• Sadness vs happiness
• Control vs letting go of control
• Strength vs vulnerability/exposure/susceptibility to harm
• Altruism and the desire to help others vs selfishness and self-care
• Diligence vs laziness
• Action and agency vs passivity and surrender
• Creative creation vs helplessness
• Courage vs fear

These are examples of poles that can exist within each of us. It is, of course, an individual matter, and everyone may name them differently. However, we do not always want to see both poles, and one, which we judge as the „dark” side, and thus „Mr. Hyde,” is repressed from our consciousness. Often, as a result of various events or beliefs carried over from childhood, adaptive mechanisms arise where one of the poles is deeply buried in our consciousness due to this mechanism. We do not want to see it, even though it is within us. Psychotherapy (particularly in the Gestalt approach) involves expanding the client’s awareness by working with these beliefs (so-called „introjects”) and poles.

In life, strong polarization usually does not serve us well. Not everything is either black or white. Similarly, clinging tightly to and rigidly remaining at an extreme pole, while life’s circumstances continually change, does not nourish us and costs a lot of effort.

Healthy human functioning, and thus achieving emotional well-being, involves the ability to access a full range of feelings and states. The key is integration, which occurs, among other things, during the therapy process. It helps us to allow ourselves to feel and experience these different, sometimes extreme states, and to decide for ourselves what to use and what not to use, depending on where we are in life and to match them appropriately to the situation. This way, we learn to regulate our emotions in a safe and nourishing way.

Sometimes we need control and strength, individuality, and visionariness, as these states or resources can help us be leaders, persuade others to our ideas, and inspire. However, sometimes for the sake of teamwork and good cooperation, we forgo this strength and control to achieve collective and flexible cooperation. The point is to consciously choose for ourselves.

Denying the existence of sadness, depression, or anger within us, as unwanted or difficult emotions and poles, will not make them disappear. Burying them, however, will cost us a lot of energy spent on keeping that emotion outside our awareness. Of course, certain patterns, such as those from childhood, like the idea that a girl should be polite, nice, and helpful, or that boys are strong and do not cry, may have caused an adaptive mechanism to meet societal expectations. During therapy, we expand our awareness of whether these beliefs still serve us. We probably once made a so-called creative adjustment to be accepted by our environment and to make it easier for us to function. This is a normal mechanism. However, now that we are adults, it stiffens us and causes us to repeat an unfavorable pattern.

For example, a young girl’s aggression or anger may have been frowned upon by a parent or teacher, so she adjusted to the rules. Now, however, an adult woman may exhibit a pattern and only reveal the extreme pole, namely submissiveness, being helpful and kind, and have difficulty setting healthy boundaries. On the other hand, a man taught that showing emotions is a weakness and that he should always be strong will have difficulty accessing his other pole, which is sensitivity, revealing himself, or showing emotions in the form of tears.