Mentally / Emotionally, What ‘Is’ Depends on What ‘Is Not’.
Real thinking ability develops from changes in how we cope with “lack” (‘what I expected / wanted is not there!’). Similarly, the concept of ‘who or what I am’ develops out of wrestling with, or trying to fill up, ‘who or what I am not’.
The struggle to organize a life- or self-puzzle and solve in a ‘new’ way is self-development. A refusal of the struggle through outward projection or inward blame, is stagnation. Both are improved and made bearable in psychotherapy.
-Inspired by W.R. Bion and D. Loy.