The Carrier Bag Theory of Therapy
Where all can be safely gathered in...
One of the problems I perceive in the mental health, spiritual development and wellness space is the emphasis on individual ‘achievement’ of certain desired states. This might be about becoming ‘my Best Self’, or ‘enlightened’, or ‘conscious’. All of these things tend to be packaged and sold to us as things that we can get, through individual heroics in the therapy room or mediation mat, or the gym or through success in some form. It is an individualist model which can be critiqued at many many interesting levels. Today I am beginning to think about the radical idea of dismantling the therapy of solutions and replacing it with a therapy of reflection.
I am borrowing from Ursula le Guin’s essay ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ in my thinking here. Le Guin suggests that we consider the implications of acknowledging humanity’s first tool as being the container, not the spear. Rather than conceptualising our origins as developing around the long, sharp, pointy violent outward facing aggressive tool of the spear, she says consider conceptualising around the container, into which we place that which we want to collect, bring home, bring within. Clearly this is a feminist position. The story that we have about our early technology is that we as humans first developed good and efficient ways to kill things, and thus became strong and dominant - the Hero’s journey - but what if the story we told was about how we became really good at gathering things? Bringing things home? Harvesting and containing?
Le Guin goes on to apply the idea of gathering to her thinking about what stories are. She challenges the narrative of the Hero and instead sees stories as containers for artefacts and ideas. Stories as carrier bags (baskets, medicine bundles), where the contents can have relation to one another. Thus, the narrative is less about conquest and victory, more about a continuing process of how things relate to other things. I strongly urge you to get hold of the essay and read it if it is new to you. I have been thinking about how there is sometimes pressure to imitate the Hero’s journey - thrust forward and outwards in therapy as well, and how a carrier bag theory of therapy might be of benefit.
What if you were to shift your intentions and aims for your therapy space away from the demon-killing spear, and instead conceive of your therapy space as a container? A reed bowl woven with the warp and weft of the attention, care, skill and ethical integrity of therapeutic presence? A box, carved and inlaid with the skill and imaginal insight of generations of thoughtful listeners? A carrier bag, in to which anything you bring can be placed and held and carried and honoured. Your therapy space becomes a place not to kill and destroy the parts of the world that discomfort you, but a place to bring things, hold things, think about things. A place to say ‘this happened’ and ‘this happened’ and ‘I felt that’, ‘I loved him’, ‘I lost her’, ‘I saw something terrible’, ‘I saw something beautiful’, ‘I do not understand’, ‘I dare not say’, ‘I do not know’. And so it goes on, garnered, brought together, pondered and held.
What about conflict? What about the Hero and his journey? What about the thrust, the outward, the win? Bring it to the container. I am absolutely not trying to diminish the value of these aspects of our world and psyche - I am trying to put them in relation to other things. To make the story of the victory ONE of the stories we bring in. To allow the artefact of our rage and power to be gathered to our altar (another container), and placed with the rest of the tale, not to be the whole table. In therapy, we have the chance to challenge the narcissistic psyche that wants to make it all about the victory of the ‘cleansed’ ego. We have the chance to offer a new way of living where things do not come to a fantasised glorious stasis, to a victorious conclusion. Instead, we understand ourselves as being continually in process. Beautiful works in beautiful process. That is the carrier bag theory of therapy. Bring it in, receive. Therapy becomes a recipient.
How might this enhance your self reflection, if you could shift your focus from the need to be in the story of the Hero, the Victor, the Spear, and instead moved towards the story of the medicine bag, where that which we gather and hold might throw its light on our process? How would that be?
This is in line with so much of what I’ve been thinking about this year. Thank you for writing and sharing this. Reminds me of my 5 year old on a walk gathering things into her ‘noticing bag’…a feather, a leaf…things of our community that we are a part of but don’t need to ‘conquer’ or hoard 💚.
I appreciate this perspective so much. This experience/value of containing resonates with me and connects to the feminine aspect of being that feels increasingly vital to me these days. It is incredible how sneakily the “doing/striving” message can sneak into my own internal work and supporting others in theirs.