Being Wormwood or Being Erica?

“Being Erica” is a popular CBC TV drama I like to watch for its thought provoking insight into holistic well being. The main character Erica (as seen above) participates in a new time travelling [fictional] form of therapy that helps her thrive in her life so that she can become a therapist. I would consider the “therapy” Erica undergoes as spiritual at its core since its purpose is to instil a sense of value and meaning into a person’s journey, which includes the emotional component. However, the word spirituality is never mentioned and there is no God factor to the healing equation. Much to my surprise, the therapist Dr. Tom (also seen above) quotes C.S. Lewis in the last episode.

Erica’s Therapist was trying to help Erica cope with her colleague, Julianne, who had a mean streak and lashed out to people working below her. Erica goes back in time to see where Julianne’s flawed behaviour started and realized that her colleague felt threatened by anyone who had talent. Erica realizes that Julianne was insecure, but she still didn’t understand why her colleague was so jealous and threatened by others despite the fact that she has a very successful career. Erica’s therapist responds to Erica’s puzzling dilemma by saying “Feelings rarely make any sort of rational sence until we understand why we have them.” Then her therapist quotes C.S. Lewis “With the possible exception of the equator everything begins somewhere. -C.S. Lewis“. In response, Erica talks to her colleague and discovers the source of her insecurity. The colleague then confronts her own insecurities at their source which enables her to release her destructive behaviour.

I am not sure which book of Lewis’ this quote came from but I thought is was fitting for the situation presented in the episode. Perhaps the show’s writers randomly searched quotes on the internet and happened upon a C.S. Lewis quote. C.S. Lewis is, after all, a popular source of quotations. The internet has several pages dedicated to his quotes. The Therapist in the show uses many such quotes in his discussions with Erica, usually from very famous historical philosophers, gurus, etc.

The therapy used in the show does not have a specific origin from any religious or psychological tradition but picks and chooses little bits of theory from many traditions. The methodology largely involves Erica letting go of her past regrets by allowing her to revisit her past and attempt to make better choices, only to find that it is the choices in and of themselves make a person who they are regardless if they are right or wrong.

The therapist in this so called “therapy” gives Erica almost exactly the opposite instructions that Screwtape gives to Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Screwtape’s instruction to Wormwood is “Do remember you are there to fuddle him” which is in contrast to the Therapist’s instructions to Erica to remember that “you are your patient” among many other opposing teachings. But there are similarities in that they are both insights into human nature from different angles. Both are written in the format of advice from an expert to a expert in training. Anyone watching or reading either of these stories can identify with the everyday situations brought forth and thus feeling in some way connected to the characters.

One difference between them is the advice of Wormwood is meant to be evil, and the advice of Dr. Tom is meant to be good. Another difference is that The Screwtape letters tends to suggest that evil comes from a source outside of ourselves that encourages us to think or act wrongly. However the Being Erica perspective suggests that when someone is doing something unhealthy, bad, or perhaps “evil” (even though it isn’t called “evil”), it is a human manifestation of an untransformed pain. I think the Being Erica form of therapy has its ties to the theory of the “shadow side”. Dr. Tom says “Everyone has the capacity to do both good and evil”. He looks at a person’s “evil” to shed light on it through understanding which eliminates the evil immediately.

When I got to thinking that there is a lot in common between this show and C.S. Lewis, I found this quote from tv.com:

 “A magical corridor filled with doors leading to different Erica-worlds alludes to the 1955 C.S. Lewis classic fantasy novel, The Magician’s Nephew, wherein two children, Digory and Polly, find themselves in a sleepy, narcotic wood which is filled with pools. The children surmise that the wood is a “wood between the worlds” and that each pool leads to a proper universe – so, seeking adventure, they jump into one of the pools.”

Aha, I knew it! CS Lewis has clearly influenced this show in many different ways. I think the biggest way though is perhaps in a creative sense. I am starting to get a feel for a very creative side to Lewis after reading The Great Divorce. I can now see how that novel also has a thread of similarity with “Being Erica”. Maybe the writers of “Being Erica” are in fact Christian.

In The Great Divorce I was a bit perplexed by Lewis’ comments in the preface saying “The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the afterworld“. His book is a story about the afterworld and gives some very good and familial allegories of the afterlife that overlap with other things I have read. Now I know that Lewis was not systematic in his theology nor attempting to be but I couldn’t help wondering what he was trying to say about the afterlife when he wrote this book.

However, the wonderful thing about this book is also the free licence to be creative with his ideas perhaps just for the love of writing, perhaps just for the sake of stirring the pot, perhaps for the joy of possibility in the world that exists. Lewis has everything from unicorns, lizards, spirits and ghosts in this book. What could be more random than two velvet footed lions bouncing into open space? But the thing is that this free licence paves the way for safe exploration into the unknown. I think Being Erica also is somewhat random in its ideas of therapy and in other ways not. However, the show is explicitly not trying to follow a pre-existing system of therapy. I have to thank C.S. Lewis for paving the way of creative imagination as a part of the truth that exists in the world. I thank Being Erica for inspiring me with another form of creative imagination that also speaks a form of truth to me.

So where does that place me in the realm of skepticism and Christianity? Somewhere in the grey. I am sad that Being Erica has left out a transcendent element in the process of healing and of evil. I  do think that there is another world apart from the empirical that exists around us and is present with us and would like to see Being Erica delve a little on this level. But I love the “therapy” in Being Erica and would probably sign up for a session if I had the chance in real life. The principles of the “therapy” are in keeping with many principles of Clinical Pastoral Education. Perhaps the Screwtape letters isn’t so far off from Being Erica in that it exposes the shadow side in all of us and the book is really trying to be honest about our human nature.