A relational integrative view of this momentous day ... Barack Obama

November 5th, 2008 by Richard Cruz MBACP (Accred).

The images last night of a father, mother and their two children would have had a completely different resonance had they fitted the stereotype; today's reality that a black American family will occupy the White House, its very name quintessentially symbolic of an age old supremacy, is indeed a celebration for America, the world and for humanity.

What does this mean in terms of the individual and collective projection? It is as if the whole world is sighing in relief that finally the parent of the Western world has come to it's senses; real power, growth and freedom is borne of integration and that divisions that split (40 years ago racial segregation still existed in the US) merely accentuate defenses and vulnerability both internally and are projectively identified externally. That sense of paranoia and fear has permeated much of the world and its people as we know it and all in the name of omnipotence, the unruly child within the irresponsible adult. The counselling profession itself has gone through and is still going through such transitions in terms of its regulation and we see such splits over what works best and can it be measured...as if the unconscious was some tangible entity.

What Americans and the rest of the world 'needs' from Barack Obama is a firm 'holding' presence of a hand, benignly indifferent yet educative, not the historically rough aggressive one! Needs go hand in hand with shame and I couldn't help feel for the woman writing in to the BBC's live blog that for the first time in 8 years she will be able to travel outside the USA holding her head up high...how sad that many like her may have had to justify the actions of the sick parent riddled with a sense of dis-ease and inauthenticity.

The parallels are of course obvious in counselling and psychotherapy as we are constantly dealing with inter-relational power based issues and projections inside and outside (and as a male counsellor in a minority don't I feel it!) the consulting room with individuals, couples and families. Issues in relation to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, status, etc, in short the whole gamut of what it means to be different is the crux of so much of our work.

Perhaps because of my diverse background I have a particular insight into those presentations in the room, being able to see beyond the immediate, perhaps the transpersonal connections. In a similar way as I watched Obama and his American family cross the threshold into a new era, the whole continent of Africa lit up and along with it a wealth of possibility and potential.