Most everyone who saw the film, The King’s Speech loved it. Why? Well, maybe we all shared something common with the King (George VI) who really did not want to be the King. Maybe we can say he was sort of forced into it, just like we are forced into having to grow up and accept imposed responsibilities that come with age and the decisions we impose upon ourselves, like getting married, having children and needing to adjust in becoming good enough parents without a text book or instruction on how to do it all. We fall back on our earlier experiences that we learned from childhood. This is our gift and luggage that we bring to adulthood. In the movie, George’s father (George V), was not very approachable and adding to young George’s misery, his older brother upstaged him. He did not have to rise to the occasion until a family crisis developed. The elder brother decided to marry outside of acceptable family expectations, leaving young George having to grow up fast and to overcome his fears around speaking publicly. He had to assume responsibility now as the new leader, the new King of England. This story is based on historical fact, occurred at the beginning of WWII. He had to perform and was terrified and unable to do it on his own. A fun part of the movie is being a participant in the therapeutic action as we experienced the struggle. Deep personal change requires a special human relationship and the training to go with it. It is highly emotional, yet controlled and thoughtful. At times the process toward change is directed. The therapist is saying to the patient, hey, “look at this, pay attention and focus” At other times the therapist may say something like, “is it really true that you are judging yourself and placing labels on yourself such as worthless, rotten to the core, or defective?” The therapist needs to help facilitate corrective ways a person thinks and labels oneself. This is hard work for both the therapist and patient. To not only bring to life old forgotten memories, but also help the patient develop an appropriate adult perspective, a new addition of self, requires trust on both. It reqires trust and acceptance on the patient’s part and a very well-trained clinician. It is not an intellectual exercise. It is a new experiential pathway that reworks the past and is reworked in different parts of the cerebral cortex to make it a part of the now and not the past. The patient now is more on their own, using a variety of self hypnosis tasks and other interventions. There may be a lot of self talk that is corrective and appropriate. The therapist supports the patient in their struggle.It’s an ordeal that may feel impossible at times. Its is not intellectual, although much theory may be sprinkled in with the struggle. In all new things that we value enough to take on, requires a special kind of support and emotional attunement to keep the process of growth moving toward further growth. It is not the cure that is so important as the path toward more inner awareness and mastery over that which seemed impossible to achieve. We all need new teachers, coaches, mentors, friends, religious teachers therapists along the way. His therapist, unlicensed, yet trained in working with people who were “shell shocked” from WWI (post traumatic disorder) knew that to help psychologically wounded soldiers, he needed to have the soldier go back to early childhood perceptions and memories. He needed to help make those memories come alive with great emotion (re-vivification). The soldier needed to relive negative thoughts and feelings, like anger, despair and utter helplessness. So we watched and enjoyed George try and express saying “bad words” like shit and fuck…with feeling. We saw him struggle, but now he was not alone…he had a partner, his therapist, who saw him daily and became the scaffolding for his growth, and until he could grow into a new edition of himself who could “talk to his father” and have the old King George V “listen to him”. I use this movie as a metaphor for you to think about. It is not what the old man (George V) did to little George VI, but rather little George’s perceptions, about what it meant to him to experience his father in the way he did. It also was little George’s a response because of who he was as a kid in his particular family, at that particular time in his development, and his own inborn sensitivities, that made such a lasting impression on that little boy. His older brother left the scene by marrying outside accepted royalty and escaped his predetermined royal responsibilities. We all adjust in our own ways and live with those choices unless a crisis exits that forces us to reexamine ourselves. Dr. Rohr, a Catholic Psychologist and educator suggested that we are the sum total of all of our sufferings and human imperfections that we have examined and mastered. You see that mastery takes love and faith in God or the power and wisdom of the universe. This may be the spiritual part that drives us forward to master our challenges. What I am trying to say is that to go forward in self examination we need the assistance of another person who is able to see us clearly with all of our blind spots, warts of character and imperfections and to do so with loving acceptance. Faith grows from loving oneself first and having self compassion for how we fall short with all of our fears and the early perceived injuries we experience. The ability to connect to the divine with faith is an outgrowth of self-acceptance and self-love. This is not narcissism. It is a commandment from both the Old and New Testament. To love your neighbor as you love yourself requires loving and accepting yourself, first. This requires the assistance of a mentor, coach, good parent, friend, religious teacher, therapist or someone whom we can use for growth. Acceptance and capacity for attunement without shaming are prerequisites for helping someone grow beyond our early unconscious baggage. That is the second major lesson that is real and known to all of us yet not made explicit.
