Owning Our Disowned Parts
Jackson Lamb, River Cartwright, and the Psychology of Polarities in Slow Horses
Have you ever found yourself drawn to someone who seems to embody everything you try not to be? Or wondered why certain people irritate you so much, even when there’s something about them you can’t quite look away from?
Sometimes, the qualities we dislike most in other people are the very ones we’ve learned to reject in ourselves.
I’ve been thinking about this through the relationship between Jackson Lamb and River Cartwright in Slow Horses. They’re almost comically opposite characters, but their dynamic offers an interesting way to explore a Gestalt therapy concept: disowned parts of ourselves.
And what happens when we give those parts away instead of learning how to live with them?
Jackson Lamb and River Cartwright: Two Opposite Poles
For anyone unfamiliar with Slow Horses, the show follows MI5 agents who have been relegated to Slough House after making significant mistakes. Jackson Lamb leads this collection of misfits, and although he often appears incompetent, cynical, and profoundly uninterested in anything around him, he’s actually a highly capable spy.
River Cartwright, by contrast, is earnest, ambitious, and determined to prove himself. He wants to be a hero. He wants to do the right thing. And even when he tries to hide how hard he’s working, his enthusiasm practically radiates off him.
Lamb seems to embody apathy. River embodies earnestness.
What interests me is how these two characters interact. They irritate each other, but they also bring something different to the table. River’s determination can be useful, but it can also lead him to charge ahead without thinking. Lamb’s cynicism can seem like indifference, but it often allows him to see what River misses.
Neither approach works particularly well on its own. Together, they can be surprisingly effective.
This brings me to an idea central to Gestalt therapy: our qualities exist on a continuum, and psychological flexibility means being able to access different parts of ourselves when we need them.
The goal isn't to be earnest all the time or cynical all the time. It's to have access to both.
What Are Disowned Parts of Ourselves?
We all have qualities we embrace and others we'd rather pretend aren't there. We might identify as kind, compassionate, patient, or understanding while distancing ourselves from selfishness, anger, ambition, or the desire to put ourselves first.
Sometimes, this happens for good reason.
Imagine growing up with a parent whose narcissistic behaviour causes harm. You might decide, consciously or otherwise, that you will never be like them. You build your identity around being the opposite: empathetic, accommodating, generous, and considerate.
Those qualities may genuinely be part of who you are. The problem arises when your identity becomes dependent on rejecting everything associated with that parent.
When Your Identity Is Built Around What You're Not
If you've spent your life making sure you're not selfish, you might find it difficult to say no. If you've decided that anger is unacceptable, you might struggle to express dissatisfaction. If you've built your identity around being understanding, you might tolerate behaviour that hurts you because you can always find an explanation for it.
The issue isn't that kindness or compassion is a problem. It's that you've potentially lost access to the qualities that help balance them.
In Gestalt terms, we're interested in what happens when we become rigidly identified with one side of ourselves and push the other side away.
Why do we do this? Sometimes, accessing a disowned quality feels unsafe. It challenges our sense of identity. If I've spent years believing that I'm a good person because I'm never angry, what happens when I acknowledge that I can be angry, resentful, or even unkind?
It can feel as though admitting that part exists means becoming that person.
But there's a difference between acknowledging a quality and acting on it.
How Disowned Parts Show Up in Relationships
One place these dynamics can become particularly visible is in our relationships.
We sometimes find ourselves repeatedly drawn into familiar relationship patterns, even when those patterns aren't making us happy. We might repeatedly give people chances, excuse hurtful behaviour, or take responsibility for maintaining a relationship that the other person isn't equally invested in.
This doesn't mean we're deliberately seeking out harmful relationships. Often, the dynamic operates beneath our awareness.
If you've learned to survive by being patient and accommodating, you may be particularly practiced at making space for people who take more than they give. You might understand their struggles, see their potential, and keep trying long after the relationship has stopped being healthy for you.
Your compassion is real. So is the cost of having no effective way to say, "Enough."
The Familiar Can Feel Like the Right Fit
There's also something compelling about the familiar, even when the familiar is painful.
We can become caught in relationship dynamics that feel natural because they're what we've experienced before. We know how to navigate them. We have skills for surviving them. And without realizing it, we may continue trying to make the same dynamic work because we assume this is simply what relationships are like.
Over time, we can become increasingly polarized.
One person is always the reasonable one; the other is always the unreasonable one. One is the giver; the other is the taker. One is kind; the other is selfish.
The more firmly we occupy our position, the harder it becomes to recognize our own complexity.
We may even feel that losing the relationship means losing a piece of ourselves. If I've built my identity around being the good person in relation to someone else's bad behaviour, who am I without that contrast?
This is one reason it can be so difficult to step away from an unhealthy dynamic. We're not only dealing with the loss of another person. We're also confronting the loss of a familiar way of understanding ourselves.
From External Conflict to Internal Flexibility
Here's where I come back to Jackson Lamb and River Cartwright.
What if we looked at these characters as representing different aspects of ourselves?
River's earnestness can help us pursue something important. Lamb's cynicism can stop us from charging blindly ahead. One part helps us care; another helps us question whether our efforts are worthwhile.
Imagine being able to access both without needing another person to embody the qualities you've rejected.
Instead of relying on someone else to be assertive because you can't tolerate your own assertiveness, you begin to develop that capacity in yourself. Instead of needing someone else to be cynical because you feel compelled to remain optimistic, you learn that questioning something doesn't make you a bad person.
This is what I mean by flexibility. Not becoming a different person, but allowing yourself a wider range of responses.
The alternative is what I'd call hollow satisfaction. You might feel some relief when another person expresses a quality you've disowned, but that doesn't mean you've integrated it. The quality still exists outside you, and you're still dependent on the relationship to experience it.
Integration means bringing that capacity back into your own awareness and learning when and how to use it.
You Don't Have to Act on Every Part of Yourself
One important distinction: having a thought or feeling isn't the same as choosing an action.
We don't have complete control over our first thoughts, our immediate reactions, or every feeling that arises. We do have some responsibility for how we respond to them.
You can feel angry without being cruel. You can recognize a selfish impulse without acting selfishly. You can feel irritated with someone without needing to express every ounce of that irritation.
Acknowledging a disowned part doesn't mean giving it free rein. It means you no longer have to pretend it doesn't exist.
In fact, the more willing you are to recognize your impulses, the more room you have to make a conscious choice about what you do with them.
Which Wolf Are You Feeding?
I think about the familiar story of the two wolves inside us: one representing qualities we value, the other qualities we fear or reject. The wolf that grows stronger is the one we feed.
But I'd add something to that idea: you need to know both wolves are there before you can choose.
Personally, I tend to identify with River's kindness and desire to understand. I'm not necessarily as nice as people might assume, though. Sometimes, I need a little more Jackson Lamb: a willingness to be blunt, express dissatisfaction, and stop trying so hard to understand everyone else's behaviour.
That doesn't mean abandoning kindness. It means recognizing when kindness has become a rigid position rather than a genuine choice.
So, here's something to reflect on:
Which qualities do you pride yourself on having?
Which qualities do you judge or try to hide?
Where might those disowned qualities be showing up in your relationships?
What would it look like to access a little more of the opposite quality without losing the parts of yourself you value?
You don't have to become Jackson Lamb. And you don't have to stop being River Cartwright.
You might just need to make room for both.
