Racket refers to the socially acceptable feelings that we use as substitutes to our genuine emotions. Past the Racket refers to the safe exploration of authentic emotions that lie beneath the surface feelings. This process takes place through therapy.
Therapy functions on the principle of Kintsukoroi or Kintsugi, a Japanese practice of repairing broken objects using gold or silver. This way, even the cracks become a part of the object’s history, and it isn’t broken any longer. Rather than seeing the client as someone who’s broken, therapy views them as someone who wants to rearrange their life or self. All the different pieces of the client’s life are gathered and put together – perhaps differently from how they were earlier – but just the way the client accepts and wants for themselves.
The gold is symbolic of the powerful healing nature of a strong therapeutic alliance, which is the relationship between a client and the therapist. In therapy, the lens from which one views their life is altered. Thus, they go from being a victim of their circumstances, to seeing how the impact of their past fits into the context of where they are headed. This takes a collaborative effort – where the therapist helps the client to examine the different pieces of their past and the meaning attached to them, in the context of their identity, emotional well-being and relationships.
The ultimate goal of therapy is to take ownership for one’s actions and to be accountable for them. When the cracks have been filled with gold, the object and person can now withstand more than they could earlier because of the added strength of the gold. The person emerges stronger and better than before, and THAT is the power of healing.
This article has been written by Nandita Seshadri, Therapist.
Past the Racket 