From Negative to Positive

Dear Readers, I was planning to discuss the difficulties of maintaining a positive outlook. But many volumes have been written on the subject, from the Bible to Martin Seligman and beyond, which show that a positive attitude is far more beneficial to the thinker than a negative one.

   Instead of summarizing the literature, I decided to present a brief poem (from this week’s journal) to describe thoughts which lifted my mood. (Thanks to Marianne for editing).

Please share your experiences about transitioning

to positive thinking.

TRANSITION

I awaken, and am uneasy

In my dream, the green lamp

(from Housing Works*) clicks off.

The dark side of my ego speaks.

The bright side recognizes infinity…

the  beauty of  the starlit sky,

bound and boundless human energy.

For each empty cup, one will overflow.

Answer all knocks on the door

Each embodies a form of God.

QUESTIONS:

Is our Dark Energy,

the devil?

also a form of God?

Or is the black night

             of ignorance

 God’s absence?

But is God ever

truly absent?

*Housing Works is a shop (in New York City) where a vast array of second hand objects are sold.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)

The Absent Audience (and Sergeant R. Bales)

Each of us needs an audience, someone who listens and hears our words (as we intend them), and responds in a caring way. As obvious as this task sounds on the surface, it is not easy to really hear and respond to another person.

We psychotherapists train for years to master the art. Psychotherapies like ‘Imago’ (invented by Harville Hendricks in 1988 and described in his book  Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Editionare based on the process of mirroring, reflecting back what another person has said. Couples engaged in learning to improve their ability to relate will tell you how arduous the process can be.

As I mentioned above, although the task sounds simple, it is difficult to hear and respond to another person for many reasons. First, we’re busy, distracted, wrapped up in the internal world of our own thoughts as well as our outer world with its daily demands. Therefore, when we listen, more often than not, a degree of distortion occurs, in part deprived from our own needs of the person to whom we’re speaking and supposedly listening. (Hence the role of the impartial psychotherapist uninvolved in a person’s life).

This need for an understanding audience  extends from the intimately personal to the public. We want to be heard and understand by our partners, mates, family,  friends and employers, and ideally, all the people we interact with on a daily basis.

As a psychotherapist I’ve been fortunate to experience first hand how to listen to patients’ words and  avoid acts of violence.  Years ago I had a patient who worked for a large corporation and saw abuses at the workplace. He felt his complaints were ignored and he became more and more agitated when no one took him seriously. He feared he’d buy a gun, report to the work site  and  shoot anyone who crossed his path.

Needless to say, I took him and his concerns seriously. He was not a malingerer but a disturbed man with a thought disorder. His thoughts were tangential, lacking a logical sequence. I wrote letters to excuse him from work and ultimately testified in court to help him obtain disability payments. He was grateful and worked for many years in psychotherapy to understand and avoid confrontations.

David Brooks shares some of my thoughts  in his column of March 20, 2012 (“When the Good Do Bad,” New York Times, p. A18) . “The worldview gives us an easy conscience, because we don’t have to contemplate the evil in ourselves. But when somebody who seems mostly good does something completely awful, we’re rendered mute or confused. But of course it happens all the time. That’s because even people who contain reservoirs of compassion and neighborliness also possess a latent potential to commit murder.”

Even before we psychotherapists recognized the dark side of human nature over one hundred years ago, literary geniuses like Shakespeare and Dostoevsky wrote voluminous and timeless plays and novels based on their innate understanding of the dual nature of the human psyche.

We possess the theory and the tools (to listen, empathize and respond)  to prevent violent acts stemming for our dark side.  But to practice these principles in real life is very difficult.

A responsive, listening audience which hears and processes another person’s words as this person intends, is a rare phenomenon.  We psychotherapists train for years to become ‘good enough’ listeners.

 

Current events have recently given us a tragic example of the ways in which human darkness can manifest if one does not have access to a ‘good enough’ audience.  Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is suspected of having massacred 16 Afghan civilians at night in a village a mile from his post.  He was not taken seriously when he said he did not want to be deployed. He had sustained injuries in combat, lost comrades and recently experienced added physical adversity. Words, signs and symptoms were ignored, disparaged, discounted.

According to the New York Times, the thirty-eight year old Bale,  had “three deployments in Iraq, where he saw heavy fighting, a fourth in Afghanistan, where he went reluctantly. “ He’d “lost part of a foot and injured his head, saw fellow soldiers badly wounded, picked up the bodies of dead Iraqis, was treated for mild traumatic brain injury and possibly developed post-traumatic stress disorder.” He was denied a promotion which would have given him respect and money during what had bee a difficult financial period. (Bales was in danger of losing his home), and although he trained to be a recruiter which would have allowed him to skip overseas deployment,  the Army refused to move him from the infantry. Also, Bales had witnessed the grave wounding of a friend just before the killings. (James Dao, “At Home, Asking How ‘Our Bobby’ Became War Criminal Suspect,” March 19. p. 1)

Conclusion:  As David Brooks points out we are reluctant to acknowledge our commonality in our  potential for violence. While we  possess the psychological knowledge and theory to understand the dynamics of violent behavior, what works against us is the lack of awareness and agreement for the need for proper stress-response systems. Even when those suffering from stress try to communicate it, we ignore, dismiss, or fail to recognize their signals in part because we fail to accept the duality of our psyches.   

Until we acknowledge our denial and learn to listen before it’s too late, we’ll be subjected to more of these catastrophes.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)

Creativity and Cure?

An artist-painter client of mine recently posed an old question: “Will psychotherapy cause me to become less creative, to lose the little bit of creativity which lurks in my soul?”

This question has been raised time and again throughout the history of psychotherapy (documented incidents and formal complaints appear in print at least as early as 1925). The reason this issue exists stems from a widely held but flawed perception of how creativity functions. We have been culturally conditioned to believe that, as conflict enhances artistic work (novels, paintings, films, operas, plays, etc.), one must also experience constant conflict and torment in order to enhance one’s own artistic prowess. Control or eradicate an artist’s neuroses, and he or she will lose the creative drive that formerly produced celebrated and original results.

What I’ve just stated above is common thinking on the matter. In practice, however, it’s most often the case that learning to manage one’s problems through psychotherapy will actually lead to discovering entirely new creative levels.

Psychoanalyst Otto Rank was the first to view therapy as a tool for empowering patients to think, feel, and live in the present creatively. He attributed patterns of self-destruction (“neurosis”) to what he deemed inherent failures of creativity.

In his book Art and Artist (1932/1989, p. 70), Rank described the learning process in therapy as “stepping out of a frame” (today we would call it “thinking outside the box”), allowing the participants to experiment and leave behind prevailing – read, restricting – ideologies. This process is, as Rank saw it, “analogous to the work of artists as they struggle to give birth to fresh ways of seeing the world.”

By contrast, Sigmund Freud saw creativity as a retreat from sexuality. Psychotherapy/analysis that approaches creativity in this way, as a neurotic “symptom,” can very well inhibit one’s aptitude for artistic expression (and it is from this approach that many people draw the conclusion that psychotherapy will cause a loss of creative inspiration).

More recently, spiritualist Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61, has said, “Any mind activity is much more likely to be beneficial and creative if it’s preceded by presence and stillness.” In Tolle’s message I hear that our critical, judge-like voices interfere with our ability to reach presence and stillness. In most “good enough” psychotherapy, therapist and client explore/discuss/examine/confront the saboteurs which curtail and hinder the client’s progress in achieving his or her goals whether the client yearns to become an artist or not.

In my experience (both with myself and with patients), I’ve found that knowing oneself better does in fact enhance the creative process.  A primary goal of therapy is to diminish defenses and allow access to the unconscious where our imagination dwells, the bottomless ocean of innovation.

In my first year of psychiatric residency on the inpatient ward, I briefly treated a young woman (not an artist), who during her throes of manic psychosis had speech that resounded like poetry, a rapid-fire string of words that rhymed in ‘clang’ associations but ultimately proved meaningless.

“She could be a poet,” I said to the chief psychiatrist. He was clearly distressed by my reaction.

“You’re over-identifying with the patient,” he said disparagingly.

 I admit that in my naïve state I held out hope her psychosis would resolve and her free associations would metamorphose into great literature, something like the works of brilliant poet Dylan Thomas or perhaps the novelist James Joyce, whose stream of consciousness writing broke a literary barrier in his masterpiece Ulysses.

Where does the distinction lie, the delicate tightrope of balance? Some artists (writers especially) seem prone to drink to dissolve defenses which block access to the well of creativity, the unconscious. The need for drugs and/or alcohol can lead to serious health problems and an early demise as in the case of Dylan Thomas and more recently the prolific polemicist-writer, Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. I wonder if a course of therapy could have helped them control their alcoholism, to reach the powers of the unconscious without the depressant’s physically and mentally debilitating crutch.

Happily, after several weeks of treatment on the ward with medication and talk therapy, my patient’s psychosis did resolve. She did not, however, become a literary genius.

Many artists today do find psychotherapy helpful in unlocking their creative abilities. Look at Woody Allen. An award-winning screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and jazz clarinetist whose career spans over half a century, Allen has spent nearly as many years undergoing psychoanalysis. His biographer John Baxter writes that Allen “obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting,” and indeed many of his films are filled with references to psychology and the process of analysis itself. It certainly did not hamper his creativity.

Through reading, discussions, friendship, your own life, what has been your own understanding of psychotherapy and its effect on creativity?

Have drugs or alcohol had an effect on your creative powers? 

Conclusion: Psychotherapy/psychoanalysis has the potential to enhance creativity by diminishing defenses and allowing access to the unconscious. As Otto Rank described, viewing analysis as a learning process allows us the freedom to indulge our imaginations, thus “giving birth” to fresh ways of seeing the world. It is through this sort of exploratory and encouraging therapy that our mental and emotional selves will be able to grow.

If our inner voices are critical and judgmental, we’re unlikely to  experience peace of mind or feel free to explore our uniqueness. “Good enough” psychotherapy aims to quiet these critical voices and when successful, benefits us and increases our creativity in whatever direction we pursue.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)

A Look at the Shadow Side

 After viewing the movie We Need to Talk About Kevin, (based on the novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver We Need to Talk About Kevin tie-in: A Novel (P.S.) in which a mother must come to terms with the catastrophic acts committed by her violent and deeply disturbed son, I ask myself why dwell on the negative aspect of our existence, the darkest side of human nature? What does it do for us? Does it make us feel we’re not so horrible? Does it give us relief because others (the people in the movie) are worse than we are? 

 One of my patients, a man in his thirties, went through a period of watching violent films and he thought it helped him progress. He had a long history of alcohol abuse and had conquered it. In the course of our therapy, he suffered from a major depression and could barely talk. During a brief hospitalization, a transformative thought occurred to him and led to his recovery. His mother told him early in his life that she had lost her artistic gifts during his birth, that they were transferred to him. Now he could connect the events in his life. He realized he had suppressed his talent because of his mother’s message. These films of murder and mayhem reassured him during a time of transition when he felt like a monster. Awareness of this irrational belief freed him; his depression lifted and he pursued an artistic career. His talent took flight like a bird released from a cage.

His situation and the benefit he derived from the dark films strikes me as a rare happening. On the other hand, the kind of violence depicted in movies (and media in general) may inspire violent tendencies in viewers.

Personally, I don’t like movies that needlessly dwell on the dark side, especially those without a positive resolution.  I suppose I’m an optimist. But psychologist Martin Seligman, a pioneer in the field of positive psychology (and the “father of optimism”), agrees that a positive attitude toward problem solving leads to a happy, healthy life. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

 In my opinion, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a sensationalist movie with little insight and the tendency once again to put the onus on Mother.  She has seen a problem in her son’s behavior all along, but nobody has supported her perceptions. Kevin is clearly different, oppositional, destructive from birth; but no one, not her husband nor various physicians who treat him, validates her observations or assists her as she does her best to try to understand her deviant son. The movie fails to enlighten or find a solution to the devastation.

The author, Lionel Shriver says, she is gratified by the fact that two camps of readers have emerged, responding to the story in opposing ways. The first assesses a story about a well-intentioned mother who is saddled with a “bad seed.” The second camp views a mother who is cold and bears full responsibility.

I think the comment by the Boston Globe hits home an important message. “Shriver doesn’t take an easy way out by blaming the parents. Instead, the novel holds a mirror up to a whole culture. Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.”

A day after I began writing this blog, a real-life school shooting took place in Cleveland, Ohio. T.J. Lane, 17, admitted to taking a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol to Chardon High School and firing 10 rounds at four students at a cafeteria table. Three of the victims have died.

I ask you readers, what are your thoughts and what should we do about random violence?

Is it really as random as it sometimes seems?

Conclusion: We need to recognize the signs of people who can’t attach or empathize with others, who exhibit oppositional behavior and work against constructive goals. We need to understand what in our culture and parenting methods contribute to violence. We would benefit from teaching young people how to express disappointments and despair in non-violent ways.  And we have to find ways to protect society.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)

Insider/Outsider: Our Common Experience

 The experience of Insider and Outsider is common to all of us. I could write a book regarding how many times in my life these positions have flipped with the ease of a coin, an insider one minute and suddenly, through some random act, an outsider the next. The question is: how can we use these positions to our advantage.

 On my recent trip to Tulum, Mexico, I became acquainted with an Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis or dwarf leopard). He lives in a cage outside a large natural cave. This small wild cat, native to Central and South America, Trinidad and Mexico, resembles a domestic pussy cat with the spots of a leopard.  The tour guide explained that this Ocelot had been injured and was found wandering in the surrounding brush. He was detained for treatment of his wounds. When he recovered he refused to return to the wild and loitered near the cave.  With no choice but to continue to protect him, the attendants enclosed him in a rectangular cage (10’ x12’) facing the tropical forest. 

Although he looks as gentle and sweet as the domestic cat, he has behaved in a less friendly manner.  His wild side emerged and he attacked people, striking with his claws when they attempted to pet him. A protective rope had to be strung around his cage to warn the visitors.

In spite of good food and shelter, he appears unhappy, pacing back and forth at the railing all day as if he wonders what lies beyond the cage. At best, he is a malcontent; at worst, he suffers from alienation and perpetual agitation.

He strikes me as a miserable, unfortunate creature, neither at home in the wild nor at peace in his protected environment, an example of an outsider with himself and the world. (If only he’d been able to curb his wild side, he’d be protected, fed and free.)

The process of going from insider to outsider can be as rapid fire as changing positions in the age old children’s game of Musical Chairs. We’re all insiders while the music plays. When the music stops we race to find a chair in order to stay in the game. But we know someone will lose; someone will become an outsider. (I remember the thrill when as a child I landed on a seat, only to experience the horrible letdown feeling in my chest when I missed the chairs and became the outsider.)

I think how some of us humans exist in a state of limbo and ambivalence like the Ocelot.  I’m reminded of an ex-patient, a middle aged woman who antagonized her daughter and son-in-law by disobeying the rules of the household.  They could not tolerate her criticisms of them day and night and finally retaliated by expelling her from their home.  She could not accept housing provided by social services; she felt fearful of the other residents  as well as superior to them, too good to accept these lowly accommodations. It’s possible that she projected her hostile feelings onto them, imagining they would harm her as she might have wanted to attack them.

She wandered from homes of acquaintances who were willing to house her briefly to various homeless shelters. She complained constantly; nothing satisfied her. She was never at peace. She too was an outsider with herself and the world.

Alternatively, the outsider position may offer opportunities to which insiders aren’t privy. Potential Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney touts his advantage to problem-solve as an outsider in Washington.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of several popular books including Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, has written eloquently on the subject. In a New Yorker article he argues that in business being an insider has obvious advantages, but being an outsider does too, even if one is pretending. “Dual citizenship” (as insider/outsider) makes a businessperson “harder to pigeonhole, and therefore harder to take for granted.”

Conclusion: The experience of Insider and Outsider is common to all of us. Awareness of how quickly these positions change can be useful in negotiating life. Awareness and flexibility allow a person to use each position to their advantage.

The Question: How has Insider and Outsider status worked for and/or against you?

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)