For a number of reasons recently I’ve been thinking about space-albeit a very special kind fo space. The space found when two people meet. As a psychotherapist I meet with a lot of people. And meet them in a particular way. I see them in my consulting room at a set time on a given day for 50 minutes.  Mostly I don’t begin the conversation. I sit in my chair and invite my patient to talk. About whatever is on their mind. It’s a particular way of working. It always reminds me of watching a child at play. What will they do with that elephant or that car? How will they combine them, if at all?  My task as a therapist is to watch this play.Be involved in it when required. And to comment on what I see, asking my patient what they think of my comments.

As so often, the Greeks had a word for this. They called it a Temenos. A sacred space reserved for the worship of the gods. The psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, used this as a metaphor for the work of therapy. A special place dedicated to communing with the Other. A place with both a physical, geographic location but also a place out of time. A temenos was the location that enclosed a  Hieron , a place where everything  belonged to the gods. Here even the most mundane of objects became sacred. (Another powerful image for the therapeutic space where everything and anything can be valued and given fresh meaning and importance.)

I’ve had patients bring their dog, their car or their house into this space-metaphorically! These represent something important that they need to  bring to the temenos.  Having brought it here, it stays here for future reference. Until it is no longer needed and can be left behind and forgotten about. Rather like a child’s toy when it has been outgrown.

Most therapy sessions have spaces in them where neither of us is talking. Some people are comfortable with this and sit, quietly, for some minutes. Others want to fill the space with words, fearing the silence. I once had an enquiry from someone asking if I was one of those therapists who asked a question and then sat back waiting for a reply. I said that Yes. I was such a therapist. They didn’t come back to me! ( I wondered how else was I expected to work?)

The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott uses the picture of the baby at the breast and asks “Who owns the breast? The mother or the baby?” He suggests that this is the point where play takes place.(He includes religion, creativity and magical thinking under this heading.) He further writes

“Of the transitional object it can be said that it is a matter of agreement between us and the baby that we will never ask the question ” Did you conceive this or was it presented to you from without…? The question is not to be formulated.”(Winnicott :Playing and Reality) There are many everyday examples where this is the case.One which comes to mind is in the Eucharist. Who transforms the ordinary bread and wine into something with a metaphysical importance? The priest or God? With the image of temenos, one wonders who owns the gift about to be given to the gods? The giver or the gods? Conception seems another good example. Who “owns” the growing baby? It is developed in the womb but could not have got there without the father. the same question arises in therapy. Who created this idea we are now thinking about? Me, the therapist, or you, the patient? It is an unanswerable question.

All of which brings me back to Buber and his observation that the space between us is sacred.