Evelyn Rothchild Laeuchli
"Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it; and whoever loses it will save it and live."
Luke 17. 32-33
1. Amy sat in her chair, her body frozen, her hand clenched around a crumpled ball of Kleenex, her face an unmoving mask. The only sign of the storm raging inside her was the tears that slid down her cheeks. She saw so many images; the flowers at her grandmother's funeral, her father throwing a chair in rage, her mother's face turned away, unfocused, seeing nothing.
There were dark shadows that haunted her. Could she dare to look? What she saw might kill her. The word incest spun in her head but would not attach itself to the bits of memory, the feelings in her body. If she could move, she knew that she would scream or throw up. Finally she said " I've got to know, even if I die!"
Amy was a member of a small group in a psychiatric hospital who had just played the story of Lot. Amy played Lot's wife, a woman without a name. Her husband Lot, faced with the angry and lustful men of Sodom, offered his two young daughters to be raped in place of the two angels who were his guests. He then fled God's wrath against his neighbors and ran to save his life. "Flee for your lives; do not look back...". "But Lot's wife behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt." (Genesis 19. 17-26) It was later in a cave above the town of Zoar that Lot had intercourse with his two daughters.
As a group leader and therapist, I had been playing Bible stories and myths with groups for 10 years; yet each time, the power of the story hit me viscerally, like a punch in the stomach. I understood why Amy held her arms tightly against her middle; why she sat rigid and unmoving, a monolith of pain.
Amy had chosen the role of Lot's wife. (These choices always have a reason.) She played it brilliantly, using her own mother as her model. Just as in the Bible, she was faceless, voiceless, 'a good wife'. She didn't protest when her husband said, "Look I have two daughters, both virgins; let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them...". (Genesis 19. 8) In Amy's family it wasn't angels but her two brothers that were protected and preferred. And the angry voices crying "Bring them out so that we can have intercourse with them!" (Genesis 19. 5) were not the voices of the men of Sodom but the unspoken voice of her father.
For Amy, a door had opened to memories and awareness. She had been running for a life time through alcoholism, bulimia, brutal relationships. She was desperately trying to save her life by numbing out the pain and quieting the voices that reminded her of what she could not know. Now at last, she was looking back, into a childhood of violence and abuse, the burning city of Sodom.
Amy like so many victims blamed herself. "I was his favorite. I was too pretty. My mother was ill. The family would have fallen apart. If I hadn't slept with him he would have left my mother." There is a psychological truth in Genesis 19. 30-38 when we are told that it is the daughters who feel responsible for the incest.
During the discussion of our play someone said, "This is a horrible story. Why would God put such a terrible story in the Bible?" Amy answered simply, "It's the story of my life. Somehow I feel better that it's in the Bible." A pillar of salt is something precious, salt of the earth, salt of our tears, an example that nourishes the spirit of the community. Amy's courage to look back healed us and gave us hope.
This is not theology. Working closely with human suffering and tragedy, there is little room to worry about theologically correct interpretations. The focus is rather, how the story resonates or screams into and through the minds and bodies of my patients and myself. And yet there is a consensus, an understanding, a common reality in the group at the end of our play. It may be difficult for our language to convey but we "know" where we have been and what we have witnessed. It is very personal and at the same time something shared.
2. The process of using stories as a context and method of healing is both antique and modern. The audience watching a tragedy at a temple of Asklepius or a patient participating in a psychodrama that objectifies her personal circumstance are both entering a mythic reality to transform consciousness. Myths contain a deep awareness of life on a personal, family, cultural and universal level. They deal with issues of lifetime development; loss and separation, the development of self, initiation, conflict within the family, the achievement of intimacy.
Myths are multi-layered, condensed, coded. They contain paradoxes. In playing myth we decode, extend and re-experience the primal dramas of mankind. Myth speaks to the third ear. It slips under our defenses and communicates unconscious to unconscious.
Therapists and patients are myth makers. The mind apprehends and creates it's 'reality' through mythic lenses. Bible stories, myths, and fairy tales are vehicles for insight, expression and exploration of one's personal predicament, as well as containers of the condensed wisdom of our predecessors. In myth our private tragedy is universalized.
As a therapist, one struggles to find meaning in suffering; order in what appears arbitrary and random. One listens for themes, patterns, currents in the patient's description of their situation, the details of their childhood or the events of their week. The work with patients is in part an attempt to help them to know and understand their story, to see their role in the larger drama and to find purpose and value in playing their part. When a person sees their role clearly, they can begin to have choice; they can alter their role or learn a new one.
3. It all seems so simple and naive. The group sits in a circle. There are empty chairs in the middle, one for each character in the tale. Even at the beginning they have a strange presence. One tells the story, sometimes it is read, at times there are changes in perspective. For woman's groups I have played the Prodigal Daughter, the Sacrifice of Sarah's Son and Lot's Wife. During the telling of the story I ask the group to allow the characters to speak to them. "Who fascinates or repulses you? Are there people from your own life in this tale? Who do you identify with? Perhaps you would like to learn more about a character you find troubling." The group chooses roles freely. There is never any pressure.
Depending on the time available to the group, a few parts or all of the story is played. With Lot's wife, I like to start with the scene in which God hearing that the town of Sodom is in a state of grave sin, decides to send two angels to investigate. At different times I use meditation, imaging, movement to help the group enter the process. "What is grave sin today?" I ask the group and there is a period of silent meditation followed by sharing. "We are destroying the earth." "We ignore the suffering of the homeless." "I am an alcoholic and I am destroying my own life and that of my family." "We are all addicted to status, money, success, and we refuse to see reality; how empty we really are and how desperate." "We are filled with self hatred and show it in the way we judge others." "I don't know what it is that I have done but I have always had an oppressive sense of guilt and shame." In all the groups, with which I have worked, the sense of sin becomes visceral, heavy, suffocating.
The group members sitting in the circle have become the people of Sodom. We listen and watch as God tells Abraham, Lot's uncle, of his plans to destroy our town. Abraham argues with God: "Wilt thou really sweep away good and bad together? Suppose there are fifty good men in the city; wilt thou really sweep it all away, and not pardon the place because of the fifty good men? Far be it from thee to do this - to kill good and bad together; for then the good would suffer with the bad." (Genesis 18. 23-25)
It is a very different experience, to listen to God and Abraham, when it is the fate of your own family, your parents and children, your neighbors and friends that is being decided. "Am I one of the just?" "How can it be that the innocent will suffer?" As Abraham begins to barter with God there is fear and tension in the room. "May I presume to speak to the Lord, dust and ashes that I am: suppose there are five short of the fifty good men? Wilt thou destroy the whole city for a mere five men?" (Genesis 18. 27-29)
"Abraham is clever but he is afraid." someone reflects. It is very quiet after that comment and the group is riveted as Abraham works to save us. In the end he is able to get God to commit to sparing the town if there are only 10 just men. We eye each other nervously. Someone mentions the concentration camps; how arbitrary it was to be chosen to live or die. A woman says softly, "Sometimes I feel like I am evil and I deserve God's punishment; that I am responsible for the terrible things that have happened in my life. The next moment I feel that I am innocent, a victim, and then I am filled with sadness and anger about the unfairness of God, of life."
This issue of the good and bad suffering equally, the lack of justice in life, is a theme that the group grapples with as they struggle to make sense of their own histories and current situations. Childhoods of abuse and neglect, disabilities and illnesses, deaths and losses of loved ones and friends, chronic depression and emptiness, lead the patient to say, "Why me Lord?" Some have elaborate rationalizations to explain their anguish as a just punishment for some imagined wrong. It is easier to accept such punishment than to face a world without justice. Some refuse to acknowledge their pain because their rage and sorrow might drown them and no God has heard their cries. Others fight desperately for some sense of control, even if it means starving to death, as it does for the anorexic.
To be healed would mean to be able to know 'reality' without the need for defenses that are too limiting or too destructive to oneself and others. In The Future of an Illusion, Freud argues that it is only when we have the strength to see reality, with all it's unfairness, that we are able to be truly compassionate and to act humanely.
4. Then there are the two angels. We are the people of Sodom and the angels walk around the circle looking at us sadly, coldly, with great distance or great compassion. However the angels are played, we learn quickly that they are powerless, without a voice or choice. They are only here to report what they see and hear. Sometimes they are silent observers listening to the towns people discuss their fears and concerns. They don't interact but are invisible. At other times they are investigative reporters who ask probing questions to individual members of the group. Often the people in the circle get angry with them. "Don't tell me that you're only following orders! Get out of here! I can't stand your holier than thou attitude."
A woman patient, when asked why she thought she deserved to be spared, said to the angel; "You remind me of a goddamn therapist; so distant and untouchable. You don't have any idea of what it's like to be me; the hell I live in minute to minute. It's you that's evil not me! How dare you judge me!"
We have entered the story. Play has added a depth to our experience. Our defenses are down. We are raw. The Greeks called this process catharsis; as a therapist, I also see it as a process of mastery. All play is an attempt at mastery, an attempt to achieve new levels of integration. It is a form of communication to our selves and others. Through our play we learn about our roles, the roles of others, and the dynamics that drive us. Even a year later, group members have told me; "I am still struggling with the Abraham in me." "I feel so much closer to my mother since I played her part. I had no way of understanding her before."
The story brings up conflict, the role allows defense. One is both actor and observer, there are subject-object shifts. A patient once stopped me in the cafeteria to tell me that she had finally figured out why playing stories was so helpful and powerful for her; "I got it! This play allows me to see as much of myself and my problems as I can tolerate. Then when it's too much I can say that it isn't me, that it's only the character that I am playing."
As group leader, I also play the role of director, although it is often my experience that the play is directing me. The group has the freedom to rework scenes, to change the format of our play, to switch actors. It is often stunning to see that when the group has demanded a more compassionate God or a more vocal Abraham that the story doesn't change. It is just held differently. Loss is loss, tragedy is tragedy.
The role of Lot's wife can be played in many ways. She can be compliant or defiant, a victim or a rebel, but the story grinds forward. Her husband offers their children to be raped by the angry mob. Do his reasons matter to the mother, the children? No matter what explanations are given, the children are frightened, horrified. One child lays her head on her mother's lap, the other turns away from her family and lets out a piercing scream. Despite the fear and pain of the children, it often seems to the group, that it is easier to play the childrens' parts than to play the role of Lot.
5. The play is nearing it's end. Lot's two daughters are holding each other frightened, tearful, unable to speak or understand the events that have befallen them. Lot and his wife sit on two chairs, back to back; he can only look forward, she can only look back. Lot's wife is being played by a young woman physician who is just completing her training; Lot is a local parish priest.
The group that sits in a circle around the players begins to question Lot's wife about what she sees. "Why did you look back?" "Are you glad that the men who threatened your daughters are being destroyed?" "How do you feel about your husband after he sent your daughters out to be raped by a mob? Can you bear to look him in the face?" "What has God done to your town? What has happened to the woman who lived next door with the three small children?" "Are you relieved that you don't have to go on after experiencing all this?"
At first it is hard for her to speak. It is too much to know or to communicate. Then she begins slowly, "I see people crying in pain, suffering without relief or reason. I want to believe that they deserve this so that it will make sense." I interrupt at this point to push it further. "Have you ever seen a child die?" She begins to weep. It was only the day before this group that she had experienced the first death of a child in her care. "I did everything I knew how. Her injuries were too severe....She was so little....Her parents were so desperate." The group begins to mourn with this young physician. There is a bond that grows as the group supports her and struggles to carry her vision and sorrow. Tears are being shed for so many losses and for once we can mourn and be comforted, not alone but as a community.
It suddenly becomes clear to me that Lot is totally alone; that he is the most lost and vulnerable person in the room. There is community among those who mourn the death of a child, a city, of their own naive belief in justice. Lot who cannot see this reality, cannot be comforted. I go and rest my hands on his shoulders. It is too hard for him to carry this role alone. It is only when he is touched that he too can weep.
6. After the play there is a time for sharing, a time to come back to our everyday reality. People tell stories, memories that have come up during the play; some cry in relief and sorrow for their new understanding of themselves; others give support to the players and express appreciation for what they have been given; a few distance by quoting theories or arguing about how a role was interpreted. Everyone is supported. Each persons experience is validated. We are each of us both Lot and Lot's wife; at any given moment, we can only see as much as we can bear.
How has this play been healing? What in all of this is therapeutic? The use of dramatic play creates an integration of intellect and affect that is often missed in regular therapy. From the stories one gains insight into family and personal dynamics and there is the ability to accept and experience feelings that have previously been threatening or overwhelming. There is also a healing of loneliness; an individual's concerns are shared. And from this sharing a deep sense of connection with others, a sense of community, is created. We are known and accepted at our most naked and vulnerable.
A new respect for the self grows as we see ourselves reflected in others. "She was also sexually abused and she is such a courageous and sensitive person. Perhaps I am also worthy of respect." This reflection of oneself, in and from the group, is in my experience the best way to heal shame. In my years of work as a therapist, I have come to believe that it is the healing of shame and low self-esteem that allows the individual to become fully alive and creative.
7. With my husband Samuel Laeuchli, as part of my work for the Mimesis Institute, I have lead literally hundreds of workshops and growth groups using biblical themes. Watching how different groups respond to and enact the same story has given me a sense of the underlying structures in these stories; what is mutable and what is constant. There is a difference between playing Bible stories with therapy groups and playing them with educational groups in churches and academic settings. With patient groups there is much more openness and trust, much more acknowledgment of human vulnerability and pain. I have often wondered if any therapist could risk having as clear a perception of life as some of the individuals whom we label as sick or 'crazy'. It is from my work with patients that I have gained a trust in my current conception of these tales.
The stories are often horrible, tragic. Even stories of celebration have dark undercurrents. As we rejoice in Christ's birth we anticipate his death. Mary's face is so often touched with sadness, her tender glance sweetened by her pain at knowing she can only hold her child a little while. Part of the healing of these stories may be that they provide an avenue into the core of our experience and allow us enough distance to see it without being overwhelmed. There is an opportunity to experience horror and to mourn. The Murder of the Innocents is juxtaposed with the peace and serenity of the manager.
There is no single approach to understanding biblical texts that is adequate. One cannot fit the power and depth of these stories into a psychological, theological or historical framework. Within my own field and training, the narrowness of a Freudian or Jungian perspective limits rather than enables. At best, one brings to the text all that one has learned and has experienced, the reactions and sensations of the body, a thousand associations, thoughts and feelings. These can all be guides to understanding and entering the tale.
All symbols and metaphors are multi-determined; they have many levels of meaning, some of which are contradictory. In my work with groups, the individuals are supported in meeting the story without expectation or prejudice, to tolerate the tension of paradox, to accept confusion and contradiction and to respect and allow their inner process. One doesn't work to understand the story, rather the story works on the mind, emotions and body until it is known. This ability to suspend one's usual judgments, to be aware of one's spontaneous responses, to permit inner and outer conflict, and to contain one's reactivity and need to act, is essential to any process of knowing or transforming. Ultimately the task of therapy is more than understanding; it is transformation. There is something within a myth or story, when it is deeply experienced, that transforms.
8. I have played Bible stories as a form of therapy with groups in numerous settings; psychiatric hospitals, a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed teens, a special classroom for deprived and abused five year olds. I have also used these stories as a group training method for individual and family therapists. Although it is exciting to use Bible stories, biblical figures and biblical quotes in working with individuals, it is, in my experience, the group work that is most dynamic.
In clinical settings, I try to select stories that bring specific issues into focus. Often the staff will ask me to play a story dealing with inter-generational or sibling conflict, abandonment, loss or shame; whatever concerns are reverberating in the community at that time. After playing stories with these themes, the patients can address these problems more directly in their individual treatment and in other groups. At times patients have requested to play a particular role and the group cooperates to provide them with this opportunity. "I would like to play Sarah as the barren wife because I am struggling with my own infertility." "I want to play Elohim creating the world because as a woman I have felt so powerless."
I find certain stories particularly helpful in preparing new patients for therapy. I play the parable of the Good Samaritan as 'helpers who can not help'. The patient who plays the person in need sits in the center of the group and expresses a real or ficticious problem. Another patient plays the role of the priest or Levite; someone from whom we expect help and support but who emotionally walks by. There is always a mixture of tears and laughter as the 'helper' mouths the platitudes that have been given so often by counselors and clergy, teachers and family members. "You have to pull yourself together. Think of the children." "Count your blessings, don't think about your troubles." "Your parents love you; they only did it for your own good." "It could be worse, at least you have your physical health."
The patients are asked to identifying why this 'help' fails to touch their pain. "They don't really hear me, their words push me away." "They make me feel so lonely and ashamed." "I feel so put down. They don't want to know how hard it is." "They make me feel guilty that I am suffering. They think that if I wanted to I would simply change." The question is then asked "Why can't the priest and Levite help?" There is a surprising compassion in the group; "they are afraid, underneath they feel despair, they have too much pain in themselves, they're afraid if they see my pain they will be overwhelmed by their own."
The entire group then plays the Samaritan, the half-breed, the one who is not acceptable, the one whose own pain has taught him empathy. The patients are deeply moved as they learn that their suffering has given them a gift of understanding; that they can sensitively touch each others' lives.
The Prodigal child is a good model for patients about to begin family therapy. The split between the 'good' child and the 'prodigal', the tensions between father and older brother, the absence of the mother's voice, can create recognition about one's own family dynamics. The prodigal child's inability to separate from his family and to establish himself in his own life successfully is an important key to underlying issues. It also gives insight into other family members' behavior and vulnerability.
Patients recognize their own role as good child or rebel. They struggle with the difficulty of separating from a family in which one child sacrifices himself to support and remain loyal to the parents and the other sacrifices himself to fulfill the father's or mother's unconscious wishes. I have played this story many times, with many different groups, and no matter how the roles of mother and father are enacted there is always difficulty in the parents' marital relationship. The marital problems result in the parents using the children for emotional gratification.
In this parable, after the return of the prodigal, we play a scene in which the family discusses the future; does the prodigal leave again or is it the older brother's turn? What happens to the parents' marriage if both children leave or stay? The question is asked, "How can this family be healed?", and the group works together to understand the needs and fears of each individual and how they can be met.
9. There are rules for the group work and play. The group leader sets the tone. Creating a safe space is the ultimate concern. There is an acceptance of each individual's contribution and perspective. Each person is joined with and valued. Their pain and confusion, anger and fear are acknowledged, held by the group. There is no attempt to find solutions; rather there is a "being with" the problem. If there is safety and openness I find that people can let go of defenses, become vulnerable, share painful secrets. There is a willingness to see things in a new way. All of this can be done without confrontation. Aggression between group members is deflected onto the group leader. Attacking statements are decoded or reframed; integrated into the flow of the group process. The fear that is hidden under the anger is gently brought to light.
Gradually, organically there is an interweaving of voices, perceptions. Some in the group give expression to the child's experience, some to the father's or mother's. Each character is heard with compassion. Words are used to acknowledge, to comfort. There is a need to name our experience, to use words as markers for what cannot be said. And there is permission to mourn; to share our deep sadness and to cry out. Perhaps it is only the angels or God who can contain the whole; can see the tragedy and have the strength to carry it alone, in silence.
Rilke, Lament
Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely,
your path struggles on through incomprehensible
mankind. All the more futile perhaps
for keeping to its direction,
keeping on toward the future,
toward what has been lost.
Once. You lamented? What was it? A fallen berry
of jubilation, unripe.
But now the whole tree of my jubilation
is breaking, in the storm it is breaking, my slow
tree of joy.
Loveliest in my invisible
landscape, you that made me more known
to the invisible angels.
Rilke, Klage
Wem willst du klagen, Herz? Immer gemiedener
ringt sich dein Weg durch die unbegreiflichen
Menschen. Mehr noch vergebens vielleicht,
da er die Richtung behält,
Richtung zur Zukunft behält,
zu der verlorenen.
Früher. Klagtest? Was wars? Eine gefallene
Beere des Jubels, unreife.
Jetzt aber bricht mir mein Jubel-Baum,
bricht mir im Sturme mein langsamer
Jubel-Baum.
Schönster in meiner unsichtbaren
Landschaft, der du mich kenntlicher
machtest Engeln, unsichtbaren.
(Buch der Bilder, I-2)
Campbell, Joseph: Myth, Dreams and Religion, Dallas (Spring) 1970.
Eliade, Mircea: The Sacred and the Profane, The significance of religious myth, symbolism and ritual within life and culture, New York (Harcourt, Brace and World) 1959.
Freud, Sigmund: The Future of an Illusion, New York (W. W.Norton & Company) 1961.
Rilke, Rainer M.: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Ed. by Stephen Mitchell, New York (Random House) 1982
Yalom, Irvin D.: The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy New York (Basic Books) 1985.