Emily, a 30-year old consultant came to see me because she wasn't satisfied with the direction her life had taken. She still received financial support from her parents, who were very involved in her life and had strong opinions on what she should and shouldn't do. In fact, her whole life was crowded with people who determined her actions. When I asked her, in a repetitive way, who she was and what she wanted, she only expressed very general wishes for happiness and meaning, none of which would ever be able to compete with the requirements from her parents. In my own countertransference, I noticed irritation: I didn't have any trouble identifying with her parents, but that wasn't helpful. Emily answered every question within a fraction of a second with: "I don't know." It seemed to be forbidden to think, to have an opinion, to have a personal goal. There was no space for her Self, literally.

To explore this, I asked her to imagine an empty space around her. When she tried this, she panicked, the void was too confronting. I took her to an empty place in the room, let her find a position for herself and then let her find out how big her personal space was. It was only as large as her body. When I asked her to widen the boundaries of her space, she started moving around in growing circles, visibly relaxed, until I let her go back to the centre of her circle. Now she felt the newly discovered space shrinking again to the size of her body, and she looked at me with fiery eyes. No Logosynthesis sentences today. I haven't discovered a way to slice this massive pattern into slices that can be processed. There is so much more to do before she can feel safe with me. Safe enough to think from her Self, safe enough to really explore the void from which to hear the calling of her Essence.

In the next session, Emily had taken a break, and the effect was amazing. She had realised that she needed to expand her space and that there were lots of parental messages that kept her from discovering what she really wanted in life. She had also become aware that she needed confirmation and permission at every step, which was debilitating with parental messages telling her to be different. Emily's fearful gaze was now gone and her eye contact with me was clear. She was able to explore the content of her patterns instead of dissociating immediately. I let her make a list of those messages on a flip chart and decide which was the most limiting. This time was the right time for the Logosynthesis sentences. One message was "Why are you always like this?", connected to the conclusion "I'm weird." This and a few other messages could now easily be neutralized with the sentences. Emily started to discover a world of her own, not determined by the wishes, values, ideas and commands of others. Her energy changed completely; in the group an open exchange about different options available to her became possible.