In the late 1980’s, a film entitled Look Who’s Talking came out in which Bruce Willis gave voice to the inner thoughts and feelings of an infant. I will never forget one scene in that movie, because of its eloquent demonstration of a piece of human development. The baby’s mother is leaning over his crib, with the camera shot of her being from the baby’s perspective. He has been crying, and the mother responds with, “Ooh; it looks like you’re hungry.” The voice of the baby responds, “Whoa! How did she know?!”
Thus begins the “fixing fantasy” as a part of the baby’s attachment schema. The mother has correctly anticipated his needs–read his mind, if you will. He has instantly gotten what he needed without having to do anything to make it happen, except cry. He experiences his mother as magically “knowing” him.
As children develop, good enough parents help them gradually move forward in their ability to tolerate frustration when their needs cannot or should not be instantly gratified. They learn to relate in a context in which everyone’s needs must be considered. Not good enough parents operate on a continuum from allowing their children to remain in a state of infantile needs to either grossly ignoring their needs or shaming and punishing them for their needs.
Whatever the partners’ experiences have been with parental gratification determines how much they are still living with a fixing fantasy and how much therapy time will need to be devoted to exploring the fixing fantasy. I learned the hard way that it is not advisable to attempt to talk couples out of their wishes for a quick fix. Telling them that this is not what therapy is about was simply a way of shaming them for their wishes.
Our postmodern western culture supports the fixing fantasy; we can get “fast food”, thousands of “friends” online, entertainment at the touch of a button or merely with a voice command, and goods delivered to our homes within a day. It is no wonder that our clients come to our offices believing that we have the “magic fix” for their relationships.
Like any effective treatment, we need to empathize with their wishes to be quickly fixed. Who wouldn’t want that–to instantly escape our pain; to feel our past losses evaporate; to get that “mother-type” love we either had once or are still longing for? So, we explore. We don’t ask why they want to be fixed; we ask what and who they want to have fixed. We use our consistent curiosity to discover their past experiences with fixing. Have important people in their lives wanted to fix them? What would their relationship be like if it were fixed? Do they think their therapist or their partner is withholding their “magic”?
The truth is, most therapists have a fixing fantasy, too. The extent to which we manage it will determine how effective our work is.