Counseling as a Liminal Space; Adverserial versus authentic approach - 11/13/2025

    One day in Week 3, Dr. Reddick was describing Jung's concept of the mask, or the persona, social role, and public face that an individual presents to the world to adapt to society. He told a story about getting court martialed and being confined to a room except for work and meals, and using the time to meditate on the experience of having his boombox stolen and fantasizing about brutally killing the person who stole from him. He realized that this urge towards violence was an element of his mask, taken by his own country and shaped in a way that he could be sent out to kill other people unjustly. He stated that he was enabled to come to this conclusion because of the liminal space of confinement. He went on to draw a distinction between exegesis, or letting the story interpret itself, and isogesis which is to project on it and tell yourself that the person deserved it. 
    This story reminded me of a conversation I had with my counselor recently where he suggested that I tend to take the competitive approach imbued by public school or other areas of life that encourage competition, and apply that lens to interpersonal interactions that would be better suited by an authentic approach where I take a genuine interest in other people's lives. He brought this up in the context of my sense that I can sometimes struggle to read social cues, or break off conversations with people after running out of things to say. I can also see this applying to performing music; in your solo, if you are constantly thinking about how to impress listeners with your own skill, you are not thinking about fitting in the pocket and giving space for the comping of the other musicians. This was impactful on me as I feel like throughout my life I have often been a very competitive person, attempting to present myself in such a way that is conducive to an appearance of control, domination, righteousness, competence, intelligence, and so on. In this way I approached life as a technical problem to be solved through progressive list-checking-off until I died. But to make the most of life means at times rejecting this adversarial mindset in favor of authentic interaction with the present moment and genuine interest in other people. I think that the liminal space of a counseling session, where the construction of a mindful space without judgment allows for me to authentically reflect my own experiences without being in the midst of them. My counselor frequently has to tell me to avoid judging myself too harshly, promoting exegesis over isogesis.

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