The Psychology of Visibility and the Damage of Invisibility
Happy Friday everyone. It is looking like I’ve fallen into a monthly rather than a weekly rhythm with these posts. Such is life. I shall turn this into a learning moment of adjusting your expectations to fit what is realistic for you, rather than condemn and shame yourself for not meeting an unrealistic standard you have set for yourself. Monthly it is! Hurrah for adaptability and down with perfectionism!
Many of my recent conversations with clients have focused on this experience in life of being witnessed and how this true experience of being witnessed leads to healing. This will be the focus of today’s post.
Think back to a time where you felt the most safe and connected with another person. Likely, your mind takes you back to an interaction where you are seen, actually seen by another person, and you feel a sense of acceptance, belonging and understanding that has only occurred because they witnessed you. They saw you exactly as you are, and did not reject, condemn or shame you. Your experience was accurately reflected back to you, and your nervous system could finally settle down. It felt safe, you were finally understood, you were accepted, you belonged.
I would like to invite you into an honest and critical reflection of why being witnessed doesn’t just feel good, but is fundamentally healing, and why the opposite experience of being dismissed, disregarded, forgotten, misunderstood and unseen is not just distressing or uncomfortable, but actually damages the soul and can even lead to cumulative traumatic presentations such as Complex PTSD and Adjustment Disorder.
Language has evolved alongside human communities, so that we can have a shared, meaningful experience and move collaboratively through life, understanding ourselves and the things that happen to us by echoing our experiences back and forth in conversation with words and with our bodies.
There is a loud bang, and a pre-verbal toddler looks to Mum to gauge whether we should run and cry, or if we are safe. Mum’s body looks safe and happy, so I am safe and happy. Meaning is formed.
Vice versa.
The toddler sees a cockroach and is curious! They pick it up, take it proudly to show Mum and she screams, and immediately the cute little bug becomes a frightening, terrifying, disgusting thing! Run and scream, just like Mum did. No words necessary to create a meaningful experience.
Now, add in the complexity of language, and we start to see how fundamentally life altering it can be to be either seen/understood or unseen/misunderstood by those we rely on to create a shared meaningful experience of our lives.
A young teenager fails her driving test, and tearfully shares her grief, sadness and disappointment in self with her mother. Her mother tells her daughter brightly, “Don’t be sad! You will take the test again and pass, it is no big deal!” Rather than witnessing and reflecting her daughter’s grief, she is unwittingly sending her the message ‘your experience of grief is wrong, stop feeling sad’. Often times, vulnerable teenagers will hear a statement like that and an old wound of “I’m wrong, I’m bad, I’m too much” can get activated. That one opportunity for connection over a normal human experience of disappointment and grief becomes a wound on top of many other wounds of not being seen, heard or understood.
Many people move through life feeling like only a certain version of themselves is worthy of being loved, because of such consistent conditioning as the above situation. When I succeed, when I am happy, when I have no problems, my family and parents reflect those emotions back to me, and I am safe, I am seen, I belong.
Yet, when I have the very normal experiences of sadness, grief, disappointment, frustration, anger, jealousy, and pain, those same loved and trusted people deny my reality, reflect back how I should change to be better, how I am ungrateful, how I should revert back to the happy version that they are able to understand. This complex emotional mess is not welcome here. This does not belong.
Is this experience sounding familiar? We are exploring the fundamental experience of feeling invisible. The whole complexity of your being feels like it is too much to be received by those you love, so you hide who you actually are, how you actually feel, only presenting the version that you have (painfully) learned over time will be accepted and not rejected. This experience of disconnection, in and of itself, is wounding, as our safety wholly depends on our connection with those around us.
Now, let us expand this from the individual level to the societal level.
A great way of understanding the damage of invisibility is to explore the role that societal structures play in systematically excluding or misrepresenting a group of people from the shared narrative of life, portraying an experience through dominant cultural perspectives, which is fundamentally damaging as the above process of feeling misunderstood, unseen, unheard, now becomes amplified on a societal level, and the selective expression of self continues.
“It hurts when the things people were once shamed, punished, or excluded for suddenly become trendy when used by someone with more social power.”
- unknown
Think about the harm that cultural appropriation can cause to entire peoples. Traditions, norms, and practices are often dismissed, disrespected, misunderstood, or misrepresented. This is especially evident in some areas of Western psychology, where ancient healing practices are frequently detached from their cultural contexts, with little acknowledgement of their spiritual, religious, and sacred origins, reducing them instead to accessible, and at times “trendy” tools for wellbeing.
Consider mindfulness, now one of the most widely used and recommended techniques by psychologists, presented to clients with often no reference to the meaningful framework of the Buddhist origins of the practice, and how it relates to their spiritual practice of seeking liberation from suffering through enlightenment (Nirvana) by ethically working towards developing a state of self-insight and awareness, outlined in the Satipatthana Sutta by Buddha.
At the same time, psychologists will eagerly reference Francine Shapiro and the theoretical foundations of EMDR therapy. This is not a critique of that practice, but rather an invitation to notice this broader pattern, that even within systems aimed at healing, dominant Western frameworks often determine whose knowledge is named, credited, and centred, while the origins of other healing traditions are minimised, secularised, or left unspoken.
Why is it that some cultural practices are welcomed in one context but rejected in another? These questions matter because they invite reflection on how practices are adopted, transformed, and sometimes stripped of their original meaning when moved across cultural boundaries, and how this practice can further alienate an already alienated people.
This is not to suggest that all use of cultural practices is harmful, but to ask whether we are attentive to context, history, and power. When practices are separated from their cultural and spiritual roots without acknowledgement, there is a risk of reducing rich traditions to consumable techniques, while the communities they originate from continue to face marginalisation or misrepresentation.
How many of you know the name Sir Isaac Newton, founder of the laws of physics. Now, how many of you know the name of the author of one of the most widely used mathematical branches, Algebra? His name is Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. There is also a broader historical pattern in how knowledge is remembered. Many scientific and mathematical contributions from the Islamic Golden Age, for example, were transmitted into Europe through translation, where names were often Latinised or reshaped:
Ibn Sina → Avicenna
Ibn Rushd → Averroes
Abu Bakr al-Razi → Rhazes
Ibn al-Haytham → Alhazen
Jabir ibn Hayyan → Geber
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi → Tusi
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni → Alberuni
Al-Zahrawi → Abulcasis
Thabit ibn Qurra → Thebit
Al-Kindi → Alkindus
These scholars made foundational contributions to mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and astronomy, yet their histories are forgotten in mainstream narratives of scientific development. Yet, names such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison are burned into our collective memories. This is not accidental, but an intentional framing of our shared collective history, amplifying certain perspectives and realities over others.
In Australia, this conversation also sits within a specific historical context. The White Australia policy only formally ended just 53 years ago, and the ongoing impacts of colonisation continue to shape the lived realities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities today. Australia is a multicultural society, but not one that is free from structural and interpersonal racism.
Where to from here? Toward greater understanding.
This reflection is not an attack of individuals or cultures, but an invitation to awareness. Ignorance is not always intentional, but it can still have consequences. Taking time to understand the people, histories, and meanings behind practices we use or encounter matters.
Consider how different it is to live in a society that reflects your cultural reality back to you, compared to one where your language, practices, or beliefs are unfamiliar or misrepresented. Then consider how it feels when those same practices are adopted without the context in which they carry meaning, care, or even sacred significance.
At its heart, this is also about recognition: being seen, being named, and having one’s experience accurately understood. Even small acts of awareness, such as naming origins, acknowledging histories, and holding complexity, can be healing and meaningful.
For psychologists and practitioners, this points to an ongoing ethical responsibility: to remain curious about cultural context, to broaden the range of intellectual and healing traditions we engage with, and to ensure that the knowledge we draw upon is not only used, but also respectfully situated. Ultimately, this is not about exclusion. It is about making space for a more honest and relational understanding of where knowledge comes from, and who it belongs to.
On an individual level, it is an invitation to explore how we interact with one another interpersonally. How are my own cultural biases, perceptions and expectations of self informing my response to this person, and if I focus on understanding their experience with curiosity, openness and acceptance, how might I focus on amplifying their experience over my own comfort?
Poetic Reflections
""Human Beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul
If one member is inflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you can not pertain"
- Saadi Shirazi, Golestan
Therapeutic Skill of the Week
Since we have made beautiful reference to the mindfulness practices of the Eastern Philosophical practice of Buddhism, let us understand why awareness of our present moment can help us transcend unhelpful narratives of suffering, and move ever closer to an experience of enlightment.
Mindfulness as part of Buddhism encourages;
awareness of the body
awareness of feelings
awareness of mind
awareness of mental objects (thoughts, perceptions, phenomena)
This means purposely turning your attention aware from the stories that our minds create, and noticing the moment to moment sensations, emotions and thoughts.
Slow everything down. Turn your attention first to the sensations within and without your body. Notice the rise and fall of your breath. Notice the clothes on your skin. Notice the impermanence of each of these sensations. How hard you have to work in your mind to hold these sensations in mind, though you are feeling them every minute of every day. Notice your brain’s tendency to try to place a value judgement on these sensations as good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant. Notice that urge, then objectively and neutrally observe the sensations from a place of pure consciousness, not driven by any expectation or value placed on the sensation.
Now, repeat this awareness to your emotions. What feelings are present for you in this moment, and same thing. Notice if you wish to react or judge the emotional experiences, welcoming one and rejecting another. Notice the urge to react, then mindfully observe the emotions purely as they are. Notice their impermanence. Notice their presence. Notice how they shift over time.
Now, to the mind, with all of its internal experiences of thoughts, perceptions, projected sensations in the head, trying to maintain the same awareness of judgements and reactions to thoughts. Just allow them to be. Notice their impermanence. Notice their presence.
The beauty of Buddhist practices lies in connecting thoughtfully with your experiences, working towards ego diffusion and experiencing life without judgement, attachment or reaction, thereby allowing life to move through you and accessing an increased level of self-awareness, consciousness and subsequently, peace.
Thank you for reading.
All my very best,
Tala