A conversation between Meir Tati, the exhibition curator, and Gili Fleischman, therapist and facilitator for transformation and healing processes, following the exhibition “Maintaining the Question.”
Meir: Hi, Gili. My first question is, how do you define ‘an act of healing,’ or how do you understand the term ‘healing space’?
Gili: In the term ‘an act of healing,’ there is a built-in absurdity. First, for me, healing has to do with relaxation – relaxing into things as they are. In this situation exists something that we find so difficult to be in touch with that we burrow into the same mechanism over and over again. To free ourselves from this position, we must learn to allow ourselves to be with things as they are, and then we can process them.
I’ll take, for example, the field of trauma therapy because it embodies the dynamics of trauma: In a state of trauma, the body is unaware that the traumatic situation is over. Say that I experienced something long ago, yet my body continues to exude hormones and behave as if I’m still being chased by a lion. To be able to heal, I must allow myself to be present. If I constantly flee or disconnect, then the most fundamental thing is to create a safe enough space: a space in which it is safe for me to feel – it acts a little like a lubricant – and this opens an opportunity for me to mourn what I couldn’t have mourned in real-time, and do something that, so far, I’ve never done. In other words, it means agreeing to feel something that, for many years, I refused to acknowledge.
If you’re asking about the act of healing, for me, it’s a presence – a loving presence.
Meir: A word which I don’t really understand in this context is ‘agreeing,’ although I sense that it is crucial to the process.
Gili: We are used to thinking about these situations as something passive that we didn’t choose; however, when I avoid something, I am actually doing something very active.
Meir: Totally.
Gili: Kids have this toy egg that you put in the bathtub, and once it’s warm enough and nice, a dragon or unicorn hatches. I see it as a reminder for myself that no matter how stagnant and static the situation seems, you only need one moment of infinite patience and tenderness to – ultimately – be yourself.
Meir: I suddenly realize that I have a problem with the term ‘healing’ because it suggests that there is something wrong with you. By using the word ‘healing,’ we mean repairing something damaged.
Gili: I’m not sure it means that something is wrong with you, more like something is bothering you, you feel uncomfortable.
Meir: it’s like a built-in paradox, because if we are talking about complete self-acceptance, there’s no need to heal anything.
Gili: DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) addresses this problem. It’s an established psychotherapy approach that began as an attempt to treat people in extreme situations. Initially, they were taught mindfulness, and the method deals precisely with this paradox. It’s like saying, “you did the best that you could, given the tools that you had at that moment, and now that your experience is validated, you may stop and decide if this is indeed the way you wish to continue to move in the world.
Meir: So, is this the first action in the patient therapist dynamics? To validate for that person that whatever they feel is ok? Or is it to validate their emotions and experience?
Gili: it’s sweet that you’re referring to patients and therapists, but first and foremost, we are talking about mothers and children (it can be extended to fathers). We are talking about elements of secure attachment, and this is where it begins: “Sweetie, you’re hungry; this is why you’re crying.” And fulfilling other narcissistic needs that are very healthy. Only a few of us enjoy secure attachment. Our society doesn’t even support it. We are starving for touch, and most of us simply don’t have the tools to be intimate.
As humans, we have an endless yearning for love and belonging. I once heard something that has stayed with me ever since, that even in soldiers’ trauma stories, ultimately, they are talking about connections; questions such as “why nobody came to rescue me?”, which are constantly repeated, all come from there. When you are with a therapist or a mentor, the first thing is to allow you to be yourself as you are at that moment. But here’s the catch, how do you avoid abusing this relationship like a drug and internalize it like medicine.
Meir: What do you mean?
Gili: How do you refrain from becoming dependent on another “fix” of that person telling you that you’re ok and experience the situation and process it instead. Many people oscillate between dependence and healing. If I’m only your Clonex, I will ease your anxiety, loneliness, or pain, after which you’d go on with your life. But if I allow you to go through a missing experience and grant you a space to learn through experience, you’d be able to change the part in you that holds on to these things, allowing for a real transformation.
Meir: I will lean into your ‘parents’ example. The mother or father validates your situation, but you must detach yourself from their validation at some point. At some point, you must get it for yourself.
Gili: These are cognitive nuances that change everything. I’m talking about nurturing in a relationship. Let’s say, for example, that I’m a baby, and my mother nourishes me, but sometimes she disconnects for various reasons; it could be because of a specific incident – maybe she has undergone a medical procedure, and perhaps she’s a person who sometimes disassociates. To avoid experiencing the withdrawal of her nourishment, which is unbearable, I will avoid relaxing into the nurturing experience when it arrives because I don’t want to experience this loss again. The Hakomi method calls this mechanism a ‘Nourishment Barrier.’ This mechanism creates people who are always hungry and never fulfilled. You can see it in drug abuse and emotional eating, and even in the possibility or impossibility of feeling comfortable within a relationship. This is something that many of us simply can’t enjoy – we can’t feel safe in a relationship; rather, it feels like Bungee jumping.
Meir: Absolutely. I think about a voice. The voice of the person you are in a relationship with. It’s such an essential connecting thing.
Gili: You mentioned the voice, but there are so many non-verbal levels to this communication. There are ways in therapy in which you can tap into the attachment system, physically and mentally. If, as a therapist in a therapy session, you are in a state of mindfulness and there’s eye contact, you can use simple and delicate questions to enter this primal space, and it can easily become a mother-baby relationship, and time stands still. It’s an entirely different consciousness.
Meir: I want to ask you about intention. As someone working in the healing realms, and frankly, I regard you as a therapist shaman, what is the intention you bring to the encounter with the patient?
Gili: It has evolved through the years. It’s a timely question. I was going through a deep professional crisis, and I’ve just read a text that really moved me. In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he writes that it’s enough for a healer to heal himself in order to show his patients that a person can heal himself. It really spoke to me. I see it as a three-way contract: first, there’s the healing process of the person in front of me, and I’m committed to it. Then there’s my personal work, which is also a tool in this process. And third is a general principle that I sometimes refer to as “decency” and to which I’m committed. For me, it’s of utmost importance to be in an honest existence as much as I can and as much as is suitable for the person in front of me. And decency allows a space – it might sound trivial –to not use the person in front of me. Sometimes it’s a delicate nuance that changes everything.
Meir: I can relate to what you’re saying. When I teach “Introduction to Art Education” at Sapir college, I tell my students that if they want to know what introduction to art education is, they should look at how I teach. I teach who I am. We read texts that I like, and I act in class like I think an educator should.
Gili: I specialize in trauma and complex trauma, which means I work with the people who suffer the most in relationships. Part of my commitment is to agree to be in touch with my darker sides. Different parts of my psyche come into play. I can feel like a potential rapist; I can feel violent; I can be neglectful; There are so many components. But to really allow someone to touch the heart of the things they find difficult to be in touch with, I must agree to be those things. And you must let yourself be a little lost. I need to pose a little danger mentally and then choose to be safe for them within the framework we’ve agreed on. It doesn’t work in theory. It’s a language of truth.
Meir: This is beautiful. I think I told you before that there is something in the shamanistic aspect of therapy that I call a ‘face shifter.’ You can look at someone, and at some point, you realize that he can be just like you.
Gili: This is an excellent way to connect to psychodynamic psychotherapy in terms of transference.
Meir: what is a transference?
Gili: Transference and countertransference is the magic that happens in the clinic. I sit with you, and the more intimate we become, the more I allow you to project things onto me, and your inner world is brought to life in the room, like a hologram, and you may feel all sorts of moments that were frozen in time. It’s powerful. Sometimes we can find clues to track it as well. I can look at you and identify the expression of a child. And through the manifesting theme, we can understand if it involves you at the age of five or you at birth. We can actually map it out. It does feel shamanistic. I can sit in front of somebody and suddenly feel very guilty or powerless, even though it makes no sense. Afterward, when we analyze it together, we understand that we really accessed the core of those things.
Meir: I feel that part of the therapist’s job is to understand that they are not supposed to fix or solve things. Because the moment that, as a therapist, I manufacture a solution instead of staying with the open question, I accept a responsibility that is not mine to bear.
Gili: That’s right. Such a scenario doesn’t allow for healing. You must surrender to the mystery of things. I tell my patients: “We have this phenomenon where your inner world is suddenly present in the room, and you project it onto me, and suddenly I’m your mother, and other Freudian clichés, but at the same time, it’s something that happens specifically to you and me. It’s very personal, and it wouldn’t have happened to you with someone else.” For example, a particular type of transference relationship happens more often in my clinic because I bring certain things into the room.
Meir: You consent to be of service but not to erase yourself.
Gili: The idea of service doesn’t work for me. I see it as collaboration. I feel that service is hierarchical, and it’s not something that you feel in your guts.
Meir: Please, elaborate.
Gili: There is something sterile and avoiding in this position, though I’m sure some would argue with me. For me, if I was only serving the patient, things would go past me. When I’m a collaborator, it’s still clear that we have our agreed-upon framework: I’m the adult in the room, I’m the timekeeper, I’m responsible for not using you, and it’s my responsibility to set the limits, but there’s necessary reciprocity, that I wouldn’t neutralize. Had I felt that I was only in a position of service, I think I would have stopped doing this long ago.
Meir: I like ‘collaborators.’ I can identify with this experience with my therapist. Last session, there was a very significant moment in which we both understood exactly what was going on there.
Gili: it’s the extraordinary healing power of being understood and really understanding somebody.
Meir: It’s the desire to be understood, to be accepted for who you are, for your role, your pain, your love. It’s a strong desire for acceptance.
Gili: Previously, you talked about intention, but you are aiming too low. At the end of the day, the intention is that you will be in acceptance and be able to love. A patient once told me something I’ve been carrying with me ever since: after years of therapy, there’s a moment in which you understand that you are not there for your therapist. It was uttered after he felt I hurt him. I made a blunder, I was insensitive to him, and he felt disappointed with me, and suddenly he realized that he was not here to entertain me but rather for his own sake. As a therapist, I want to allow you to feel secure within vulnerability and uncertainty rather than give you certainty and a defensive wall.
Meir: it’s very much like holding someone’s hand through life’s chaos because it’s so challenging to go through it alone. It’s a separation journey from our parents. One of life’s journeys is separating from one’s parents and constantly feeling the demand to be alone in the world, stand on one’s own two feet, or be considered a failure. To be in the space of therapy is to be in a vulnerable space, with someone holding your hand and saying, “I’ll help you in this chaos. You can be vulnerable, and you don’t have to watch yourself because I’m here.”
Gili: For most of us, some of this mess begins when we can’t move in our own organic rhythm. It’s an inevitable part of life. This is also the way growth is achieved. It’s part of the magic of existence. However, if you never had the opportunity to feel that your needs are fulfilled and secure, like when somebody’s got you when you have an ‘accident’ in the middle of the night, you can’t authentically manufacture the generosity you are asked for or the ‘normality’ you are expected of. For many of us, this is the thing. We never got to be children or occupy our own space fully.
Meir: There’s a grace in being a child, but at some point, the grace period ends, although you haven’t yet developed tools for being an adult in the world. You still want someone to hold your hand.
Gili: We receive many messages deeming things illegitimate. These messages work from within the shadows. The concept of light and shadow is very significant here. I, for example, was handed a clear message that I must be humble and that my desire to feel admired was ok only if it was in very small doses. Between the lines, I got the message that my need to feel admired is despicable and that I should be ashamed of myself. Later I will wander the world feeling like I’m stealing something, or worse – I may actually steal something.
Meir: You frequently use the term ‘Shadow Work.’ Do you want to say something about it?
Gili: ‘Shadow Work’ is a term that Jung coined. It deals with the archetypes and collective consciousness we all share. The assumption is that there are parts of us that are out in the open, which are considered legitimate, and which we acknowledge, while there are other parts with which we prefer not to be in touch or not do deal with them, so we keep them in the shadows. They manifest as addictions and behavioral patterns. For example, I can be very triggered by someone because it’s like looking in the mirror at some part of me that I prefer to avoid. There’s a moment when you realize that many of the things that vibrate and annoy you are an opportunity to bring a part of you back home. Inside every such part, there is gold.
Meir: So, you must go through the darkness.
Gili: It’s part of the mystery, as we’ve said earlier. It’s a great gift to pass through the darkness.
Meir: I feel it’s important to be in the darkness and tackle it, stay there and befriend the darkness. Like in the children’s book, There’s a Nightmare in my Closet: The monster comes out of the closet and onto you, and then you realize that what it really needs is someone to tuck it in or give it some hot chocolate.
This inner conversation seems like something that a healing space may allow. Growing up, I didn’t have a space for internal discourse. However, as time passes, my inner conversation takes up more and more space, as well as the desire to stay in those moments in the dark.
Gili: I’ve been looking for a good Hebrew translation for the word ‘integration,’ and the best I’ve come up with is ‘shalom’ or peace. In what you’re describing, there’s a deep sense of peace, which is a great kindness.
Meir: I think my tactic, which others might share, is a mechanism of absence and detachment. The first readily available mechanism is detachment from a situation that I find difficult. To be in a space of healing is also to be released from detachment as the primary mechanism that offers me security.
Gili: We have our sympathetic nervous system: In situations that we perceive as life-threatening, we have three possible behaviors at our disposal: flight, fight, and freeze, which is often accompanied by disassociation. But the initial defense available to us in this life – say, for example, that you were born in traumatic labor – is to contract. This is the very first thing that the mind and body learn to do. People who experienced trauma close to their delivery often learn to contract their feelings. The remedy for that is simply slowing down and being with one thing at a time. This is also part of the healing space. You mentioned the possibility for inner discourse, but ultimately, it’s about taking that moment to breathe air between the particles and feel safe to slow down.
Meir: I love this. Let’s end with slowing down as the solution because the ability to slow down is the ability to be alone.
Gili: To be present.
Meir: To be in the moment. We live in a culture of excess that doesn’t let us slow down. It’s a culture that causes absence and detachment.
Gili: you asked me earlier about my contract as a therapist with my profession and life. I’m very committed to creating intimacy this way; to bring people into the light and allowing them to wake up from a coma. This is our contemporary exile: we are asleep; we live automatically, mechanically, with addictions, anxiety, and great loneliness.
Meir: Come out to the light. Thank you, Gili.