Most people have at some point seen the Wizard of Oz, but how many really relate it to real life? Do we know a Dorothy or a Tin Man?
The Tin man yearns for a heart. He yearns for someone to get access to his heart but for him it is difficult – he is made of a substance which makes it difficult for others to access him. They can see him and hear him but there is something about him that shields others from truly gaining access to the real person .. and yet he years to be understood and to be loved…but how can he be loved when he doesn’t allow himself to be known?
A few years ago I saw a client who had been bitterly hurt by someone she had loved deeply and yet several years later she was seeing me about her apparent inability to get over yet another love. She felt weak. Why did she fall in love so deeply and why did she get so hurt? Why couldn’t she move on as other people she knew? What was wrong with her? … I questioned this view of herself. Was she a “lesser than” person for having the ability to love so intensely? Was she foolish and weak – or was she in fact wise and strong? For to truly love someone takes some maturity and wisdom; and to love again after being hurt surely takes some strength….making yourself open and vulnerable takes courage and strength.
That is precisely why when clients tell me they must be weak to need a counsellor I tell them they are wrong. Many people go through life putting up barriers only to find that one day the barriers fall apart. They find they suddenly cannot cope with something life throws at them. They can no longer keep up the pretence that everything is ok. To be open and vulnerable about oneself is not a weakness. It is a strength; and it is a privilege for the therapist to be entrusted with another’s deepest thoughts and emotions.
In a society that has traditionally instructed boys they should not show vulnerable emotions is it any wonder that men, even today, find it difficult to admit to such difficulties?
However, the tin man, shielding himself with a strong outer shell, also deprives himself of his greatest need – the need to be truly loved for who he really is.
For further information on this I recommend Understanding the Tin Man – Why So Many Men Avoid Intimacy, by William July II – Penguin Books - ISBN 9780767905664
Comentários