Why does an educated, talented, refined woman fall for the archetypal 'bad boy'? Anne needs to understand her 20-year relationship with a self-sabotaging and psychologically abusive man who proved unable to reciprocate her love. She intimately reveals and enquires into her compulsion to love, care for and remain in the relationship. As a psychotherapist, I guided Anne through an exploration of the unconscious ties that may bind us in harmful relationships, and she discovers why she was rendered incapable of leaving. So why is it people stay in abusive relationships-stuck in a pattern of behaviour until it culminates in a spiritual cataclysm? This question was often in the back of my mind during my years as a psychotherapist. While working with Anne I sought to reconcile Nature and Nurture theories, so pursued a path of counselling that addressed the following questions:
Are our patterns of behaviour predetermined as part of our hardwiring-governed by our dominant archetypes (both Light and Shadow)-and woven into our DNA, representing all the roles of our ancestors? Or are our behaviours learned and a product of innate personality temperament interacting with the environment to get our needs met? Anne, as the narrator, looks back on this period of her life where she relates a candid and insightful account of the relationship she struggled to end. By becoming aware of her role in her family of origin and understanding her governing archetypes, she was finally able to extricate herself from destructive patterns of behaviour.