‘This broken heart’. Frances Tustin’s ‘original agony’ and its transformation: from encapsulation, through heartbreak, to liveliness and hope

Abstract

ABSTRACT Our separateness from the other is the ‘basic agony’, the ‘original heartbreak’ of the human condition, according to Frances Tustin’s thinking. The ways we deal with this heartbreak form the foundation through which relationships, self-experience and wellbeing are built and developed. The following paper describes a child’s journey, from omnipotent encapsulation, through the extremes of heartbreak – the child’s, as well as his parents’ and the therapist’s – to liveliness and hope. Tustin teaches us the meaning and experience of encapsulation, the delicate balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ needed in the therapeutic stance, the extremes of despair, hurt, cruelty and heartbreak that are met with along the way, as well as the possibility of hope even in dire situations. Holding on, survival and faith, as well as hope-against-hope, which is the resistance to despair in situations of hopelessness, are needed in order for this broken heart to be somewhat mended and allowed to flourish and to grow.