I grew up in an Irish-Catholic family in the 1940s and then in the ’50s, at thirteen, I went off to a Catholic seminary with the idea of becoming a priest. I developed the biggest “good boy” complex imaginable. Andrea Mathews has done a remarkable job describing this complex, which she defines as a good-guy identity, exploring its many facets, and offering guidance on working with and healing it. She writes clearly and with special insight into the many ways the “good person” habit can infect a life. But, as a form of introduction to her brilliant and beautiful study, I’d like to say something about it from my point of view.
With my background in Jungian and archetypal psychology, I see the “good person” complex as a subpersonality of the psyche, as a figure who often takes you over and whose voice you often use and whose manner becomes your own for the duration of the possession. Yes, it feels at times that you are possessed by this good person and can do little to edge him out.
I appreciate Andrea Mathews early on in the book pointing out that the emphasis we and our society place on being good equally emphasizes what we perceive as being bad. You don’t want to be the bad person and that fear sets up a split in you between the good and the bad. I remember my mother, who was a wonderful and loving person, telling me often not to be “bold,” her keyword for any kind of self-assertiveness and speaking up for myself. Later in life she felt she had been wrong to do this and we had many intimate conversations about it that helped me. Still, I learned as a child that assertive people were somehow bad, and I shouldn’t be like them.
As a psychotherapist now, I recognize how many people get split into parts like good and bad, a sign that we have to do some serious work with whatever emotion or pattern has been so divided. R. D. Laing’s first book, The Divided Self, explored the extreme emotional problems that can arise from the separation of a false self from a genuine one. C. G. Jung advised first facing the shadow, or “bad person,” and finding ways to incorporate his outlook, not literally, into your own way of life, thus bridging the gap between good and bad. Both of these pioneering psychologists make dealing with the good and bad split a serious starting point for a better life.
In my own experience, I feel that life has helped me deal with this complex quite well, though I know that these things never reach a level of perfection. Once in a while, this miserable character pokes his head into my affairs and I have to watch out for him. I certainly can’t let him take charge and badly mess things up. At this time in my life he’s more of a rare annoyance.
Today if someone were to ask me, “Are you a good person?” I’d have to say, “I used to try to be, but now I want to be more complicated and real.”
The good person is so close to childhood, as Andrea Mathews describes so thoroughly and so accurately, that it helps to dig deep into your adult self. Use more sophisticated language, draw on your experience and education, and speak with a tone of maturity. These qualities are not superficial but express your depth of feeling and understanding.
In my usual language, this book is about the Good Person archetype, a deep presence that usually has roots in childhood and family dynamics but that is also beyond the personal. The great medieval Arthurian tale of Sir Percival, for instance, is about a young man who is close to his mother and acts and thinks with childlike innocence. This figure has been around since the beginning of human life and culture, like a seed personality who can always appear in a life, yet to be lived out in newer more authentic life with a new twist.
I think we ought to both temper and befriend complexes like this. It does no good to try to get rid of them or conquer them. These are forms of repression that only push it back for a while, as Andrea Mathews describes. By befriending the pattern, we bring it close, but not too close. We can shape it because we aren’t just chasing it away. Besides, even these annoying and sometimes destructive complexes have something of value to offer. My own “good boy” complex has been part of my career for decades and has helped me do therapy and write books with a special emphasis on a positive, rather than a negative psychology. I owe a great deal to all my complexes and I always try to speak well of them, even as I know the difficulties they present.
So the ultimate solution to the good person pattern is to embrace it thoughtfully and creatively. Don’t just act it out, and don’t repress it by denying it or trying to get rid of it. Watch it transform into something interesting and positive as you work it carefully into your life. Andrea Mathews leads us into deep reflection on this theme more thoroughly and more clearly.
—Thomas Moore