IJSP Number 4, 2022

51 concerned about humanness and friendship than geo-politics, big finance, macro- economy and their little brothers, efficiency, profit and growth. Callenbach is presenting us with marriages and family relations which naturally evolve into friendships and amiable relationships, inside a larger and more sociable extended group of people which contains and nurtures them into stability, friendliness, and mutual help, exchange and understanding. It should be obvious by now that Callenbach wrote his book in the hippie period – the furious sixties and seventies, when a new generation came forward to question the established rules and norms of life imbedded already in the affluence of a consumer society created by their parents. The phrase I want to comment here is that Ecotopia’s people don’t take themselves as seriously as to “present themselves as problems or gifts to each other, more as companions.” [1 ] What is surprising in this simple sentence is that its meaning can be particularized and refined to fit pretty much every social interhuman encounter, and that such a general idea could be an ideal for every psychologist, psychotherapists, or their supervisors for that matter. A supreme goal to achieve for all professionals that work with and for people, let’s say doctors, priests, teachers or university professors, psychologists or psychiatrists, social workers, and politicians as well. The question we want to explore here is the following: is it indeed that ideal we see and feel in contact with all those ‘socially involved people’? Are psychotherapists capable to present themselves as ‘companions’ to us who need their help or appeal to them for it? And are they really considering us as partners on a mutual path and companions on a road more or less travelled together? Are for instance psychologists, psychotherapists, or even psychiatrists considering themselves as partners or companions to those who come before them and present themselves and their lives as ‘problems’, real, disheartening, inextricably complicated and in some cases unbearable problems? Or, by doing just that – presenting one’s soul on a plate– all those problematic lives and complicated psychological issues indirectly invite the other party to feel as a gift and being a blessing of some sorts, one that is called to approach and understand the issue and magically solve the case. In order to do just that they have to elevate themselves to the one-up position, if not already put or indirectly pushed there by the appeal of their clients or patients who are coming from the problematic one-down position from where they are trying to get some help, relief, or just compassionate understanding. But maybe we should first ask if they – psychologists or psychotherapists, psychiatrists, or supervisors – can be companions to themselves, before engaging in being companions to others; are they really capable to accept themselves as they are, to tolerate their idiosyncrasies, failures, mistakes, or unfulfilled wishes? Are they, after all, friends with themselves or have they too so many problems and unresolved issues that become a strange and inescapable bundle, some kind of a sub-personality felt to be rather a problem than a gift? In this context we cannot but remember t he text Annie Lennox sang in “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”: “Everybody’s looking for something. Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you