutions are within his or her reach. In this way, therapy serves as a stepping stone to self-reliance.

Roly-poly toy

Intensive treatment is not always necessary to achieve independence. When there is no profound or persistent psychological distress, a gentle push in the right direction is sometimes enough. A therapeutic method can be an eye-opener for a client. An example.

When dealing with emotional pain, it can be useful to change course. After all - as scientific research into positive emotions shows - joy activates. It broadens one's perspective and expands the imagination. Healing energy is released. But this does not mean that negative emotions should be denied, because then they will reverberate as a disturbance.

Many people, however, are inclined to desperately suppress emotions like sadness, anger and fear. This can block a person's energy to such an extent that - despite their attempts at an optimistic outlook - they feel depressed, agitated or tense. In a brief therapy, a client can learn that going along with the pain is sometimes wiser than resisting it. That, by focusing on the pain for a defined period, its intensity decreases. That they can subsequently view it with detachment and calmly investigate its underlying causes. When clients experience within the safe context of the therapy room that, after letting go of their emotions, they always return to their center like a roly-poly toy, this can be a 'remedy' for the rest of their lives. In this way, therapy serves as a prelude to increased independence.

However, a therapist who relies too little on his or her client's stabilizing capacity and views every negative emotion as a psychological problem fails to see the client's inner strength and keeps him or her dependent longer than necessary.

When the time is right

Sometimes a therapist has given his or her client all the tools necessary for change, but the client is not yet able to utilize them. The time must be right for this. This may not even be the case until a client no longer sees a way out. I will take Lucy as an example.
When she is in her late twenties and renting a room, Lucy becomes suicidal. She goes into therapy, but her therapist disappoints her time and time again. After two suicide attempts, she ends up with an independent female therapist by whom she feels respected and understood. Lucy talks about her life. About her bleak childhood, her erratic mother, her father's depressions, and her longing for death. Her therapist explains to her that her current feelings of fear, sadness and anger can be traced back to her childhood traumas. They also discuss whether there is anything left for Lucy to live for. This is difficult and painful for both of them. "The outcome could also have been that there was nothing left. That she wouldn't see me at the next appointment," Lucy says. Ultimately, Lucy feels she cannot continue. Before making any further decisions, she writes her therapist a long farewell letter.

"At one point while I was writing, there was a breakthrough. My therapist had always told me that my not wanting to live anymore was also caused by my mother. That I had heard her say too many times that I was bad. I thought that was such nonsense! I started writing that down too. Back then I wondered: how does that work exactly? While writing, I discovered there was some truth to it after all. That I am actually not that bad. That my death wish stems from anger, hatred and longing. I realized that I actually did want to live, but that I was afraid of life. I didn't give myself a chance. Had never given myself a chance. And suddenly, I no longer wanted to be some kind of Jesus who lets himself be nailed to the cross and then also says: oh, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. The fact that I had become this way was due to everything I had been through. I suddenly saw that then. I had heard it all, what my therapist said, and I could understandt with my mind. But I didn't feel it. I really had to feel it myself! While writing, it sank in for the first time. If all that misery hadn't been there, I probably would have been a completely different person. A very happy and spontaneous person. Someone who did want to live! I had never really tried... Then I called my therapist and said: I will be at our appointment."

By now, Lucy has completed her therapy and found her balance. "It is not that I am a very positive person now, that I have a hallelujah feeling. But now I sometimes feel really very complete."

3 | By one's own efforts

When dealing with mental health issues, it is not always necessary to call in a professional counselor. The following three examples demonstrate that professional solutions can also be found outside the mental health care sector.

A dedicated husband

The first example shows how a loving husband deals with his wife's concentration camp experiences. It concerns the story of Ronnie. Her caregiver takes the responsibility for her own life out of Ronnie's hands, thereby blocking the path to recovery [see Part 2 Proximity: Salvation]. Ronnie's second husband, a businessman, however, intuitively helps her in a professional manner. He uses a technique that corresponds to exposure therapy, a treatment often used for anxiety disorders. This method entails the therapist confronting the client step-by-step with their fear in a safe context, causing the stimuli that evoke the anxiety to gradually decrease in intensity.

"Whenever my husband noticed me going quiet or tensing up, he would ask if something was bothering me. For instance, we were once driving on a highway with those orange neon lights. That strange, orange glow that strips away all colors was something I had first seen in Auschwitz. Because of it, everything looked ghostly. It was so terrifying! I panicked, but I couldn't utter a word. My husband pulled over and asked what was wrong. When I told him what scared me, he calmly explained that it was just streetlights. He said: 'Just look around you. That light has nothing to do with the camp.' Afterwards, we just sat there together until my fear subsided.
We also once walked into a yard with freight cars. My husband then said: 'Look, those wagons are empty. They are only used for transporting materials. You never have to go inside them again. That is all in the past. Go ahead and touch them. Nothing will happen.'
Step by step, that is how he taught me to overcome my fears, because then I was able to reason through them. Whenever I felt uneasy, I would ask myself why that was. I would then pay close attention to whether there was anything in my surroundings that triggered memories of the camp. A specific object. A sight or sound. A smell, or someone saying something. Then I would try to examine it. Once I figured out what was going on, I would tell myself: this is not threatening. This situation is not directed at me. This has nothing to do with me. Then the fear would subside. This way, I gradually became better and better at managing my fears. I still carry the images of my past in the camp with me, but I can handle them now."

Self-help book

There are many good self-help books on the market that can make the path to a professional counselor unnecessary. Below is an example of a woman who finds lasting support in a self-help book.

Francine and her husband Rick's marriage is suffering from tension and arguments. Rick is regularly unfaithful to Francine, but after his 'adventures' he always returns to her. That is, until he tells Francine one day that he is 'on cloud nine'. He has found his 'true love' and wants to move on with her. Francine is completely devastated. At night she lies awake worrying; during the day she is tired and depressed. A self-help book offers her support. Through this book, she is introduced to a Buddhist attitude that has been incorporated into contemporary therapeutic practice under the name mindfulness: an intense orientation towards the present experience, a non-judgmental acceptance of, and surrender to, the moment.

"Around that time, I was reading a book by a Buddhist monk. A Vietnamese man, I don't remember his name. I happened to get it from my sister. And it came at exactly the right moment. That book became my spiritual anchor. Every day, I read in it about how to handle negative feelings and thoughts. I reflected on it over and over again.
It was absolutely not a theoretical book. I could really apply it in practice. It contains tips about daily situations. How to deal with all kinds of emotions. With anger, jealousy, or whatever. How you can change those feelings in a way that benefits you. For example, when you are furious, not saying: oh, how annoying. But asking yourself: why am I furious? Actually making a friend out of the anger. Then you don't suppress it, and you start looking at it in a completely different way. Then you can gradually accept the anger. Then you start asking yourself: What is this anger doing to me? What is it doing to others? How does it serve me?
It also contains a breathing technique that calms you down, which I still use. Two or three times a day for a few minutes. When inhaling, you say to yourself: I am becoming calm. When exhaling, you smile. I also often did it in front of the mirror, and then I would think: oh right, I don't look completely depressed yet, I can still smile. I found it very important that I could still evoke something positive within myself like that.
It also contains exercises on how to completely clear your mind and be very focused on what you are doing. To live in the here and now at that exact moment. Not in the past, not in the future, but in the now. Right now it is like this, right now I feel that, right now I need to breathe properly and pause during this situation. That is the essence of the book.
It was hard work sometimes. A whole spiritual process. Not just staying stuck in your negative feelings and wallowing. No! Because besides that, there is also something else. Without that difficult situation with Rick's girlfriend, I wouldn't have learned that. I now know: if I have problems, I can fall back on that, because I've experienced it and saved it in my system. Then I'll grab that book and I know exactly how to do it again."

[The Buddhist monk Francine speaks of is very likely Thich Nhat Hanh, a well-known Vietnamese monk. S.R.]

Peer support group

People can also find support among others with the same problems in a so-called peer support group. Peers recognize and acknowledge each other's grief, pain, and despair. That alone can sometimes be a huge relief. This can involve a group of people one actually meets or a group one visits online, as there are numerous websites about specific psychological problems where people can read about the experiences of others in the same situation and get in touch with them.

Below is an example of a woman, Helen, who experiences a great deal of support and joy in her peer support group. Helen is married and a mother of two daughters. Her husband, Elco, is an insurance agent and travels a lot. Helen takes care of the household and raises the children. When she is in her late forties, she goes through menopause. The menopause coincides with the children leaving home. Helen does not suffer from the so-called 'empty nest syndrome'. She previously struggled with a 'full nest' and is glad the children have moved out. Now she has more time for herself. The hot flashes do not bother her either. They only last a few minutes and then they are gone.

However, she is afraid that Elco no longer finds her attractive and becomes intensely jealous. That is her problem. When she is home alone during the day, she becomes obsessed with the thought that he is cheating on her with younger female clients. Sometimes she completely loses it and spies on Elco during his visits to clients. Elco is always full of understanding, but that offers no solace. She becomes depressed. Then she reads about a peer support group.

"I once read in a neighborhood newspaper about a so called Vido group at the community center; it's a support group for women going through menopause that meets once a week. Elco said, “Wouldn't that be something for you, then you'll get to know other women.” That would allow me to talk to other women who were in the same situation as I was. Then I started hesitating. One evening, I plucked up the courage. The first time, I just sat and listened. The second time, I wanted to become a member, and then all the women took turns telling why they had joined the Vido. That they had physical complaints, that they felt less attractive, that they wanted to meet other women. And there was one woman who was also very jealous. Who even followed her husband to work. That sounded very familiar to me. Then I thought: oh, luckily I'm not the only one!"

The Vido group offers Helen more than just recognition. The group also organizes creative afternoons and gymnastics to keep the body supple during menopause. And above all, it offers good company. Helen has made a few good friends there with whom she regularly goes out and goes on vacation. And finally, because she feels less dependent on her husband, she is better able to stand up for herself in her relationship with Elco.

4 | Life as a creative process

People do not have to be passive victims of their disposition or circumstances. They can shape their own lives. Currently, a number of methods - in fact, centuries-old ones - are in vogue that capitalize on this possibility. The Secret is one such method. In short, it entails the following:

Human beings are the creators of their own lives. They attract whatever their attention is focused on. If you want to change your life, you need to change your thoughts and beliefs. You do this by articulating your wishes and desires clearly and specifically. Next, you engage all your mental power and imagine your wishes coming true. You must desire this with all your heart and soul. In doing so, you try to experience it as much as possible: by seeing, feeling, and hearing. You do need to be aware of the things you have already acquired in order to materialize your wish, while also opening yourself up to new things in your life so you can recognize to what extent your wish is being fulfilled.

The descriptions of how The Secret works raise high expectations. However, a quick path to the fulfillment of their wishes is usually not an option for people with psychological issues. Processes of change generally involve trial and error.

Crisis as an opportunity

People are often only able to turn their lives around in a positive direction when they find themselves in an inescapable situation. When they hit a wall. When they are confronted with a fait accompli that makes it impossible to continue their old, familiar way of life. Then, they must accept the situation as it is. If they cannot shape the circumstances to their will, the only thing left to do is change their perspective. In this way, they are forced to face the fear and pain they often tried to escape for a long time – the starting signal for a new beginning. Then, they can undergo a process of growth that yields important insights. They realize that their trials serve a purpose.

It is possible that they will then discover a coherence they did not see before. The common thread in their lives. Later, when looking back on the crisis, they realize that the insights they gained have made their lives richer and more valuable. It is not without reason that the Chinese word for crisis – wei-ji – is composed of two characters: one for 'danger' and one for 'favorable opportunity'.

Or in the words of Francine, whom I introducedearliar under the heading Self-help book:

"That difficult situation showed me that I can function well in problematic situations. That only then do I truly bring out my strengths. Perhaps I usually use too little of my energy or potential, as they are not usually tapped into. I am often introverted, modest, and insecure. But when I have to, I can develop the opposite. I can show the other side. And in a crisis, well, you have to become resourceful. Like: you name it, I'll do it!"

Below, I present a few stories of people who managed to turn a crisis, a life problem, or a series of traumatic experiences for the better. People who didn't just sit there feeling sorry for themselves and discovered that they possessed more resilience than they thought.

High and Low

Susan comes from a poor family with six children. When she is still young, her mother becomes seriously ill. For this reason, she is regularly sent to relatives or children's homes for shorter or longer periods of time. She suffers under an authoritarian upbringing. If she expresses her opinion or stands up for herself, she is not infrequently beaten. Despite this, Susan builds a successful career as a classical singer. She has a high soprano voice with a beautiful brilliance that wins her much praise. She is proud that she fought for this all on her own, without any help from her parents, and she enjoys her star status.

Susan notices that seriousness, problems, and sadness do not go hand in hand with such a high voice. So, she is 'eternally cheerful'. Until she falls in love with Leon, 'a very serious, deep-thinking guy'. Leon is not only interested in the successful singer, the glowing reviews, and the exterior, but also in what lies behind the glamour. When they go on vacation together, he asks Susan questions about her background and her childhood. She has no idea how to handle this.

"I completely tensed up. Became apathetic due to his unexpected questions. And got sick. A swollen throat. Stomach pain. A massive migraine. Pound, pound, pound. But we became so intimate that I couldn't get out of it. I had to lay my cards on the table. And so, I did start talking about myself. Leon was very sweet, which made me love him even more. And then a lot of emotions were released. Sadness and anger. After that, I really wanted to step out of that glamour image I had created for myself. But I couldn't just distance myself from it."

Then, the biggest disaster imaginable in her eyes happens to Susan: due to all the emotions she has endured, she can now only reach high notes with great difficulty. When she sings, she has to force herself.

"To sing high, I had to be free of emotions. But I could no longer muster my usual cheerfulness. I constantly had to wind up and pump up my spirits. Only then was I the warbling soprano again. Leon had a very hard time with that. Because by then, he knew the other Susan. I started separating the two. With Leon, I was myself. But when I had a performance, he had to clear out."

'Ramping up' is becoming more and more of a torment. It exhausts her. Colleagues advise her to sing in a lower register, but she refuses. After all, she owes her success to her exceptionally high voice. It is either singing high or not singing at all. Since she can no longer hit the high notes, quitting becomes her only option. She falls into a deep depression that lasts for years. Leon takes care of her and tries to persuade her to seek help. Eventually, she goes to an outpatient mental health organization. However, she experiences little engagement there, feels misunderstood and unsupported, and goes from the frying pan into the fire. She just wants to die and prepares to commit suicide. Leon stops her and urges her to call an independent therapist known to be competent. She can get an appointment immediately, but she does have to sign a contract stating that she will not commit suicide during his therapy. The therapist, Cliff, applies a method related to The Secret.

"Cliff asked: "What are your wishes? What do you want? How do you envision yourself?" I said: Well, I'd like to be a singer. And maybe I'd also like to have a child. And, he asked, do you have any more wishes? Yes, I would like to live in the country. Oh, I thought, what a lot of things I actually want besides being dead. Cliff said we would manage to achieve all of that in a year and a half. Provided I didn't give up. I had to form a very realistic mental picture of what my future would look like. For example, he said: Pick a date in the future when you are living in the country. He made me buy newspapers and exclusive home magazines, and cut out beautiful country houses. As if I was really planning to buy one of those houses. That way, my dream image became less unreal."

Cliff teaches Susan numerous other exercises to shape her life in a way that she desires and that empowers her. They were a kind of Zen Buddhist exercises that showed how strong your mind actually is.

"You can concentrate on something so intensely that your mind gains power over matter. Negativity can only take over if you allow it to. That is what I learned from it. This is how I learned to develop my will. The premise was: with your will and your intention, you will always succeed."

However, the therapy is no magic bullet. Suzan isn't given anything for free. She has to face and surrender to the sorrow, despair, and fear that she had managed to keep at bay for a long time with her depression. She doesn't get her high voice back with this. She starts taking lessons to learn to sing lower as a mezzo-soprano. After three years, she is truly a mezzo. In the Netherlands, she is seen as a faded soprano and can't find work. She first has to prove herself abroad. Eventually, she succeeds in making a fresh start in the Netherlands as well.

"Meanwhile, I underwent a true metamorphosis. Because my personality changed as well. I suddenly felt firmly grounded. As a soprano, I always walked on my tiptoes, with my shoulders hunched. I can now be who I am. With my emotion. Because they are no longer forbidden. I can even use them to deepen the music and earn a living with them. That is the greatest gift I could have received."

In the meantime, she has two children and lives in a country house.

Time for tea

The following example concerns a crisis that at first glance does not seem as severe as Suzan's, but which in fact testifies to a deep existential dread.

The Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts (1923–1993) is an up-and-coming talent in the 1950s and close friends with the world-famous German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007). When composing, he does not let himself be guided by his feelings and moods, but searches for completely controlled and perfected sounds. He finds this in electronic music, in sounds that are generated artificially. No musician is involved anymore. During performances of his work, there are only two speakers on stage, the pinnacle of modernity at the time.

Goeyvaerts is obsessed with this perfectly controlled world of sound. But he cannot get the sounds the way he wants them. He gets stuck in the stranglehold of perfection and falls into a deep crisis. "I saw no way out, I simply didn't write anything anymore," the composer stated. During his crisis, he realizes that his need for total sound control stems from fear, and that he is frantically trying to keep his fear in check with perfection – "with dogged force." "And then came the liberating idea: give up everything, start over from scratch." This is how he escapes his self-created musical prison.

He goes to work as a translator at the Belgian airline Sabena. "All of that gave me the unprecedented and pleasant sensation of being an 'ordinary person'." It does not take long before he starts composing again, now "out of pure pleasure." Then he takes on the artistic direction of a music organization housed in a large mansion in Ghent. The atmosphere, the peaceful mood in that old house, "where there is time for tea," offers room for a new style of composing. "I then started looking for ways to let the human element be expressed. "An emotional element crept into my music around that time," Goeyvaerts said. "I think that I awakened in an emotional and intuitive life in general." This was followed by another long and fruitful life as a composer.

Cement

The final example concerns a man with extremely traumatic experiences. As a young adult, he returned from the war completely broken. He used the severe hardships he had to endure as his driving force to shape the rest of his life in a fruitful manner.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, seventeen-year-old Bill (Sebil) Minco (1922–2006) joined the Geuzen Resistance. Less than a year later, the resistance group was rounded up due to betrayal. In January 1941, Bill was pulled out of his classroom by the Grüne Polizei, arrested, and transferred to the Oranjehotel, the prison in Scheveningen. On March 4, he and several other Geuzen were sentenced to death. Due to his youthful age, Bill's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in a penitentiary. In the penitentiary in Untermaßfeld, he spent seventeen months in Einzelhaft - solitary confinement. When the penitentiaries - as the Nazis satanically called it - were made judenrein, Bill, who is Jewish, was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp. After a year and a half of hardships and mortal fear, he was, at the end of his tether, transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Bill remained alive because, according to the bizarre, contradictory rules of Nazi bureaucracy, he was not to be murdered. He could not be gassed, because that would have meant a reduction of his sentence. After surviving the hell of Auschwitz and the death march to Dachau, he was liberated by the Americans on April 30, 1945.

I spoke to Bill in 2004, two years before his death. As an eighty-two-year-old, he reflects on his life as follows.

"The war shaped me. In both negative and positive ways. I cannot imagine what I would have become without those experiences. In those four and a half years, I lived an entire lifetime. A life that other people never get to experience. In that time, I went through an incredible amount. I saw people naked, literally and figuratively. I saw what humanity is capable of. To what depths. And to what heights. These are all building blocks that have enriched my life. Because even negative experiences can—provided they are processed—contribute to a person's core. Shape the person. In solitary confinement, I learned to know myself—looking back. That was due to the immense void in which everything became timeless. I no longer knew what an hour or a day was. I only saw it getting light or dark. Time slipped through my fingers. You keep ending up back in your own circle! And then you need a strength, greater than that of your own “gravity,” to break out of it, namely mental fortitude! Then, amidst the ruins of yourself, you rediscover new and unprecedented values that prove to be of incredible significance in the rest of your life, after your imprisonment."

When Bill returns from the camps, it takes him more than ten years to get back on his feet to some extent.

"Naturally, after four and a half years of physical and mental humiliation, you can't just flip a switch on April 30, 1945. I was shattered. I came back in pieces. There was absolutely nothing left of me. Those pieces had to be put back together. They just had to! I had to muster that mental strength. The will to do it! To live! Or you had to throw in the towel, like so many others... Lying awake... Falling apart...

It sounds strange, but upon my return to the Netherlands, I also had positive feelings: I am alive, so I have to do something with it. I had no idea what. But I have to do something with it! I didn't survive for nothing. It couldn't have been meaningless! I am destined for something.

It took me ten years to somewhat piece those fragments back together again. To add cement between them. And I always have to be careful that the cement stays in place. That is the common thread in my life. Because broken pieces remain broken pieces. Those seams will always be there."

One of the cornerstones of Bill's character is his refusal to hate Germans. Because then, he would also have to hate Goethe and other German writers or composers whom he admires.

Bill gets married and has three children. With a few mattresses given to him by an uncle, he starts a shop. Through trial and error, he manages to keep the business more or less afloat. Later, the store grows into a large bedding business. Bill wants to contribute to society. He becomes chairman of the business association in his hometown of Hilversum. In the late 1950s, he is asked to join the municipal council. He serves there for twenty-five years, first as a councilor, then as an alderman.

In the mid-1980s, he becomes chairman of the Geuzen Resistance 1940–1945 Foundation, which passes on the ideals of the Geuzen to the younger generation: striving for respect, for the equality of all people, and for a more humane world. In this role, he plays an important part in educating schoolchildren.

Since 1987, the foundation has annually awarded the Geuzen Medal to someone who has contributed to a more humane world. In 1990, Bill has the honor of personally presenting the medal to Richard von Weizsäcker, the first post-war German president to point out that the genocide of the Jews is unparalleled and that no reconciliation is possible without acknowledging the past.

"At that moment, looking back, I won the war. The fact that I was able to do that! I consider that a highlight. Because it’s not difficult to make friends with your friends. It is much more difficult to make friends with your enemies."

As a businessman, politician, and administrator, Bill constantly tries to guide disagreements between people in a positive direction. To build bridges.

"I came out of the war in pieces. And they remain pieces. I think I’ve spent my entire life trying to make sure those pieces didn’t fall apart completely. Trying to keep the cement between them. But I don’t feel like a victim. On the contrary! Part of that cement is the way I have manifested myself in society. I have an intrinsic need to keep people together. I think I use the same cement to bring other people together as I do to piece myself back together. Both are a consequence of the war: keep things together! Because I have seen how things should not be."

The skies

The fact that people are able to turn their adversity into something good was also known to Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), one of the greatest American poets. Here is a stanza from one of her poems:

We never know how high we are

Till we are asked to rise

And then if we are true to plan

Our statures touch the skies

Portrait of Emily Dickinson by Saar Roelofs

The poetess could know. She suffered from a chronic kidney disease that caused a lot of pain. For that reason, she was forced to lead a secluded life. Her pain and loneliness yielded beautiful poetry."

5 | "The beauty of the soul"

In the novel Van de koele meren des doods published in 1900 by the Dutch writer and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden (1860–1932) numerous psychological themes that I described in the foregoing are addressed. The Dutch book, translated literally into The Cool Lakes of Death, was in 1901 published under the title The deeps of deliverance. The novel was adapted into a film in 1982 by Nouchka van Brakel, starring Renée Soutendijk.

‘The story of a woman. How she sought the cool lakes of death, where there is redemption, and how she found it.’ This is how Van Eeden begins the novel about the eventful life of Hedwig Marga de Fontayne. Although cheerful, open and spontaneous, Hedwig has regularly fallen prey to depressions since childhood and feels drawn to death. She attempts suicide twice, experiences a psychosis, and ends up on the streets of Paris as a morphine prostitute. But unlike her literary peers Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1857), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy, 1877) and Eline Vere (Couperus, 1889) – who, like Hedwig, are prisoners of the narrow-minded Victorian morality – her life does not end with a self-chosen death, but in peace.

The character Hedwig is a composite of various women in Frederik van Eeden's life, including women he treated as a psychiatrist and Jeanette, a morphine-addicted prostitute he had met in Paris. The Cool Lakes of Death is written as a quasi-biography.

Following the publication of the novel, people wondered whether it was a case history. Van Eeden responded to this in a brief foreword to the second edition. He vehemently denies that the work concerns ‘a psychological study of a more or less pathological case’, but rather that it originated from an ‘aesthetic emotion for a spiritual process’. Hedwig is not ‘morbid’, but due to her sensitive nature, she is exposed more than others to the ‘harmful influences’ of society. Van Eeden calls her ‘extremely finely and nobly organized’. In our time, we would speak of ‘hypersensitivity’ (high sensitivity).*

Thanks to her mental resilience, Hedwig manages to turn her painful experiences to good account. According to Van Eeden, this is 'the beautiful theme' he wanted to shape in his novel.

Van Eeden was well ahead of his time. In my opinion, his views are still relevant today. At the end of the novel, when Hedwig has a number of conversations in a hospital with Sister Paula, a 'nursing sister' (or 'sister of charity'), he presents his vision on the therapeutic process.

I would like to conclude Part 3 with this, but first, a summary of Hedwig's life prior to those conversations follows.

__________

* Highly sensitive people have a deep emotional life, a rich imagination and vivid dreams. They are averse to monotony, seek intense experiences, and are sensitive to the – even unspoken – moods of others. As a result, they have a great need for introspection and rest.

The cool lakes of death

Hedwig, a charming girl, grows up in the middle of the nineteenth century as the child of wealthy parents. From early childhood, she feels stifled by the dry monotony of bourgeois existence. Yet, she is lively and spontaneous. At a very young age, she feels a longing for something that transcends everything. Something that elevates her life and fills her entire being. She experiences this fulfillment in what she calls her ‘heart’s feeling’—moments in which she intensely experiences her own individuality and fully senses the ‘now’.

Then she murmurs her name. ‘I, I, I – myself, I am Hedwig.’ These moments carry a special significance for her. She never forgets them. She holds intimate, deeply felt dialogues about this with God, as if with a dear friend who knows and understands everything. After such a heart’s feeling, she is cheerful for the rest of the day.

At the family’s country estate, Hedwig intensely enjoys nature. The holidays too, when the drab reception room is transformed into a ‘splendid hall’, lift her above the monotony of daily life. The small glasses of wine she receives and the compelling music sweep her away. On such a festive evening, she spontaneously experiences an orgasm. This is accompanied by a ‘heart’s feeling’ and confuses her.

Religious education at school places eroticism and sexuality in an atmosphere of guilt and shame. However, the forbidden now becomes exciting and mysterious, and therefore exerts an attraction on her. She develops unbridled erotic fantasies. A housekeeper who takes over the reins after her mother's death believes she must 'chastise' Hedwig for her sensual nature. When the housekeeper, in a fit of rage, gives her a bloody nose, Hedwig makes her first suicide attempt. Thus arises, in the words of Van Eeden, "the separation of the intimacy of the soul and the intimacy of the body."

At eighteen, she marries the kind-hearted Gerard. Like Hedwig, Gerard has been damaged by the narrow-minded sexual morality of his time. He is incapable of sexual contact. The daily grind of her marriage becomes an abomination to Hedwig. By chance, around that time, she visits the small, impoverished farmhouse of Mrs. Harmsen, who has just given birth to her seventh child. Hedwig, who would love to be a mother, feels the need to help. She enjoys it and discovers that peace is something within oneself. Gerard realizes he must give Hedwig a child. Hedwig "bore the unbearable." However, she develops a physical aversion to her husband, to his caresses, and to his presence. She does not understand it because she truly loves him. Various doctors are consulted. Hedwig is sent to an institution, where she is "completely rubbed and pinched" by a young doctor, a treatment that stimulates her sexually. Although she is not attracted to the doctor and realizes he is acting impurely, she finds it pleasant. Even when she undergoes a cure "with electricity," the treating doctor cannot keep his hands off her. Back home, she resumes her aimless life. "And she came to hate everything she saw and experienced." Hedwig decides to spend the summer months in a hotel by the sea, hoping that the feeling of aversion will fade and she will return to her home and husband.

When she hears piano music by Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt in the hotel, she feels 'something hard melting inside herself, something closed slowly opening up.' Delighted, she thanks the pianist, Ritsaart, a handsome, sensitive man, a bohemian who goes his own way. Within a few days, the two are madly in love with each other. Once she is back home, the lovers see each other regularly, including at the home of Joob, an invalid friend of Ritsaart. Hedwig has many conversations with him. According to Joob, she feels unhappy because 'she lets herself be served by two maids and has everything, absolutely everything, done by others.' And that leads to 'degeneration, boredom, world-weariness, dullness, apathy, and the rest.'

In her naivety, Hedwig believes that she can keep her relationship with Ritsaart ‘pure’. But in the end, she is unfaithful to her husband. Gerard guesses what is going on and threatens to murder Ritsaart, which triggers Hedwig's second suicide attempt. Once she has recovered from this, Gerard banishes her from his life. She then leaves with Ritsaart on a concert tour through England. When they move into a cottage on the south coast of England, Hedwig becomes pregnant. She finds peace, but Ritsaart does not thrive in the quiet and isolated place. He becomes impatient and resentful. They argue regularly. Due to her pregnancy, Hedwig's physical desire for Ritsaart decreases. Then, they begin to doubt each other's love. Ritsaart, accustomed to a nomadic life, sometimes leaves Hedwig alone for weeks.

When he leaves yet again after an argument, Hedwig gives birth prematurely to a baby girl. The child is so weak that it dies after three weeks. Hedwig suffers a psychotic episode. She packs the little corpse into a bag along with her jewelry and leaves. She wants to return to Holland, but is robbed of her bag along the way and put on a train to Paris by the thief. There, in her psychotic state, she is admitted to the La Salpêtrière hospital.

_______________

* In the second half of the nineteenth century, La Salpêtrière was a renowned center for research into dissociative disorders, among other things, where many famous physicians worked or studied, including Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud.

Due to her agitation, she is locked in a cell, watched with compassion by her attending physician. Day and night she talks, sings, and rages continuously. Until, after six weeks, she "awakens from her bewilderment." The doctor inquires about her background, but Hedwig refuses to reveal anything. In her anonymity, she feels free.

When she is discharged from the hospital, she has nothing and no one. The doctor, captivated by Hedwig, decides to take her into his home for the time being. He also seduces her into sexual contact. "Not that she truly loved him, but she felt grateful and inclined to please him, and at the same time indifferent about herself, yielding and weak, without resistance, due to the illness she had just endured." When she finally rejects the doctor, he finds a room and a job for her. Hedwig is afraid of her psychosis returning. For this reason, the doctor gives her morphine. She becomes addicted. Her income is not sufficient for her daily doses. Thus, she ends up in prostitution.

Despite everything, her resilience is not broken. Sometimes she is truly cheerful and upbeat. Surprised, she observes: one would say I am much unhappier than before, and yet I think less about suicide. But the addiction takes its toll. She falls ill. When she faints on the street one day, she is taken to a hospital. There, she suffers severely from withdrawal symptoms. For days, she lies feverishly gasping and cannot keep any food down. When, out of a craving for the drug, she secretly uses morphine from a hidden bottle and denies this to her attending physician, he calls in the help of "Sister Paula from the upstairs ward." Because she knows exactly how to handle this.

Sister Paula takes Hedwig's hand and says in a soft voice: "You are lying, and you do not want to lie. What you want, you do not do; what you do not want, you do. (...) Shall we try it again together now with the last bit of your willpower? Only a little bit more is needed. Just imagine that you are struggling against a fast mountain stream. Just a little further… a very little way… then the still waters will come." Full of shame, Hedwig hands her the bottle. "Now it is well," Sister Paula says. "Now you have done enough for the time being. Now you may rest." In the days that follow, Sister Paula regularly comes by to give Hedwig a little encouragement.

The Underlying Theme
After the worst withdrawal symptoms have subsided, seven conversations with Sister Paula follow. These conversations can be interpreted as a form of short-term psychotherapy. In them, Van Eeden presents his vision on healthcare, which remains relevant today.

The resilience of the help-seeker
Sister Paula puts Hedwig’s life into perspective. She shows her the guiding thread in her life. Hedwig returns to Sister Paula's 'still waters' and says: 'I have always wanted to be dead. I longed for that profound peace. I called it: still waters, green pastures, cool lakes.' 'Pay attention now,' says Sister Paula, 'there is a life that is death, and there is a death that is life.' Hedwig sought physical death. Sister Paula shows her that 'the cool lakes of death' are actually attainable during life. That she can find peace. Satisfaction, fulfillment, and the joy of living.

Through this, Van Eeden expresses his view that, despite heredity or environment, a person is free to choose how they shape their existence. In his own words: a person can go through the deepest depths and yet rise to great inner heights. Thus, he has Sister Paula say: 'Your disorders do not touch your deeper self.' And: 'You know that you have been enlightened by your misery. You know, even more than you knew.' But Sister Paula understands that this is difficult for someone who feels miserable to comprehend as long as they have not yet discovered the 'treasure in suffering'. She believes, however, in Hedwig's resilience and is convinced that she will find her treasure – just as the exemplary figures from the previous chapters found their treasure.

Like many people with mental health issues, Hedwig did not seek help on her own initiative. She is only able to reach a turning point once she has ended up in an inescapable situation. She tells Sister Paula that she did not seek help because she was ashamed of her shortcomings. Sister Paula believes that this is actually 'pride', 'an aversion to enduring your flaws'. According to Sister Paula, if Hedwig had been willing to face her mistakes and could have accepted herself as she was, she would have turned her life around sooner.

The neutral empathy of the therapist
In the book, Van Eeden shows between the lines that, as a psychiatrist, he advocates an attitude of neutral empathy, as I described in Part 2. In the final paragraph of Chapter 11, Difficult' clients" I showed how a contemporary therapist suspects his client of heroin use and tries to force a confession from her like a police officer. How different is Sister Paula's attitude. Her calm, empathetic behavior quite quickly leads Hedwig to admit her morphine use.

In a passage from Part 2, Haughtiness and Inferiority, it was discussed that therapists find it hard to imagine that their clients possess resilience independently of the care they receive. That, within the hierarchical therapeutic setting, they are easily tempted to believe that they are 'further along' in their psychological development than their client and have already processed their emotional problems. Sister Paula does not get caught up in such therapeutic pitfalls. When she notices that Hedwig is idealizing her, for example, she warns: 'It weighs on me and it is untrue. (…) My life is just as full of mundane, boring, somber difficulties and worries, just as full of hesitations and weaknesses as that of other people.' And when she occasionally becomes irritable without justification, she readily admits it in the next conversation.

Sister Paula leaves Hedwig in control of her life, no matter how deeply she cares for her. She offers her no advice. Her motto is: act sincerely, but without fear, whatever the consequences may be.

Furthermore, she is careful not to let the love-starved Hedwig become attached to her. When Hedwig asks if she can write upon leaving, Sister Paula protects her from a lasting dependency: "Better not. It is already enough."

The 'Now'

Hedwig decides to return to Holland and help out at Mrs. Harmsen’s farm. As a newlywed woman, she experienced an intense peace there for the first time. She has a room built onto the farmhouse overlooking a lake. During the day she helps with the household and on the land, and in the evenings she reads and writes in her diary.

"It was far from an idyllic life," writes Van Eeden. But despite fatigue and gloomy moods, Hedwig is "wonderfully happy."

She finds joy in simple, everyday things. With her sensual nature, she thoroughly enjoys nature, "the dewy spiderwebs, the little moss plants on the roof, the quiet pale mist, the fresh spring green, and the evening sky over the lake." The moments in which she fully experiences the "now" - the "heart-feelings" from her childhood - no longer last for mere minutes, but for hours, and sometimes even days. Thus, she experiences an ever-increasing sense of peace and the joy of living.

Dragons and princesses

People in psychological distress are capable of tapping into unsuspected inner strengths that defy all psychiatric and psychological frameworks. Of paramount importance is a person’s resilience, the strength of their capacity for growth, and the magnitude of their desire to turn the tide. Because, as the writer and poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1925) asks in his Letters to a Young Poet:

How could we forget the ancient myths that stand at the cradle of all peoples — the myths about dragons that at the very last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us look beautiful and brave just once.

Read also The therapist on the couch, About transference and countertransference, passages from Part 2 from Saar Roelof's book
Who is crazy, actually?