Looking inside the rubber band ball

For years, I’ve used an analogy of a rubber band ball to counseling. As kids, we would take golf balls apart. After you get through the tough, outer layer, you’ll come to a densely packed ball of thin rubber bands. If you start picking at the rubber bands, you can begin to peel them away, one at a time. At some point, when you’ve removed enough layers, the ball will unwind quickly, releasing a small explosion of rubber bands.

My analogy has been that people walk through life, holding their rubber band ball. As long as it remains undisturbed, it can be carried around, as if holding it all together, tentatively. Therapy gives us the opportunity to poke at the rubber band ball, to begin to examine the layers. When the ball starts to unravel in a little explosion, that represents the parts of therapy where things feel unsettled and frightening. If we allow ourselves to go through that part, what follows is a resettling as things fall back into place. As counseling continues, we have the opportunity to lay out the inner contents of our psychic rubber band ball, keep what works and set aside what no longer serves us.

Here is a dissection of an actual rubber band ball. Enjoy.