A Distorted Image

(Note: this was an assignment for my Therapy I class. The purpose of the assignment was to identify and write about our therapeutic "north star," as well as our understanding of human nature and the goal of therapy.)

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an unuprooted small corner of evil.
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Meaning exists in the space in between. Nothing has meaning all by itself. Meaning comes from interaction, discourse, context, and relationship. Human beings are meaning-makers, which is to say we are relationship makers. Even the most elusive hermit or the most comatose schizophrenic without any meaningful contact with another person maintains internal relationships.  This relationality is why the doctrine of The Trinity in junction with the belief in the Imago Dei is so important. The Trinity tells us God is relational. We contain the divine image, and we find our divinity in relationships.

In an ideal world, all relationships between people would be open, honest, and clear. There would be no distortion in our varied attempts to connect, to give and receive love. The world as it exists, however, is full of distortion. Sin is the cause and consequence of these distortions. Sickness is the cause and consequence of these distortions. Humanity is a complex cybernetic beast. Change in one aspect of our system leads to change in the entire system. If one of us is sick, we all are. One person’s distorted attempts at giving and receiving love reverberate across the entire human network. In a sense, there is no such thing as individual pathology. Every sickness is interpersonal.

But, our disease is not ultimately fatal. The Imago Dei seeks after the same. There is a Gaelic saying, “one beetle recognizes another.”  The divinity in each one of us seeks to bring out and commune with the goodness in others. The Imago Dei is not a small icon of Christ buried in the rubbish heap of our bodies. All of our being is made in God’s image. The disease of sin is a corruption that can be cleansed, a distortion that can be corrected. The Fathers called this process theosis. The cause and consequence of theosis is love.

The goal of therapy, in the broadest and most general sense, is to assist a client in the process of theosis, to wrestle distortions, to heal sickness, and to love unto the possibility of more love. Interpersonal psychodynamic psychotherapy in particular seeks to delve into a person’s internal, primarily unconscious world, and to bring into the light that which has been living in darkness through the genuine connection of one Imago Dei to another. In these Imago-Imago meetings we seek to further reveal and strengthen both. The process sounds very mystical and ethereal, but in practice it tends to be messy and confusing. It had better be, otherwise it wouldn’t be real.

It may seem counterintuitive. We may think that the Imago Dei is only the good parts of a person or at the very least, that the distortions, disease, and corruption would not be counted among the image of God. I disagree. The image of God cannot be destroyed. A corruption of the image is still the image. We cannot help but be what we are, relational, love seeking and giving, divine beings. We can, however, help one another to be more what we are. We can help to strengthen and enliven the relationships between people, the place where meaning is born, and in so doing give more meaning, more love, more life. This is the goal of therapy.