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The righting reflex

Updated Oct 31 2024

From Tarot for Change, Jessica Dore:

The primary task in all healing relationships—such as that between a therapist and client—is to listen deeply. Conversely, traumatic relationships are ones in which people consistently deny, overlook, and avoid each other’s truths.

I first learned of exquisite empathy as a graduate student seeking ways to cope with the overwhelming grief and anguish I was bearing witness to as an intern at a community mental health agency in an under-resourced community. It was during that time that I also learned about a thing called the “righting reflex,” which is the compulsion to swoop in and attempt to “fix” people’s problems for them. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this urge was rooted in a somewhat delusional and problematic belief that it was my job to “fix” anything.

When I paused to examine what was underlying the righting reflex, I saw how little it had to do with the desire to provide the right medicine and how much it had to do with the need to distance myself from my own feelings of discomfort in the presence of others’ suffering. Acting on the compulsion to make suffering go away—understandable and deeply human as it may be—is also a way of saying no to the present moment and making deep listening an impossible task.