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Robin B. Zeiger, Ph.D.
I must confess. I am privileged to collect and "play with" toys for a living. In addition to traditional psychotherapy, I am a sand-tray therapist. Sand-tray therapy is a technique developed by the students of Carl Jung. Clients place miniature objects in a table-top sand-tray to create, symbolize, and work with their world.
One of my favorite groups of toys is my mirrors. Mirrors help us judge our outer appearance. Yet they are also an important symbol of introspection and looking inward. When I speak with clients about healthy emotional development, inevitably a mirror creeps into the discussion.
Psychodynamic theory points out the importance of mirroring. Babies are born with internal physiological processes that bespeak of comfort, hunger, fear, etc. It is crucial for the baby's emotional and cognitive development that we serve as a mirror for these internal processes. We hold and look at our child and intuit the problem. One type of cry means hunger. Another fear. One coo means happiness. Another communicates, "Pick me up."
Our job as caretakers is to pair words with physiology. "There, there, you must be hungry." Or "Oh, you're frightened by the barking dog." In essence we are holding up a symbolic mirror to the baby's face and allowing her to "glance" inside self - to slowly build an understanding of the growingly complex internal world of emotions and impulses. This is the beginning of what we term healthy narcissistic development.
Alternatively we may experiences woundedness in our narcissistic development when Mom or Dad are too pre-occupied, depressed, or anxious. Sometimes a deep trauma occurs at a crucial developmental stage. Or Mom and/or Dad may themselves suffer severe impairment in this mirroring function after being raised by emotionally deprived parents.
We have all had that experience of telling someone an upsetting story. Craving empathy, support, and mirroring, we reach out. But instead of needed support, the listener immediately launches into a tale of personal woes. Occasionally this process is okay and reinforces that we are all human. However, in unhealthy emotional development, this process happens again and again and again for the baby and the growing child. The parent needs the child to be "quiet' or "passive" or "conforming." Often psychodynamic therapy is all about healing these wounds and allowing the mirroring to take place.
How do we help foster healthy mirroring in our world? With babies, it is much easier to focus on the simple needs of comfort and hunger. But for our older children, family members, and friends, it can also be quite simple. I am left with a powerful homework assignment in graduate school. We were told to talk to someone on the phone or otherwise for about 15 or 20 minutes. There was one rule. We could only listen, paraphrase, and reflect feelings. We were not allowed to offer advice. At the end of the conversation, we confessed our assignment. As you can probably guess, the other person loved the conversation. It was so different from typical everyday behavior of friends and family.
Try it tonight with your family or friends.
The author, Dr. Robin B. Zeiger, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist. She lives and works in Israel. Her specialties include Jungian psychotherapy, dream analysis, and sand-tray therapy.
To learn more about her work please visit