What does it mean to “see” another and to “be seen”?  How do we know when we are being seen?  And how does this link to meeting our need for acceptance?  These questions came up in conversation today and I found myself pondering them on the train on my way to a meeting.

Marshall Rosenberg, author of perhaps my most treasured book, Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, identifies the need for acceptance as a need we all share – a universal need.  Just for now I am going to define the need for acceptance as the need to be seen in the round and to be accepted as we are.  You will notice that by this definition the need for acceptance and the question of being “seen” are tied up one with another.

So, our need is met when we know that we are seen (if you like, that others notice things about us that are true and respond to these, rather than focusing their attention on some idea of what or how we “ought” to be or imagining things to be true which are not) and we know that we are accepted for who we are. 

Even as I begin to write I recognise that, in practice, this is an area full of paradoxes and conundrums.  One of these, amongst many, lies in the question of what is “true” about us.  Families are full of truths which can jar with individual family members even though they may recognise the objective truth of each statement (“he’s the bright one” or “she’s the outgoing one”) because they reduce the individual to a single trait and one, what’s more, which is assigned to them by comparison with other family members.  So, even whilst we recognise the description that is assigned to us we do not have a felt sense of being seen.  Somehow something deeper is required.

And then there’s another conundrum.  Psychologists have a whole list of terms to describe the processes by which we accept parts of ourselves and reject others – this process, too, has its roots in our upbringing.  Constant comparison with a more extrovert sibling, for example, may lead an individual to think he is shy when no-one outside the family would see him as such.  Or we may reject some of our greatest strengths or talents and develop a “golden shadow”, so that when someone comments on our extraordinary skill in this area we do not feel we have been seen because we are not seeing ourselves in the round.  And because of this, our need for acceptance is not met.

And then there’s the question of the evolving self.  For whilst some qualities may be woven through us like a thread of gold others may be our adaptive (or maladaptive) response to the particular circumstances of our life at a particular point in time.  If we cast these responses into the concrete belief that they represent us as we truly are we may alienate ourselves from possibilities for growth and for getting to know ourselves.

And perhaps this brings us to an underlying thread when it comes to our need to be seen and accepted.  The truth is, our need for acceptance can be and is met to the extent that we are on the road towards knowing and accepting ourselves.  This suggests the need to be in rapport with ourselves – to be willing and able to notice what is true of us both in the round and at a particular moment in time.  It also suggests being in rapport with another who is able to see us and share with us what they see in ways which we can hear and understand.  And for that other to be a true witness, it implies someone who in turn is able to be present to him- or herself  before he or she can be a witness to another.

This is the dance of acceptance:  of seeing and of being seen.

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.