Real Life Stories

THE CASE OF JANE

Jane, a lawyer attending one of my seminars, complained of feeling frustrated with her job. She was beginning to hate going to work and had lost her sense of passion. When I questioned her about it, she said that the problem was Mary, another attorney who worked at her law firm. Mary had spent her entire legal career at one law firm, while Jane had taken several career detours. Thus, even though Mary was only a few years Jane’s senior, she was already a partner in the firm, while Jane was only an associate.  Mary was not a physically attractive woman, and Jane believed she derived most of her self-esteem from having made partner in a male-dominated firm in one of the more "macho" areas of law, labor relations.

According to Jane, it seemed that maintaining Mary’s self esteem meant preventing other female lawyers from making partner. While she was a friend and even a mentor to the male associates, she was rude, critical and even insulting to the women in the firm.

Jane said that she felt powerless in the situation. No matter how hard she worked, Mary would set her up to fail. She explained that Mary would deliberately withhold information she needed to analyze a client’s problem. If Jane asked for clarification, Mary sneered that she was dense. On the other hand, if Jane did the exhaustive research necessary to cover all the possible fact patterns, Mary would criticize her for wasting time.

Jane felt she was reaching a dead end. She said that she liked the other partners and found the work challenging, but unless something changed, she would be only the latest in a long line of female attorneys who had been pushed out of the firm by Mary. She asked me to help her find an answer to her dilemma.

I asked Jane to take a few moments and close her eyes and imagine a typical meeting with Mary to discuss an assignment. The imagined scene in her mind is called an eidetic image, from the new school of Image Psychology. This is a special image, stored in the brain, which can be retrieved in its entirety by employing special techniques.

The image Jane and I used is called an Emanation of Self. This technique is specifically designed to resolve a situation where you may feel powerless or unable to deal with someone in your life. The exercise proceeds step by step:

1. See an image of feeling powerless in the situation:

In response to my instruction, Jane said, "I am in Mary’s office wearing my power suit, carrying my legal pad, but inside I am feeling like a little kid sent to the principal’s office. I realize that I feel impotent because I am being blamed for something that is not my fault. This is how I often feel around Mary."

2.  See a wind come down from the heavens and surround you. It is a gift from the Gods for you. How does the wind make you feel?

"The wind takes away the feelings of self doubt and restores my confidence in my work. It creates a shift in perspective, reminding me that, even though Mary has a higher title, I am her professional equal."

3. Now see another you jump out of you. What is this other you like?

"I am more forceful." 

4. See yourself become this other you. The first goes away. How does this other you act in the situation? Let her be free to do or say whatever she wants.

"I see that I call Mary on her behavior. I talk to her as her equal, without fear. I am seeing something that has taken me many years to see: if I just stew in silence over a bad situation it will stay bad. If  I speak up and defend myself, there are two possible results. The best result would be that she would acknowledge my competence. The worst result would be that she would deny it, but that would not make me any worse off than I am now. I can only improve my situation by speaking up."

5. How does Mary respond?

"She won’t admit anything to me, but she will have to admit to herself that her behavior has been unprofessional. I am fairly confident she won’t do it again."

 6. How do you feel?

"Like a weight has been lifted off me. All of the energy that I wasted in agonizing over this miserable situation is now free to be channeled where it belongs: into my work." 

Jane had been seeing her work situation from the narrow perspective of her insecurities and fears. She had been raised to respect authority, and our culture sends many messages, subtle or overt, designed to convince us that the person with the trappings of authority must be right. Her deference limited her self-confidence. The Emanation of Self exercise demonstrated that her brain held a storehouse of other information about herself and her coworkers. Eidetics provided access to that information.