SARA EKENSTIERNA
Sara Ekenstierna is founder of Ekenstierna Psykologkonsult and Oakstar Coaching & Consulting. She is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Sweden. She has nearly twenty years of experience in the field, mainly from short term dynamic psychotherapy (STDP) underpinned by existential thought, while also from psychiatry and organizational psychology. Sara is a published writer. She was a columnist for the popular Swedish professional magazine Psykologtidningen. Sara is a frequent speaker at conferences and a fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and also of the American Philosophical Association. She has a longstanding interest in creative practice of various kinds, including music and painting.
Phoenix Rising Over Harbour Bridge
(Acrylic on Canvas, Framed 93 cm x 93 cm)
I painted this in 2018 in Sydney, Australia in connection to completing some personal writings. Comparable to the Uroboros symbol, the Phoenix represents rebirth and self-generation (see Marks-Tarlow et al., 2002).
According to Otto Rank, who inspired Rollo May, Carl Rogers, and whose work was mentioned by Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion, successful therapy resembles a psychological rebirth. “One gives birth to a new self, with the analyst as midwife” (Lieberman, 1985, p. 232).
In the vein of Rank, we want to think of therapy as an embracement of the ambivalence. By way of illustration May quotes Rilke. Upon withdrawing from psychotherapy after understanding the purpose to which it aspired, Rilke said: ”If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well” (Rilke, 1939, as cited in May, 1969/2001, p. 126). Rank (1929/1978a) clarifies that it concerns not a passive or fatalistic acceptance, rather “an active constructive utilization” of the inevitable conflict inherent in life and importantly in the person itself (p. 206).
As Rank (1941/1958) also concludes in his very last book: “We are born in pain, we die in pain, and we should accept life pain as unavoidable—indeed it is a necessary part of Earthly existence” (p. 16). This is an important message in relation to today’s quick fix culture and strive towards symptom reduction.
For Rank, as to Rollo May, for the human personality a final unity is neither attainable nor desirable. Such ideal state entails the death of personality, as May (1939) put it, explaining: “For personality is dynamic, not static; creative, not vegetative. What we desire is a new constructive adjustment of tensions rather than any final unity. We do not wish to swipe away conflict altogether—that would be stagnation—but rather to transform destructive conflicts into constructive ones” (p. 69).
The existential pain of living can be eased through some form of creative production (Kramer, in press). The process of being and becoming is worked-through in continuum throughout the entirety of a person’s life, which is a "never completed birth of individuality” (Rank, 1929/1978b, p. 11).
These are excerpts from my dissertation. Follow my work on:
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