The Way Home: Therapy, Self, and the Wizard of Oz

Therapy is a journey of self-awareness, not just noticing what hurts, but understanding the parts of us that learnt to survive in ways we no longer recognise. This awareness is not an indulgence; it is the doorway to self-actualisation. Qualities like calmness, courage, creativity, and compassion were never lost, they were simply set aside to help us survive. Like the characters in The Wizard of Oz, who search outside themselves for what they already possess within, therapy reveals that healing is less about becoming someone new and more about rediscovering the Self beneath our layers of protection.

"You can't do what you want till you know what you're doing" — Moshe Feldenkrais

Therapy begins with awareness

Therapy begins with awareness, awareness of our impulses, tensions, and the triggers held in the body. (The mind often just gets in the way.) Each part of us holds a need that was once unmet. Rather than rejecting those parts, can we begin to listen with curiosity, not judgement? Can we open a dialogue from within? Can we move towards understanding ourselves more deeply, towards knowing what we are doing?

As Assagioli reminds us, "Will is the psychological function which directs and regulates the play of all the others" (Assagioli, 1984). Perhaps true healing begins when we allow our will — the inner capacity that guides and coordinates our thoughts, feelings, and impulses — to gently steer our parts toward unity and conscious choice.

Assagioli emphasised: "Before we can integrate our subpersonalities, we must first recognise and become aware of them" (Assagioli, 2012). He also reminded us that "We cannot transform or regulate that of which we are unconscious" (Assagioli, 2012). These parts are not pathological; they were once necessary for survival. In contemporary terms, Schwartz (2020) describes similar patterns as "parts" in Internal Family Systems, carrying past burdens and requiring compassionate witnessing. Both frameworks highlight that the undamaged core of the Self —curiosity, compassion, calm, courage, clarity, confidence, creativity, and connectedness, remains intact beneath protective layers.

We may become disconnected from them…

We may not access them often…

But they are still there.

Waiting.

Intact.

Ready to lead, once we make space for them again.

Our role as therapists is to facilitate that process: to create a safe space where clients can reconnect with these qualities and begin to heal from within.

The Wizard of Oz: The Journey Back Home

A great example of this is The Wizard of Oz. Each character, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, was trying to find something they believed they lacked: intelligence, heart, and courage. But what they truly needed was to recognise that these qualities were already within them. And maybe Dorothy represents Self. She just wanted to go home, and perhaps home is the return to our true Self or whoever we were before the wounding. Dorothy didn't realise that all she had to do was click her heels. She always had the ability. The power was within her all along.

And then there was the Wizard himself, supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing, but when the curtain fell away, there was just a man. Did he have all the answers? No. He showed them that they already had what they were searching for inside themselves all along. The idealisation of the therapist can sometimes be like the Wizard, believed to hold all the answers, but ultimately, part of the healing is realising that the power to heal has always lived within the client. As Roberto Assagioli postulates, we are not fixing; we are just facilitators. And maybe that's the real message of The Wizard of Oz.

In therapy, we help clients reconnect with their own inner Self: the calm, compassionate, and wise core of who they are beneath their wounds and defences, the source of clarity, courage, compassion, and so much more that has never left them. As Assagioli also reminds us, "We are dominated by everything with which our self is identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we disidentify ourselves" (1984). What this means is that those so-called "lost" parts—hidden beneath layers of pain or protection—are not lost at all; they are simply waiting for conscious 'Will' to reclaim them.

Yoghurt Knows Yoghurt

We all have these qualities, but maybe, as a young child, it was too dangerous to show them. Your courage might have been met with anger. Your curiosity, met with frustration. Your calmness, mistaken for not caring. In my own childhood, confidence was met with rage. So why on earth would we want to show any of these qualities? And yet, the reason we can recognise these qualities in others is because they already live within us.

When I studied NLP, there was a saying: "Yoghurt knows yoghurt." What that meant was we recognise courage in another, because courage lives in us. Calmness knows calmness. Caring knows caring. Confidence knows confidence.

Just like the characters in The Wizard of Oz, did they fear the great and powerful Wizard until the curtain fell away? Yes. And when they realised that standing in front of them was not a magical figure but simply a man, an ordinary human, fallible, wounded, and trying his best, what did they learn? That the qualities they were searching for were already within them.

What the Wizard Knew

What the Wizard did know, in his role as a guide (therapist), was that they already had the courage, heart, and intelligence they were looking for. He didn't give them those qualities; he helped them see that they were already theirs. And perhaps even more importantly, what the Wizard gave them was hope. Hope that they could work it out. Hope that there was a way forward. That hope was sparked by the journey itself, by believing that someone out there might hold the answers. They found the direction they needed to discover the answers within.

References & Further Reading

• Assagioli, R. (1984) The Act of Will. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Turnstone Press.
• Assagioli, R. (2012) Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings. Amherst, MA: The Synthesis Centre Inc.
• Feldenkrais, M. (2009) Awareness Through Movement: Easy-to-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness. New York: HarperOne.
• Schwartz, R.C. and Sweezy, M. (2020) Internal Family Systems Therapy. 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford Press.
• Bandler, R. (n.d.) 'Yoghurt Knows Yoghurt'. Available at: YouTube – Richard Bandler Talks about The Yoghurt Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_HNElYVhgE
• Fleming, V. (1939) The Wizard of Oz [Film]. MGM Studios.