The image of a bent penny was first used as a metaphor by Dr Eric Berne, he asks us to think of each day of our life as a penny which is built into a stack from the day we are born until we take our final breath.
If one day a penny is made differently from all the others and bent out of shape, this ‘bent penny’ changes the way the future penny’s stack and the pile above the different penny has to be moved slightly to make the stack balance. These bent pennies are made in our psyche when we experience and respond to the traumas in our lives. Imagine lots of bent penny’s trying to stand in a stack, one on top of another, eventually they will crash down and cause chaos in our thinking, our understanding of self, situations and others and our ways of responding to life events.
If you can imagine a baby who cries for some attention, perhaps a feed, a nappy change, or simply a cuddle and nobody comes to attend to those needs, the baby will eventually learn that having needs or crying for them to be met is pointless as the carer cannot be trusted. That understanding is a bent penny. Now if you image that as that baby grows into an adult and believes unconsciously from that early life experience that having needs is futile and the person may only trust or rely on themselves in the world, this can lead to relationship difficulties, perhaps trouble working as part of a team, or even having close friends.
Therapy offers the opportunity to explore and straighten the bent pennies in our lives, do get in touch if you would like to explore this.
