Albert György, Mélancolie, 2012. Author art_inthecity from Montréal, CA. Wikimedia Commons

“All the space without you in it, is empty.”

Iain Thomas

The stark image above, replete with pain and agonising emptiness, graphically portrays profound feelings of loss, depression, loneliness and emotional void. This is an image that will deeply resonate with those who have experienced such grief and trauma.

Especially when we have lost someone, we may be left with a feeling that a central part of ourselves has died with them and that the yawning internal gap that remains can never be filled.

• Emptiness and depression

Sergio Heads. the empty days. Flickr

A feeling of emptiness inside is like an energy-sapping ache; Andrew Solomon said ‘we know depression through metaphor.’ This is an important statement. The metaphor of hollowness  graphically conveys to us the dreadful feelings we have when we are melancholic and depressed, lacking any sense of inner substance and solidity.

In the painting below, these feelings are expressed in a striking visual metaphor:

Ferdynand Ruszczyc – Pustka, (Emptiness.) (1901) Wikimedia Commons

This powerfully atmospheric work conveys a mood of desolation and solitude. The Lithuanian artist, Ruszczyc, often explored themes of nature’s all powerful strength, contrasting it with a sense of human insignificance in his works.

A powerful example of being taken over by empty feelings can be found in T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men. This describes people who were left feeling despondent and depressed after the end of the First World War; they are without identity, hopeless, and life has no meaning for them.

The Hollow Men

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

T.S. Eliot (Extract)

James Ensor, Self Portrait with Masks (1899) Wikimedia Commons.

“Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.”

Arthur Erickson

Attempting to conceal the void within, whilst necessary as a defence for many, in fact prolongs it. Trying to hide emptiness with all kinds of ‘illusory’ or defensive behaviour, can make it feel more intense.

Munch. Melancholy. 1891. Wikimedia Commons.

“The feeling of emptiness is the most fundamental experience of human existence, and yet it is the one we most desperately seek to avoid.”

Lacan

The renowned French psychoanalyst, Lacan, believed that human desire is driven by a lack (manque), an emptiness we all constantly try to fill, whether through relationships, work, achievements, or distractions.

If we try to stifle emotional pain by any such means, it does not magically make it disappear; it persists, grows, and sometimes manifests itself in unforeseen and desperate ways. Repression can lead to both emotional and physical illness.

Woman dissociating and fragmented. Dyversions. 2016. Wikimedia Commons

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”

Sigmund Freud

A Room in the Artist’s Home in Copenhagen – Vilhelm Christian Hammershøi. 1901. Wikioo

“To fake it is to stand guard over emptiness.”

Arthur Herzog

Lacan believed that recovery involves becoming aware of the existence of the void and of the fact that we can never fill it, but we can find ways of lessening its power. For example, in accepting the fact that feelings about the void can never be satisfied, we can discover how we might design our lives so that, whilst acknowledging the lack, we can feel some fulfilment and motivation.

• The Void Is Real—But So Is The Way Out

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1906) – Interior, Sunlight on the Floor.http://www.artuk.org/artworks/interior-sunlight-on-the-floor-199115. Wikimedia Commons

Given that such feelings of emptiness and lack are so difficult, it is natural, as we have seen, to want to overlook them as far as possible. Many people do not want to face what is happening inside themselves, as it feels too frightening.

If, however, they can muster the courage to stay with the pain they are feeling, to focus on it with the help of a therapist or trusted other person, then the difficulties will become more consciously available to be explored and understood.

Finding a way out of the hollow, empty feelings inside is, indeed, possible. Although they may feel totally trapping and like an imprisonment, if they can be faced in therapy, then instead of there being an empty nameless dread, recognisable issues can emerge. Of course, this demands some personal strength, courage and resilience.

 

Henri Martin – Berenice. 1885. Wikimedia Commons

  “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

We need to assure ourselves that it is important to hear our own feelings, and give ourselves permission to feel sad, hurt, or bereft. If we do not acknowledge our real feelings, they will linger and trouble us inside.

“The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else…”

Irvin D. Yalom

Recognising and accepting the fact we are in emotional pain can mean that we are freer to seek help from others.

“The only way out is through.”

Robert Frost

Going into the emptiness inside, venturing through that space and learning to embrace it, can ultimately be a rewarding experience.

With the help of an empathic therapist, we can learn, not to run away from pain, but to stay with it, to face it, with courage. The power of being able to stay with a person’s pain is immeasurable. It is a form of love on the part of the therapist.

In this way, we will likely discover that the empty space has potential, it is a space of fertile possibility, of new meanings, new understandings.

“Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.”

Vironika Tugaleva

“If you can sit with your pain, listen to your pain and respect your pain — in time you will move through your pain.”

 Bryant McGill

“Pain can be vitalising; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. If we don’t suffer, how do we know that we live?”

Sebastian Horsley

• A creative emptiness

Eugène Carrière – Meditation. 1890-c1893. Wikimedia Commons.

“Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness.”

Laozi

What does having a ‘creative emptiness’ mean? 

“Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. 
The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

Once we manage to empty our minds, we may wonder: ‘What might this state of mind mean for us? Could lack of thought be a positive experience?”

In fact, such an empty mind is what some who meditate aim to achieve: a relaxed mind, without the intrusiveness of thought, an immeasurably freeing and tranquil experience.

This is qualitatively different from having a painful feeling of inner emptiness, an endless void. This more creative kind of emptiness is full of possibilities, opportunities and potential new freedoms.

“Thinking no thing will limited-self unlimit.”

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones p.205)

Everything creative begins with an emptiness. For example, writing from an empty page, painting from a blank canvas, making music out of silence, all these start as an empty space of some kind. Gardens begin with bare soil, dance and movement from stillness. All these wonderful examples of creativity began with emptiness, with a vacancy.

Psychotherapy, too, most often starts from an empty space, from which can emerge the deepest of feelings, insights and healing awareness. Often, clients talk of the emptiness inside; attempting to compensate on the part of the therapist or replace what the client has missed will only result in further feelings of emptiness and futility.

Filling spaces with empty, superficial, encouraging or reassuring comments will only exacerbate the sense of the void; what is important is to help the client slowly accept that the emptiness stems from past unmet needs and cannot be satisfactorily filled by anyone in the present. The importance of allowing time and waiting for something meaningful to arise from the client’s unconscious cannot be overestimated.

However, the client in therapy can be supported in meeting those needs themselves in different ways. They will work in therapy to free themselves from the effects of past  experience, which may be holding them back, to gain self-knowledge and, importantly, to grieve what has been lost and can never be replaced.

This will leave them the creative space to be able run their own lives, and make they own decisions, with a real sense of integration, freedom and self-acceptance.

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea (1810), Oil on Canvas, 110cm x 172cm

“You do not heal by filling the void, but by allowing yourself to fully feel it.”

Unknown

© Linda Berman