Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes?

Change is an illusion.
Parmenides

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Heraclitus

The idea or the possibility of change is for both philosophers and psychotherapists a somewhat contentious issue. Whereas some argue the only constant is change, and therapeutic agencies such as the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy confidently state “counselling changes lives,” others argue change is a form of self-delusion.

Everything Changes, Nothing Changes

Can we really change, or do we just go through cycles, at different times we’re simply at different points on the same circle? Or is it just the illusion of change, like the student lodger, we can arrange the furniture, get some new lights but we’re stuck with that horrible wallpaper. Or are we, as Macbeth lamented, running around “full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing”? Our attempts at changes the metaphoric equivalent of arranging deckchairs on the Titanic?

At one level, change is everywhere: technology, fashion, jobs, friends, lovers, particularly in the early years, come and go. We get promoted or not. We move city or apartment.  Yet is that the surface level or the substance? Is it just the same us in a different space? For if we look at ourselves or our families, the evidence and experience is more mixed. Christmas, birthdays, annual get-togethers, school re-unions, we are all only too familiar with the unchanging dynamics, the constant dramas and the familiar disputes year in year out.

Even within ourselves, many individuals are locked in anger or pain they cannot escape. A childhood wound that will never heal. Low self-esteem or anxiousness we had in the school playground forever follows us around, always one step behind. We try to shake it with personal improvement or therapy, and while can sometimes banish it for a year or two, it always seems to drift back into the picture.

Romantic relationships play the same old stories. You know the drill, they keep promising change, they swear this time will be the last time, vow next time will be different. And maybe it is, for a while, and then it’s not. When out of focus, when we take our eye off the ball, everything slips back to the same old, same old. The same conflict and disputes swirl around, year after year.

While change may or may not be a constant, the desire for change certainly seems a permanent feature. We can see it everywhere: from newspaper Sunday supplements to make-over programmes, from fitness trainers to TED-talk motivators. The change industry is big business.

And is it any different for couple therapy? Are therapists and therapy books peddling the same delusion? Profiteering off a desperate hope for a better future? Or can we increase awareness, and loosen the ties that both bind and blind us to patterns of the past that keep us fixed in place? Can we re-programme old thoughts, old messages we tell ourselves and each other. Or are we just kicking it into the long grass, kicking the can down the road for a few months?

My view as a therapist is that through balancing awareness, adjustment and acceptance we can find a way forward, we can find a different route even if the terrain is familiar. The issue is whether we have the drive. Whether we have the will and conviction to stay the course, or whether we ultimately prefer to slip back into old patterns.