Pinocchio In Three Acts

Tales From Therapy

Art Therapy is a breeze once the therapist makes clear that our artistic abilities are completely irrelevant. Expressing ourselves pictorially is just one more way to try to bring outside whatever it is that’s messing us up inside. It’s taken for granted that no-one else will be able to make head or tale of our scribbles and we’ll have to give a commentary.

The outline task is to depict ourselves as realistically or as symbolically as we want, in three separate frames, based on our past, present and future circumstances. I go on a wild spree of colors and shapes, but find it strangely easy to tell a coherent tale when the time comes to explain it all.

“I’ve always been interested in fairy stories and legends and have always suspected that they contain kernels of universal truth wrapped up in an easily digestible format.

As you might expect, I’ve always empathized with the heroes in the Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast. But for some reason what came to mind for this exercise was the story of Pinocchio. Probably the Pinocchio story as interpreted by Disney rather than the original folk tale, but the elements are the same.

In this first frame, you can see Pinocchio at the beginning of the story, completely wooden and with strings attached. Not living his own life, but dancing to someone else’s tune.

Can you see that there are two sets of cross pieces pulling my strings? You could take one to be work and one to be all of my other influences, like parents and friends.

But the true meaning is given away by this string you can see connected directly to my heart. This is my romantic self being pulled this way and that at the whim of someone I was obsessed with.

The middle frame fits the Pinocchio story, but is harder for me to explain. It shows Pinocchio after his strings have been cut but before he becomes a real boy.

If you remember, he goes off to the island of lost boys where he is given the illusion of freedom. He can smoke and drink and believes he’s having a great time, but he’s left behind the people who love him and he is slowly turning into a donkey.

What’s hard for me to understand about this frame is that it didn’t really happen to any great extent before I came in here. I haven’t had that great bout of debauchery, worse luck, so I have to wonder whether I’m subconsciously storing it up for when I get out.

The final frame is easier to understand. This is Pinocchio after his experience of redeeming love, referring in his case to his relationship with his maker Geppetto. It’s love that turns him into a real boy of flesh and blood. And it’s love that will turn me into a fully-functioning fully-human adult.

But I still need to find my Geppetto.

-You’ve talked a lot about Carrie. How do you feel about her now?

-Water under the bridge. I feel like she’s the one who got away.

-I’m not sure that you’ve explained what your aim was with her. What were you looking for?

-Just the usual boy/girl stuff really. It was a bit unusual just because of our starting point. We were already physically close because of the massage sessions.

-Did she ever indicate that she wanted anything more from you than that?

-Not in so many words. But that didn’t matter. My master plan was to reel her in with kindness.

-Kindness was a deliberate strategy?

-Yes. I thought I was being quite devious. I even wrote a little poem about it.

-How did that go?

-Something like:

My web is kindness, I wait at the centre Come to me, my pretty one

-Did you ever show that to Carrie?

-No, of course not. I didn’t want to give the game away.

-Of course not. And was following her to Buenos Aires part of that strategy?

-I thought that she would be bowled over.

-But it didn’t work?

-She wasn’t at all impressed. I think that’s when I started to wake up and smell the coffee.

-And realize what?

-Just how ungrateful she could be. How nothing I could do was going to win her over.

-You felt that she owed you something?

-I felt entitled to some consideration after all I had done.

-Everything you did was of your own volition. She wasn’t holding a gun to your head. She didn’t even ask you to go to Argentina.

-She manipulated me into everything I did.

-Not from the account you’ve given me so far. She did ask for your assistance on a few occasions, which you were free to give or withhold. She didn’t make you any promises that you have told me about, or make any romantic overtures.

-Not explicitly.

-On the other hand you did attempt to manipulate her, through acts of kindness. She just proved resistant to that kind of emotional blackmail. Far from her doing the manipulating, she has just refused to be manipulated by you.

The picture you showed me from your Art Therapy yesterday was useful, because it shows the way you have viewed events to date.

But I’d like you to consider the possibility that it was never Carrie pulling the strings. It was you attempting and failing to pull her strings which bothered you.

-You don’t pull any punches, do you?

-This isn’t a passive therapy. It’s meant to challenge your misapprehensions.

-So in CBT terms, what was my mistake?

-You used the correct term yourself. You felt “entitled” to some consideration. Throughout our discussions you have manifested a sense of entitlement which has no rational basis.

You think that certain actions you take can create an obligation on others to feel and behave in a certain way. You don’t see that by treating people like this you are seeing them as less than human, reducing them to automata within your own private universe.

-And I get wound up when they don’t follow the script?

-The more rigid your set of beliefs around how other people should act, the harder you’ll take it when they don’t play ball.

Extracted from The Alpha Lab by Mark Kelly, available on Kindle