by Connie Zweig
When a mother or father complex is central to a friendship, and parent-child issues of dependency, control, or intrusiveness contaminate the bond, shadow-boxing is inevitable. Jane and Laurel, now in their thirties, met in college and became best friends who spoke every day for ten years. Jane, an introverted woman who tends to become depressed and isolated, came from a family that was not generous with love or gifts. When she met Laurel, she was charmed by her extroverted, nurturing, generous nature. When they began fighting and growing distant from one another, they decided to seek therapy to preserve their friendship, which was precious to both of them.
Jane disclosed that a recurring pattern or roller-coaster ride had interfered with her warm feelings toward her friend. She had begun to resent Laurel’s constant questions about her emotional state, her worrying about the depression. Jane felt that her friend was intruding into her private world without permission, so she responded abruptly with a defensive, protective character.
Laurel responded, “I just wanted to help.”
But, in Turkish, Jane heard Laurel as if she were saying: “I’m better than you. You have a problem and I can help you fix it. So I’m entitled to know your thoughts and feelings.” As a result, Jane felt patronized and inferior and became angry. This character responded by asking her friend for a more distant, superficial kind of friendship. In addition, she told Laurel that their conversations were not reciprocal and asked her friend to disclose more of her own vulnerability.
Laurel, in turn, felt judged and unappreciated. She felt attacked for not exposing herself more in the relationship and unseen for her efforts to comfort and assist her friend.
As the two women sorted out their issues, Jane came to see that in some ways Laurel had become the mother she never had. In college, they had become fused, enclosed in an eggshell relationship. As long as Laurel carried the mother projection, acting in a Demeter orientation toward her friend, and Jane remained in a dependent character, the relationship worked. But the love generated in their bond had begun to heal Jane; she felt more self-worth and became more self-sufficient, eventually launching a career, finding a long-term relationship with a man, and no longer wishing to remain in a lesser role. When she broke her identification with the dependent character at the table, she grew restless, even claustrophobic in the old form of friendship with Laurel and wanted to break out of the eggshell into the chicken yard. So she faced a crisis of commitment and chose to tell her friend of her discomfort with their lack of boundaries.
Laurel, however, had not developed out of her rescuing, caretaking character; it still sat in the seat of power. This Demeter character sat at the head of the table in all of her primary relationships. She felt so hurt by Jane’s attacking rejection of her that she could not allow the relationship to evolve into something else. She cut it off and sought to re-create the pattern elsewhere with another dependent friend.
The archetypal source of this codependent relationship pattern appears in the image of Chiron, the wounded physician who is part horse, part human. Although he is a god with curative powers, he suffers an incurable wound. When the archetype of the wounded healer is split in any relationship—that is, when one person (the identified patient) carries all of the woundedness and the other carries all of the healing powers—the power shadow emerges. In this case, Laurel is blind to her own woundedness and believes she can heal her friend, Jane. So she manipulates the relationship to get it to conform to these roles and to maintain her position of power vis-à-vis her friend. But Jane has evoked the character of her own inner healer and now resents Laurel’s projections of woundedness and helplessness. For the friendship to evolve, Laurel needs to stop denying her own vulnerability and expose her shadowy, wounded side to her friend.
In other friendships, family projections are not dominant. Instead, archetypal or divine projections are evoked, in which one friend idealizes another’s appearance, wealth, competencies, or charisma. When Cheryl, thirty-eight, met Gabriella, thirty-two, she marveled at the younger woman’s passion for life, her appetites for food, sex, dancing, and talking. Gabriella loved to talk endlessly about feelings, to live them deeply, and to drink of their Eros. Sometimes the new friends would talk for so many hours that they would begin to make fun of themselves, asking again and again, “How do you really feel? No, how do you really feel?” And the dramatic intensity would build until they laughed at how seriously they took themselves. And Cheryl would light up with Gabriella’s rolling, booming, bodily laughter, thoroughly and deeply enjoying her friend.
When Cheryl met Gabriella, it was a close encounter between Athena and Aphrodite in the flesh, a close encounter between women so alien that each felt compelled to explore the mystery of the Other. Each felt invaded by Eros, who came on wings to bring them together and left them unable to resist, as if this friendship held some secret key to the wisdom of life.
Cheryl, an Athena-style father’s daughter, used her achievements to gain male approval. Bright and independent, she had earned a doctoral degree while working as an architect. She had close male friends but few male lovers, explaining to her new friend that throughout her life men had seemed intimidated by her intellectual prowess and rejected her style of femininity. As Athena’s influence had begun to wane, Cheryl longed for an intimate relationship but did not know how to attract, seduce, or nurture men. The importance of her career success paled as she felt her disappointment, then failure to find love.
Gabriella, a Raphaelite beauty, used her attractiveness to gain male attention. When she walked into a room, the men gathered around her, compelled by her voluptuous sensuality and charmed by her gift with words because, like Aphrodite, Gabriella traveled with Peitho, goddess of gentle persuasion, who woos the heart with words.
When Cheryl observed her friend at a party for the first time, she felt enraged at how easily Gabriella attracted men, and she envied her friend’s charms. Then, slowly, because she also loved Gabriella, she began to become curious about her talents and suggested that they explore their Otherness with each other. Perhaps, Cheryl thought, each woman could extend herself to include more of the other’s gifts.
As they talked, Gabriella slowly admitted that she, too, felt disappointment and failure, but in the arena of work rather than love. She envied her friend’s talents and wished to learn how to establish a more lucrative creative life. So the women formed a learning community of two to do shadow-work, agreeing to take responsibility for their own envy and projections onto the Other and to speak from their own specialness. As a result, each felt more alive, uncovering a new direction for her energies and feeling less bound to persona. In this way, during many years of ongoing conversation, Gabriella discovered the gifts of Athena, and Cheryl discovered the secrets of Aphrodite.
In some friendships, shadow-work cannot be done in such an open exchange with the other person; therefore, it has to be done internally, perhaps through dreamwork, such as in the following example. Our client Fay brought in the following dream:
I’m working my way home in my car. I’m carrying a brown bag full of garbage for recycling. The road disappears, and the car goes up into space. I try to push it to a small road, but it blows far off. I see Rachel, a friend, on the ground below and throw her my garbage. Then I move the car to a tiny ledge and get out and crawl, hanging on to the rim. Eventually I climb down. Fay begins by saying that the dream portrays her life at the time. She was doing a lot of driving up into the mountains and flying around curves while heading toward home. She also was “flying high” from a recent success, receiving praise for her work as a television writer. But she also felt overextended, “out on a ledge,” and out of control of her time and energies, as well as cut off from her body and its pleasures. Her lover had recently withdrawn from their relationship; so, beneath the busyness of her days, she felt sad and alone. Finally, during this time, she had a number of painful communications with friends in which she felt a lot of anger and stuffed it into the “garbage bag.”
She associated to the garbage bag and remembered that poet Robert Bly describes the shadow as a long bag we drag behind us. “What’s in my bag?” she asked with curiosity. “Why am I carrying it up in the sky? Why do I pass it down below to Rachel? What part of me does she represent?”
Clearly, Rachel represents a shadow figure who holds many opposite qualities. The moment in the dream in which Fay throws the bag down to Rachel is a snapshot of her process of projection. The garbage is the umbilical connection between that part of her that’s flying up in the sky and that part of her that is down on the ground making use of what others throw away. Her dream ego needs the shadow figure down below so that she can continue to fly—that is, she needs a place to dump her garbage.
From her position up on the ledge, her dream ego has great freedom and a bird’s-eye view. But she is stranded high and dry without the juicy contents of her garbage bag, in a precarious position, unable even to walk upright and forced to crawl. For her shadow sister, who has the view from below, the bag may not contain garbage at all. Instead, it holds grist for the alchemical process of recycling. The Rachel character has a firm standpoint with her feet on the ground, but she does not feel expansive and free.
Rachel, then, is a character at the table who contains Fay’s pushy, seductive, selfish, sensation-oriented qualities. Perhaps, if Fay can make some of the Other’s traits more conscious, she can come down out of the mountaintops and live a more embodied life. Perhaps, in this way, shadow-work with Rachel can help Fay to ground the puella character by finding it an appropriate place at the table.
With this goal in mind, her therapist asked Fay to return to the dream to “dream it onwards.” Immediately, in her imagination, a rope appeared, connecting the two female images. With one woman holding each fend, the rope was strong and stiff enough for the flying woman to descend. As she reached the ground, the shadow woman opened her arms, the other released the rope, and they hugged, disappearing into one another.
Male-male friendships also may involve personal or archetypal projections, which can lead to constructive or destructive qualities in the bond. Often less verbal than women, men tend to emphasize doing activities that offer them a joint focus outside of themselves. Even today, men, like heroes of old, band together to explore the wilderness, face dangers, and compete fiercely. At times, their activities offer an outlet for the rivalrous, comparative, envious feelings that underlie many male friendships.
Often when men bond, they unknowingly make room in the Third Body for this aggression, assuming it is not directed against one another. But when these shadowy feelings have no outlet between men, they may create passive-aggressive distancing, sarcastic backbiting, or direct aggression, which can damage the loving bond. And when they are actively directed against the friend, they may end in a wild roller-coaster ride or an unforgivable betrayal.
Jungian analyst John Beebe suggests that we learn to respect the primal forces of nature that are involved in male-male relationships rather than try to reduce them to personal psychology or change them into something else. Many men share a fidelity at the puer level, he says. But a tremendous aggressive force lies beneath their camaraderie, which can even lead to violence.
In the end, for men to befriend one another, they must face personal demons, as well as cultural taboos. They need to commit to time away from their top priorities of work and family to cultivate the friendship. They need to risk their vulnerability to distancing and rejection, which they may have felt from their fathers and which may cause them today to feel failure and isolation. And, finally, they need to cherish and honor their friends’ authenticity as well as their own, to allow the experience of a soul-to-soul connection. In men’s groups, men can experience the mysteries of male-male bonds and the healing power of love and recognition betweeh same-sex friends.
In the end, for women to befriend one another, they must face a history of sister betraying sister, in the name of love of men. They need to face their own cattiness, envy, inferiority, and rage. They need to commit to time away from other priorities to cherish their friends. And they need to risk their authentic power, facing shadowy accusations of bitchiness or superiority. In women’s groups, they can experience the mysteries of female-female bonds and the healing power of love and recognition between same-sex friends.
Where does your mother or father complex sabotage a friendship? What gods and goddesses are at play in your friends?
AN ARCHETYPAL PERSPECTIVE ON FRIENDSHIP
People who are strongly influenced by distinct archetypal patterns, which take over the seat of power at the table, also have distinct patterns of friendship. For instance, Zeus-style men who use the shield of power typically will not seek soul friends in either men or women. Unable to share power or exchange deep feeling, they will have a more utilitarian attitude toward people. Poseidon men also seek to dominate others but with emotiotial power rather than the power of position. They tend to compete with both male and female companions, making intimacy difficult. When a Hades character is present in a man, he, too, will find friendship difficult, but for another reason: his deep introversion. An Ares-style man, on the other hand, is a companion of men, especially in the armed forces or as a team member, where his natural aggressiveness is honored. And a Dionysus man is a companion of women, who tend to befriend and nurture him and to feel appreciated in return. When Apollo is strong in a man, he is capable of friendship with independent, competent women, especially those who share his passion for music and art; but with other men he tends to become competitive and needs to be a leader. Finally, when Hermes influences a man, he is friendly, spontaneous, and communicative, charming women and joining men in their activities. But Hermes also is a loner who comes and goes without commitment. And he may lie and cheat to win his heart’s desire.
A woman who is highly influenced by Artemis tends to value friends over lovers, forming sisterly bonds with women that may include support groups and the collective spirit of sisterhood, and brotherly bonds with men, especially those like her twin Apollo, the androgynous god of music and prophecy. Athena, on the other hand, has few female friends; her rationality and competitive nature lead her to dismiss kinship with women and to side with patriarchal values. She is drawn to powerful, heroic men as friends and colleagues and may act as a hetaera, a counselor and confidante.
When Hera is at the head of the table, women also devalue friendships with other women, putting their highest priority on marriage. As wives, they may disdain single women as failures or see them as threats to their own security. When Demeter is present in a woman, she values motherhood above everything else and therefore may value friendships with other mothers for emotional support. She may befriend a young, naïve Persephone-style woman to continue her mothering pattern. Or she may befriend a young, sensitive man who needs the nurturing of a maternal woman. Finally, Aphrodite-style women have problematic friendships with both genders. Desired by men because of her erotic sensuality, she typically becomes a lover rather than a friend. Mistrusted by women for the same trait, she arouses jealousy, envy, and feelings of danger, especially in Hera women. She may establish bonds with women, but they will either feel subordinate to her powers or need to develop their own erotic self-confidence.
Another pattern of friendship holds the potential to heal a parent-child bond: senex-puer/puella—that is, older friend-younger friend. Because the puer lives in a world of ideals, he or she longs for special people who can make the grade and be called friend. When a bond is formed, the puer tends to fuse with the Other by melting boundaries, perhaps
calling on Aphrodite and using sexuality as a means to connect, or calling on a spiritual Self-to-Self connection, which may not respect individual or worldly limits.
A person who is controlled by this pattern has no internalized parent or protector, so he or she may strive to fill this function on the outside, in the form of a parental-style friend or mentor, that is, a positive senex. Like the wise seer Merlin for the young King Arthur, the senex initially may act as a teacher or guide, who eventually becomes a soul friend. In the legend, Merlin assists the boy to cultivate his masculinity with the help of the sword Excalibur, thereby initiating him into his Kingship—that is, into the proper relationship of the ego to the Self. Those women and men who are fortunate enough to find this kind of wise friend today may experience their own felt-sense of completion if they do not continue to project their stability and wisdom outside of themselves.
What myths or archetypal images lie behind your friendships? How do they enrich the bonds? How do they interfere with them?
WOMEN AND MEN AS FRIENDS: DANGERS AND DELIGHTS
Women and men can find soul friendship with one another, but the obstacles on the path to the treasure are many. For instance, if we carry our stereotyped baggage into these relationships, secretly hoping that men will be heroic, rational, and competent, or that women will be nurturing, emotionally available, and subordinate, then the full range of our authenticity cannot be expressed. Instead, our early identification patterns of a man’s man or a mother’s daughter will be reinforced, our emotional range reduced, and our shadow characters silenced.