THE RISK OF GOING TO THERAPY AND HAVING OUR GAZE FIXED ON OUR NAVEL
14.05.25 | By Andrea Fajardo
It is no secret to anyone that for a few years now the percentage of people who go to therapy has increased in Western countries, of course, for those who are in socio-economic positions sufficiently favored to be able to access this service. For many, going to therapy has become as important as playing sports or meditating, in fact, it is promoted as part of a routine that favors self-care.
So far, this wave seems to be an expansive advance if we compare it to previous generations, where psychological processes were subordinated to the search for immediate and efficient changes in human behavior, or to sustain suffering, death and existential crises as a result of wars, or to sit down to explore your inner world for hours to try to understand why you were the way you were. It is worth clarifying that I am aware that the above is reductive, I do not intend to make an essay on the history of psychology and run the risk that those who read it will get bored!
Throughout this history, accessing therapy has always been a privilege, including in Latin American countries (where psychology arrived with some delay), so the generations before mine seemed to have as a rule of life (variable in each context) to endure and move forward, to show a friendly and appetizing face to the outside, no matter what was happening inside. Now that various socioeconomic contexts of Western countries allow it, reviewing the internal processes in relation to childhood has returned to the forefront, this time, giving much more emphasis to processes such as attachment and trauma and their consequences in the formation of individuals. The concept of inner child for those adults who go to therapy has been the protagonist in their healing processes.
Now, without intending to fall into reductionism, in recent years I have been perceiving how the focus of therapy, in most currents, is to give space to the development of that child, to express with words or with the rest of the body what was left hidden in a box, to discover those unsatisfied needs, to grief those bonds that could not be as we needed, to expand our emotional container and feel what previously felt overwhelming and dangerous for our survival, and thus, to give space to the developmental narcissism in each one of us to grow and develop, so that it can be integrated into the current adult, autonomous, who has the ability to sustain himself physically and emotionally.
This approach is an immense revolution; however, I notice in me a part that feels discomfort when I perceive the overemphasis that there is in the individual process. Don't get me wrong, I dedicate myself to this and have gone through this process as well, I deeply believe in how important it is to support the transformative processes of those parts that did not have space, to be able to live a life as a more complete adult, with a perception and an emotional, bodily and mental awareness more in sync with the present. However, I fear that the risk is to stay here, in the gaze of the self, as a unitary being and alone in the world, living a daily narcissism where what matters most are one's own needs, one's own limits, emotions and in general, one's inner world. In fact, at the risk of being wrong, I notice that we are staying here.
The child at his natural stage of narcissism finds it very difficult to understand that there is another with a particular reality and just as important as his own, and this is necessary for his process of individuation. But when we talk about adults who seek to grow and heal the wounds of the past, who meditate and are aware of their inner world, who defend their boundaries with their attention focus at their own navel, then the process as individuals who are part of something bigger than themselves runs a great risk of stagnating.
How much do we realize that outside of us there is another? How do we use the therapeutic relationship as a canvas to learn to relate to each other? How do we take what we have learned in therapy to relationships and the contexts that color them? And what if part of the process of expansion as humans (as a collective) is to be able to honour the truth of our heart in relation to another who also has their own truth? To come out of our navel to meet another sentient navel, human, animal, vegetable, creating and learning to sustain deep relationships.
I think about how fashionable nowadays is to set boundaries, for example, and how an image of boundaries seems to being drawn where the other ceases to exist: "this is what I want, what I need, period. If you don't like it, you can leave." And there are times when this is necessary. However, in the vast majority of cases, extremes may not be necessary. Where is the other?, are we interested in what happens in the other?, do we allow ourselves to be impacted by what happens in the inner world of the other?, can we conceive that there is a space in the middle between you and me, of infinite possibilities to co-create?
To bring our inner reality to the outer field, learning to hold the truth that arises in our heart and the effect that the truth of another has on us, to realize that our navel is connected to many others, that what happens inside has an effect outside and what happens outside has an effect inside. Dancing alone is very pleasurable and we can learn other rhythms or awaken rhythms that we didn't know existed when we invite others to dance. To learn how to flow in the dance of life, we need to practice alone and in relation to different versions of ourselves, with different dancers, over and over again, over and over again. Co-create, that our rhythm becomes a bridge to connect and give ourselves to another, to self-transcend and feel the impact that being connected to everything has. Instead of it's you or I'm me, it's you and it's me, you are, I am and we are being, my invitation is to allow ourselves to be curious to the space between you and me, between you and the other.